War update number 7

These are indeed strange days…

We sleep in our clothes, wake up in the middle of the night by the pre missile government app letting us know that ballistic missiles have been launched from Iran and are now heading our way. That gives us the time we need to get ready for the siren that is about to go off in a few minutes as these missiles come closer.

Since these missiles are being intercepted by our defense systems, that changes the trajectory of the debris field and that is when the siren would go off, if we are in that "splash zone" so to speak.

The time between the phone app going off and the siren is when we take video clips outside. Sometimes the app lets us know we are targeted and then because of the interceptor we are out of range of the splash zone and we just watch as the missile arrives and falls from the sky, either to the north of us or to the south of us.

Right across the valley to the east of us are the Arrow 3 interceptors so we have a clear line of sight when they go off to space to hunt for Iranian ballistic missiles. We can sit outside and drink tea with friends who came over and all of a sudden one goes off to space with no prior warning and we all just take out our phones and record because what follows is always the same, falling missiles either north of us or south of us.

This is our daily life now.

Yesterday in the middle of crafting a prayer wheel on the lathe my phone in my pocket (which have been on silent mode since November of 2018) starts screaming and vibrating long to let me know missiles are on their way, shut everything off and start going to the bomb shelter because it is more than 1.5 minutes away from the studio… as we arrive at the bomb shelter the siren goes off and we go inside, sit for 10 minutes or 20 till all the booms in the sky stop and the government app says all is clear and we can now exit and go back to our lives.

This is life here now.

We are lucky. Many are much less lucky because of where they live and how targeted they are depending on what is around where they live. Where we live there is nothing interesting to destroy so we are not targeted so much. But still, we get sirens and spend time in bomb shelters.

How long will this last?

What is the end goal of all this?

My dad, who survived the Holocaust as a young boy and 2 Israeli wars as a soldier later on to establish this country for the future generations of Jewish folk to have a home, is this what he dreamed of? That his sons will spend time in bomb shelters so many years later?

Me not think so… 

it seems that time is cyclical. All things just keep cycling again and again. This is truly strange, but it is real as anything else is real.

Again, had a pre warning app go off as we were having breakfast (6 missile attacks only this morning till now) but it was north of us, 3 miles north to be exact, it was a cluster missile so there were many small explosions as we stood by the bomb shelter ready to go in in case of siren, but it never went off.

So now back in the studio to craft prayer wheels.

This is life now.

So, not much to update, war is still raging, jet planes in the sky all the time, missiles are still falling from the sky, we still run to bomb shelters, in between we craft prayer wheels because what else is there to do?

At least we have that going for us!

fundraiser news

Some fundraiser news to share with you all, we have enough donations to start so we are starting with 10 prayer wheels to be made and spread all over Israel, we already ordered the materials for them and will of course let you all know where they are on the map we made on the new website but for now, we just ordered all the materials and are now waiting for it all to arrive. This is truly incredible! That we have arrived at the point of starting making these world peace prayer wheels and spreading them around Israel to send out this energy field of unifying, of peace, of togetherness… this is spectacular in my mind. Really. I feel as though I have played my part for which I was born into this world to do, into this body, into this land of forever death and war, to these people I share DNA with now in this body and life, it feels like closure. Life has a deeper meaning now. We have made something, did something, changed something and have it spread by wind in all directions. Even when we die, this will last after us…

this is very comforting.

Can't really say "we" did anything, it all passed through us… as if we were the tools that were needed to make this happen now. It just flowed through us… we really didn't do anything, just put one foot in front of the other so to speak. But still, it was born, it came to life, it manifested and now is coming to fruition… this is truly amazing!

Interfaith wind powered world peace prayer wheels.

Thank you all so much for all you do and continue to do!

Once there are more donations coming in, we will make more of these and spread them all over Israel.

Maybe something will change… we sure hope so!

