The Longest Night and the Birth of Light
Tonight is the longest night of the year, the solstice that asks us to pause. Here in Bethlehem, in the quiet of Banksy’s room, the darkness feels like a deep, protective cocoon. My body insists on sleep and surrender, and I realize that this stillness is not laziness—it is preparation.
My dream lingers in my mind: searching for a car, feeling lost, only to discover that I was already where I needed to be. The message is clear: sometimes the path forward does not require movement, but trust. The pause itself is the guide.
Tomorrow, the light begins to return, and with it comes the birth of the Heart Movement I have been awakening to. I will paint directly on the wall, letting the energy of the solstice flow through my work, connecting the return of light with the pulse of the heart. The wall becomes a living map of this inner rhythm, a celebration of the pause that made the light possible.
This work is not only mine—it is a collaboration across time and energy. The imprint of Banksy’s energy already resides in this space, in the walls and in the room he designed at the Walled Off Hotel. My addition to the wall becomes part of that dialogue, a site-specific installation that will converse with his existing work, visible from the artist room where I am on my art residency. It is a meeting of energies, a bridge between past and present, between dark and light, stillness and creation.
Tonight itself becomes a ritual. Each hour of rest, each deep breath, is an offering to the energy I will channel. I invite the solstice light to enter my heart, to flow through me, and to carry into the wall with every movement of paint. My intention is to liberate and free all souls—those alive and those who have died—who are stuck, unable to return home to Oneness, particularly those connected to the Holy Land and Bethlehem. May the mural become a light that shows them the way back to heaven, so they may leave this place and follow the light home.
This is not just painting—it is the embodiment of the longest night giving way to the light, the stillness transforming into creation, and the Heart Movement taking its first visible shape in this sacred place.
The longest night reminds me—and perhaps all of us—that growth is born in stillness, and creation emerges most vividly when we honor the dark before the dawn. Tonight, I rest. Tomorrow, the heart moves.
