9/11 Bowing Project: Birthing a Child -Friendly Earth
“The sane create, the mad merely suffer.” Adam Phillips, Going Sane
Wouldn’t be insane for me to lead a community of mothers and fathers wishing to bring more children into the world, without doing all I can to encourage the birth of a more life-friendly, more child-friendly earth?
That’s what I aim to do with the 9/11 Bowing Project.
On September 11, 2008 I bowed at Ground Zero for the first time (that’s what the video is about) and made a commitment to bow in a public place on the 11th day of each month at 8:46 AM, EDT, the time the first hijacked passenger jet, American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center, setting it on fire.
The sign I set up each time I bow reads: I BOW TO THE POWER OF GOOD IN ME AND IN YOU/
I’m bowing to the part of me that knows the difference between useful and harmful behavior.
What I have come to call The 9/11 Bowing Project, centers around the idea that the impulse to hurt another is present in every human heart. Unless we recognize it and choose not to act on it, it will seek expression in ways we cannot control. As I see it, the continuous unleashing of hateful actions around the world is to a large extent a consequence of our collective denial.
The intention of the project is to encourage myself and others to witness the wish-to-destroy within ourselves, and choose not to act on it. Thus we transform the legacy of our losses into a giant forward-leap in human awareness.
The act of bowing is, for me, the most accurate expression of what I feel needs to happen, if we are ever to measurably reduce suffering within the human family.
More than 2,964 people from over 50 countries were murdered on September 11, 2001. The tragedy of that magnitude can be a giant step toward a more meaningful public dialogue about the roots of violence.
But it is not going to happen without us.
For now the 9/11 Bowing Project is my personal peace birthing practice that involves bowing in a public place on the 11th of each month and documenting the evolution of the project in an upcoming book, The One-Heart Revolution: The Perils of Positive Thinking and a Plausible Path to Peace.
To sum up, what I aim to do is be one more voice that –
- honors the lives of women and men from over 50 countries, murdered on September 11, 2001, by engaging in a deeper public dialogue about the roots of violence and channeling the energy of grief and rage into a creative force
- affirms our ability as conscious adults to channel painful feelings into a force for good
- acknowledges our responsibility as members of the earth-community, to actively engage in reducing suffering caused by tragic consequences of violence.
- contributes to reducing the depletion of our common resources and the environmental devastation caused by the destructive effects of wars.
If you’d like to engage with this project more actively, join the mailing list and come say hello on our FertileHeartedHuman Facebook page.
Peace,
Julia Indichova
Julia Indichova is the author of The Fertile Female: How the Power of Longing for a Child Can Save Your Life and Change the World & Inconceivable: A Woman’t Triumph over Despair & Statistics. The 20th Anniversary Edition of Inconceivable is due from Harmony Books in 2017. The Fertile Heart™ Ovum Practice is an original fertility enhancing program that emerged through a decade and a half of counseling. Julia Indichova’s work has been endorsed by leading reproductive endocrinologists and her story and program was featured on the Oprah Winfrey Show, Good Morning America, Oxygen, Discovery Health, Huffington Post, and other outlets. Julia’s profile is featured in the 9 People to Watch This Year (2016) Cover Story of the Hudson Valley Magazine. After 9/11 Julia initiated The 9/11 Bowing Project focused on applying the tools of her fertility program to the peace efforts. The One-Heart Revolution, a book documenting this project is due in 2017.