Here is the link again if anybody wants to donate or share it with friends who do not know about the project:

https://givebutter.com/wGnpah

and this is the link for the website if you wish to see where we placed them on the map once we have all the parts arrive and we put them together:

https://www.peaceprayerwheels.com/world-peace-wind-prayerwheels-project

 

new machine!

got some more news to share with you all!

A few years ago, when the new machined prayer wheels from Taiwan showed up as the Taiwanese Sanga started producing them, we could not compete with their price. After all, we live in one of the most expensive countries in the world! Everything here costs SO much! How can hand made artworks compete with machine made prayer wheels?

When I told Rinpoche about this he told me:

"handmade, machine made, same merit"

That changed something in my mind. When we started this journey, we wanted to craft each prayer wheel by hand, to give it another special extra touch of loving kindness and that is how we chose to craft our prayer wheels, one by one by hand, no automated process. Each time someone with a bit of a "business" sense would visit us at the studio that would be one of the first questions: "why not buy an automated machine to lower costs? Why make them one by one by hand?!"

And me, as the stubborn Israeli that I am would always answer them in the same way: "we are not a factory. We are artists. We believe in the added value of handmade things in this plastic world"

But, as time went by, things got more and more expensive, life became super expensive and so did all the materials that we buy to make our prayer wheels which in turn made our handmade crafted prayer wheels very expensive to own.

So, finally, after the 3000-prayer wheel mark something changed. Some karma shifted and we passed a point for which we had to choose wither to continue crafting prayer wheels or end that journey and go and do something different in our lives.

The decision came when we were at the Garchen Buddhist Institute while visiting there on our US road trip of a lifetime we took in 2025 as we realized that to fulfill Rinpoche's dream in a much bigger way we have to lower the costs of our crafting and the only way to do that in a big way is to go automatic (or move to the far east but that is a different plan all together).

When we returned to Israel from our trip, I started to look for an automated lathe to buy, sadly there were no companies here in Israel that would offer that kind of machine so I turned to China to find what I am looking for. After searching for some time, I found the machine I was interested in and started the process of purchasing it and importing it here to us. This whole project took a few months to achieve but finally after a long time the machine has arrived at our studio on a rainy day.

Here Is me on the forklift taking it off the truck as it came from the port. I was so happy!

me on the forklift taking the box off the truck in the rain

Then the process of taking it in to the studio began and it was not an easy one! We had friends come and help us and after some wiggling and calculated moves we managed to bring it in. then came the part of hooking it all up to electricity and just general "putting stuff" together. Finally, it was in place and received a name – Ella the lathe (first lathe we had was named Blessing, second lathe we got was named Joy, third lathe was called Queen and this one, the last one is called Ella which in Hebrew is goddess.)

taking it into the studio with friends who came to help out

Now came the hard part. To learn a new language, CNC G-code. So, I am now in the process of learning how to operate this new lathe and once I have it all figured out, we can start making prayer wheels from hardwoods, just like before but cheaper and machine made, not hand made. They will be perfect, they will spin just as perfect as the ones we craft now by hand, just cheaper to own. This is Rinpoches wish, just as good but cheaper prayer wheels.

We are on it!

Of course, when we finally make them and can offer them on the shop, I will let you all know.

For now, as we have no more orders to fill, I will start work on the new machine next week and hopefully, in not too long we will have machine made prayer wheels to offer the world!  

since I started to write this, more sirens came on and we went again to the bomb shelter. Today is a doozy… Iran is at its best! So many ballistic missiles… when will this end? What will happen then? Will this keep on going forever? Sometimes, it feels like it... ☹ 

I sure hope that one day, one day there will be peace, humans would stop fighting in the name of God, in the name of a book, in the name of stones that are holy, in the name of scriptures that are more important and holier than life…

may we all learn that life, all life is short, passing and we take nothing. Maybe then we can truly "see" each other and treat one another with loving kindness and not hate and war.

May it be so!

We love you all so much!

Thank you for all you do for us, for all the emails and WhatsApp's, for all the communication in all forms! You help us keep on keeping on!

We live to be of service but without you, we are nothing, we have no one to serve…

Micha & Ayelet