“Yes, ‘rockets’ did go out,” says Dr. Tarazi, referring to Hamas rockets fired into Israeli towns, “and we felt sympathy for any Israelis hurt by the rockets.  But, if someone hurts you with a pin, you don’t cut off his head.  You ask WHY the person tried to prick you with a pin. Consider that people here are trapped in a prison and there is a shortage of everything.  No one can repair anything. People wanted borders opened so that goods could come and go.  After six months of closed borders, people are frustrated.  Now, one side declares a cease fire, they say nothing about opening the borders, nothing about withdrawal, and yet they want NATO to help tighten the siege.”

“I hope President Obama will be much better than George Bush concerning these things,” said Dr. Tarazi.  “Human beings that have such a strong army should be civilized and not behave like a terrorist group.  Fanatics can be expected to use terror, but a democratic state shouldn’t use fallacious statements as an excuse for massive killing. A state which does this should be brought before an International Court of Justice.”

“And yet,” he said, “we must experiment with ways of love. We are trying, with Jewish people…by feelings and actions.  We need to succeed.  We need to live together.  We are trying to be in good relations with all the partners, all the views.”

“The strongest weapon all over the world is love,” says Dr. Tarazi, adding that he has always believed this and has said this to his colleagues, whether Muslim, Christian or Jewish, throughout his career.  He recalled declaring this same belief at the Eretz border crossing, shortly after the Israelis launched “Operation Cast Lead.” He had been among the 200 Christians who were chosen (800 had applied) to cross the border and celebrate the Orthodox Christmas holiday with family members in the West Bank. When the attacks began, he ended his holiday and hurried to the border, knowing he must return to his work
and his family.  At the border crossing, he greeted soldiers, “Merry Christmas.”  Soldiers answered, “Do you have weapons?”  “Yes,” Dr. Tarazi replied, “I have the strongest weapon of all, the weapon of love.“

Amma’s presence was invaluable itself, and perhaps it is her stories that will continue to nourish and inspire us for decades to come. She recounted one of four occasions where she stared death right in the face and did not flinch: the mob supporting some landowners surrounded Amma, threatening immolation with cans of gasoline. Amma calmly responded by requesting to sit and meditate first. Her would-be assailants jeered and continued to threaten her, but they would not harm her. Soon a crowd of villagers had gathered. Amma summed up the event with one of her unforgettable quotes:

“I was not afraid to die, but they were afraid to kill me.”

Being in the presence of this extraordinary human being, awoke in us a stronger sense of service and power. Following the teachings of Vinoba Bhave, she explained to us how she helped the landless people in many villages sometimes without knowing their language.  As she told us,

“You don’t need to learn their language, because we all speak the language of the heart.”

Amma’s visit was a true blessing, and will be a source of inspiration for a long time to come.

Astrobiology is the study of life as we know it (and as we don’t know it), how it originated, how it has evolved and how it has been distributed in the Universe. We have many pieces of the puzzle of life and its origins on our planet. That is why, since 1995 ⎯the blink of an eye in the cosmic scale⎯ the detection of planets orbiting other stars has been so important.

Just 12 years ago we discovered, as species, the first exoplanet, the first planet outside the Solar System (I write in the first person plural in order to stress Collective Intelligence, to bring to the attention of the evolved reader who probably is thinking that intellectual property is proto-intelligence which begins to be a matter of the past). This discovery marked the start of a new age in the study of the origin of life, because finding worlds around other stars is giving context to the Solar System, and also the existence of our home: the Earth and its magnificent biodiversity.

Currently, we have found 240 exoplanets [close to ~300, November 2008] and the list of planets outside the Solar System keeps increasing with each month. However, these extrasolar planets are “gas giants”: a few are like Uranus or Neptune; the grand majority are like Saturn or Jupiter or even bigger. It is very likely that all these places would be impossible to be inhabit for what we today call “living organisms”. We are still looking for the first Earth-like planet orbiting another sun.

We are getting closer. A few months ago [April 2007], human knowledge made another jump: we discovered the first Super Earth ⎯a terrestrial planet approximately 4 times the mass of the Earth⎯ and it wasn’t around a Sun-like star, rather it was found orbiting a red dwarf star (75 out of 100 stars in our Galaxy are red dwarfs!). When we humans start to take into account the great diversity of the Cosmos, for example, when we look for planets not only around stars like the Sun but around all stars ⎯of course, including the most numerous⎯ we are rewarded.

The Universe tells us again and again that to cling to the anthropocentric principle is useless. When Galileo discovered the fascinating worlds of Callisto, Ganymede, Europa and Io orbiting Jupiter, the perspective of Humanity changed forever. In the West, this discovery of the Galilean moons proved that the Earth and humans were not the center of the Universe—the insight and reasoning of Copernicus were correct—it called into question the oppressive-obscurantist system of the Inquisition and thus opened the road to the Renaissance.

Likewise, today we are living in through the New Renaissance of Humanity. We are building a catalogue of Earth-like planets and Super Earths and we human beings start to understand that it does not matter what country, religion or sexual orientation you are but what matters is being a responsible citizen of the World. We are beginning to demonstrate that the Earth is but one country and the Humankind its citizens. We are a grand majority forming the Earth Community.

The message is still very clear, as Gandhi said: “The Earth has enough to satisfy everyone’s needs but not everyone’s greed.” There are enough resources for everyone but to cling to neoliberal policies, to the oppressive-imperial system, to the totalitarianism of corporate capitalism is useless. The time is coming  when I could be writing these lines by my biological family, and I will not have to have my scholarship paid for by the sweat and suffering of the migrant siblings who support the economy of Mexico; the time is coming when “scientific development” won’t be the development of atomic bombs (as some elites at the University of California assume today), that puts the survival of the human species at risk; the time is coming of the expansion of permaculture; the time is coming of the diffusion not of retributive justice, but restorative justice; the time is coming of the propagation not of threat power but integrative power; the time is coming … we have to be ready. In the end, I might be learning and teaching Astrobiology in the First Indigenous University.

It seems that red stars are giving us the answers to some of the oldest and most complex conundrums Humanity has ever had.

In solidarity,
If you want to be a rebel, be kind. Human-kind, be both.
Francisco “Pancho” Ramos-Stierle

Berkeley, California, August 2007.