Crying…
Tears of blood…
Tears of blood…
It’s raining blood.
Blood falling out of the sky.
My face covered with blood.
My heart…
My soul…
Crying!

I wrote this little song on 6 January 2012 and the video was shot on 2 February 2012. I was thinking about abused animals when I wrote it. People should treat animals with more respect, especially large animals. They don’t belong in a small cage (e.g. gorillas) or swimming pool (e.g. orcas) and should be allowed to live freely in the wild. Domestic animals such as cattle and horses should also not be used for entertainment and sports. I don’t like bullfighting and hope this sadistic ‘sport’ will one day be banned worldwide. The matador thrusting a sword through the body of a bull is one of the most gruesome images I’ve seen. I’m glad I saw this on my TV screen and not in real life, but even though my viewing experience was limited to a TV screen, I can’t unsee the horror. I can’t forget what I saw. It feels real because what happened was real. It reminded me of what happened to the body of Christ.

My parents separated in the Summer of 1983. Around Christmas 1984 or Easter 1985, my mother and I visited my father who had come to the Netherlands on holiday and was staying at his sister’s house in Oud-Beijerland. I’m not sure which date is correct as it’s been too long, but Easter 1985 seems more likely to me. In the evening my mother and I went home (in The Hague) and during that night Yeshua (the Christ) appeared in my dream. I was 6 years old and knew very little about him because I did not know the Bible and my mother and I never went to church or said prayers, even though I had a rosary on the wall in my bedroom. I often looked at the male figure on the cross of my rosary and wondered who that dead man with long straight hair was. I knew my parents called him God or the Son of God, but I often wondered why they believed this and why he was crucified. I thought it was so sad and cruel. Well, my dream explained who he was. In this dream Yeshua, my father Ramon and I were together in a small flying machine high in the sky. I looked out the big wide window and saw clouds everywhere and thought I was in heaven! Then I walked to a bench behind me to sit down. Next to me, on my right, sat my father, whom I rarely saw in real life. He sat near the window. On my left was Yeshua, wearing only a loincloth, sitting directly across from me on another bench. He looked very tired and leaned with his back against the wall as he talked to my father, I don’t know what they talked about. Then Yeshua moved forward and stretched out his arms and showed me the stigmata in both hands. I was shocked and felt so sad for him when I saw a hole in the palm of his hands. I could see right through both holes. He was in a lot of pain because the wounds in his hands were still fresh, although I don’t remember seeing blood on his hands. Maybe a little? I’m not sure. I think his hands looked clean. I understood that he was the godlike man who died on the cross and I assumed that the crucifixion must have taken place recently because he was still recovering from the pain. It’s the first childhood dream I can remember.

So this dream taught me about the resurrection of the Christ, but when I was six, I had no idea that people called Yeshua’s rise from death a ‘resurrection’. In my native language (Dutch) this would be translated as ‘opstanding’. I didn’t know this word. For years I believed that the ‘resurrection’ of Christ occurred only in my dream and not in his real life on Earth because I did not know the Bible well, even though my father gave me a children’s Bible when I was a little older. Most of the time I just looked at the illustrations. I was too lazy to read the stories. When I was a teenager, maybe 14 or 15, I finally discovered that the resurrection was a real event in the life of Christ according to the Bible. For the first time I read that Christ’s tomb was empty and that he continued to walk around Judaea showing people the stigmata. I read these stories in school because I went to a Catholic high school. That’s when I slowly started to realize that my 1985 dream was not just a dream. The Christ was really trying to tell me something. It’s not that I didn’t care about this dream because I wrote it down on paper in the Summer of 1990 when I was 11 years old, but I simply underestimated the power of my dream. Perhaps there’s another reason that Christ appeared in my dream. In the summer of 1984, while vacationing in France, I first learned that death exists. I was five years old, and until then, I had thought I would live forever, but then my stepfather told me that life ends when someone dies. It was the first time I became aware of death. The fact that life would eventually end made me sad. So I wonder if Christ appeared in my dream, just a few months later, to tell me not to worry, because there is life after death.

I can’t unsee what I saw in this dream. Yeshua is alive! I can’t pretend he’s not real because I’ve seen him in this dream and many more dreams over the years, but he only showed the stigmata once and that was in my first dream and never again. In this dream from 1985 Yeshua looked like an Arab Palestinian man with long straight black hair, even though he’s not a Muslim and there were no Muslims in Judaea until the 6th century AD and the name ‘Palestinian’ was probably not used around that time. On the other hand, I assume that many Palestinians are mixed, so they probably also have genes from the Jewish and Christian communities of Judaea (the Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes and Nazarenes), so perhaps the historical Yeshua did look like some Palestinian men today. I think the Christ wanted to look recognizable to me, so he appeared in my dream with long straight hair, a short beard and a loincloth, because that’s the man I remembered from my rosary.

