Peace is Not a Goal, but a Way of Life

PEACE!  I am not the only one who is using this word – peace – since the murders in Tucson…in fact, many a good word has been typed in the last few days by writers better than me.  I want to focus this post on the opportunity to feel peace.  Peace within, peace of mind, peace of heart – peace in a daily small way – peace that improves our health, our love for self & others, and by extension – our way of interacting & creating community.  Certainly stronger community has been created around this horrific event in Tucson, but at what price? How can we learn to love & look around, meet by candlelight & look into each other’s eyes without a catastrophic event as a tipping point?  I suggest that we need community events – cyclical, & often – to remind us of the value of each other & the love that exists when we open to it.  The Annual Spiral dance in Willits is one such opportunity we have created & the 200 or so humans that come together always leave with a deeper sense of inner peace & hope for a future of peaceful co-existence.  If we could create such events several times a year – the feelings would deepen & merge into something much greater that our dreams can imagine!

Ultimately peace is a way of life – it is not a goal – as Martin Luther King so simply put it.  Our American values support peace when it is Christmas or when it is about “us” and our special land of peaceful neighborhoods & quiet towns, but are we supporting Peace on Earth?  The proliferation of wars, bombings, and increasing acts of violence show the truth, that we want anything if it helps us be more comfortable – our cars on the road, our homes warmed by fuel driven electrics, and our local Wal-Mart filled with toys & electronics made of plastic by poorly treated “commodity slaves” overseas somewhere – as long is it is not in our faces, we so easily forget.

I saw a great short film last night – A CIRCLE AND THREE LINES – on the history of the peace sign, and during it – I was moved by our historic love of peace, our willingness as a people to join in cause for this deep value.  The peace sign offers us hope in a  change for the better.  It is time to reignite the peace sign again – this time in honor of true love, a deep community wide common ground of love – wanting a future of greatness & possibility for our children, all of them.  The memorial candles surrounding Gifford’s office equate love with peace.  I agree.  Pass it on.  Play it forward.  Give someone the peace sign – and mean it!

These photos of the Tucson candlelight memorial were gathered by Lauren Raine -

See her wonderful

post on this same message of Peace at www.threadsofspiderwoman.blogspot.com

More on peace & the peace sign:

http://www.teachpeace.com/peacesymbolhistory.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_sign

You can even buy a book on the history of the peace sign:

Peace: The Biography of a Symbol tells the surprising story of the sign in words and pictures, from its origins in the nuclear disarmament efforts of the late 1950s to its adoption by the antiwar movement of the 1960s, through its stint as a mass-marketed commodity and its enduring relevance now.

As the symbol’s popularity blossomed, so did an entire generation, and author Ken Kolsbun’s expertly selected images—from his own collections as well as a variety of historical archives—illustrate both the sign itself and the larger history that it helped to shape. Along the way, the book recounts the controversy inspired by the peace symbol, bringing to light several trials that challenged its very existence. Drawing on exclusive archival interviews with Gerald Holtom, the late creator of the symbol, Peace recounts its birth and goes on to build a historic portrait using both iconic and rarely seen photographs.

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