But in some other dreams, when I was a few years older, Yeshua looked like a North African man (ancient Egyptian/Nubian/Berber) with short curly black hair (like an afro), although Arab Palestinians can also have curly hair. By the way, there’s also a small community of black Palestinians who often claim to have lived in the Southern Levant (Judaea/Canaan) for thousands of years. Anyway, Yeshua looked different in some dreams, so it took me a while to realize it was the same man. I believe that the Jewish and Christian communities of Judaea and their ancestors, the ancient Israelites of Canaan, are descended from the ancient Egyptians. Judaism started in Egypt. So this might explain why Yeshua looked African in other dreams. I think he decided to reveal his real appearance to me when I was a teenager. For example, in April 1996 I was 17 years old and dreamed that I was on a small island. I was there with a male friend. It was the same type of man that I had met in my 1985 dream. Only this time he looked a bit younger, like a man in his 20s, and he had shorter hair, no beard, and was wearing a T-shirt and shorts. So it felt like I had always known him, even though I had never met him in real life. My friend and I decided to leave the dark forest, so we carried our wooden raft to the beach. I looked at my friend for a moment as we stood on the sunny beach, with our feet in the water. He was a few inches taller and had a brown complexion and black curly hair. I was a little surprised because just a few minutes ago (in the dark forest) I thought or assumed he was a light-skinned man with straight black hair, but then on the beach I realized he was actually a man of color with African hair type. It felt like I could see him clearly for the first time in daylight. Then I turned my attention back to the wooden raft. We were in a hurry, so we climbed onto the wooden raft and sailed out to sea. While we were sailing, the sea suddenly became very wild with huge waves (as high as e.g. the Eiffel Tower), but those waves did not harm us, so miraculously we were able to sail on quietly. Then I woke up. For a long time I wondered who that mysterious friend was, but later in life I realized that it was the Christ himself again. I also learned that he was able to calm a storm on the Sea of Galilee. The wooden raft in my dream might have been a symbol for the cross that Yeshua carried. In 1996 I made a color drawing of this little island surrounded by waves, but I did not save it, so I don’t have it anymore. Eventually, I realized that the racial ambiguity of my island friend could also be a reference to my black (biracial) father, who left me and my mother in summer 1983, and my white stepfather who had raised me from the age of four. I did not have a good relationship with either of them when I was a teenager, so I guess that’s why Christ decided to act as a guardian or a sort of father figure.

Since October 7th (my birthday), so many children have died in the Gaza Strip. According to multiple news sources, thousands of Palestinian children have been killed in the Israel-Hamas war. The deaths of Israeli children on 10/7 is also heartbreaking, even though their numbers are much smaller. I just can’t believe that the ancient land of Canaan has become the center stage for the worst atrocities in the world and in human history. It’s also the least safe place for children. Just like animals, children are the most vulnerable creatures on Earth. They need our protection and deserve a good life. I believe that God loves all children: black, white, brown, gay, straight, bisexual, male, female, androgynous, hermaphrodite, crossdresser, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, etc. People who deny a child a safe environment and support an apartheid regime (Israel) that continues to bomb, injure and maim Palestinian children, both physically and mentally, should be a wake-up call to all of us. We must be more vigilant than ever before and try to stop this suffering once and for all. I consider this an attack not only on the Palestinians, but also on the land and the spirits of Canaan. Being a child in this world, especially in Gaza, is often a terrible and traumatic experience. I’ve seen horrific images from Gaza on the internet. For example, a young girl lying on her back on the ground because her legs were blown off and an 8-year-old boy shot in the head in Jenin, West Bank. The sadism is frightening and intimidating. Now that we’ve seen it, we can’t unsee it. We can’t look away anymore. Sadism is real and it’s a mental illness that destroys all morality and humanity in this world. I don’t understand why all these wars go on and on and on and why many psychopathic war criminals have thousands or even millions of followers. It’s hopeful to see so many demonstrations worldwide in support of the Palestinians, but I still sometimes wonder: Is hatred stronger than love in this world? Is homo sapiens a failed experiment?

So this is my final post for 2023. What a terrible year for humanity! It’s gonna be another sad Christmas.

Ancient Spirits of Canaan and the Levant! I’m calling you! You have inhabited these regions for thousands and even millions of years, long before humans existed. Rise from the clouds, the mountains, the forests and the depths of the seas and unite and let your roar be heard! Get ready for 2024!

Ryan Maurice Roemer
9 December 2023