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by Jacque Irving We've all had the experience of sitting with comrades discussing the meaning of "love" - What does it mean to be "in love"? How is that different from loving someone? How is loving your mate different from loving your brother, father, friend, co-worker? These are fascinating questions that we all find ourselves talking about. The meaning of "peace", on the other hand, seems more fixed. For many of us the word "peace" has a very specific meaning. We're not as ready to let it mean a variety of things. We're not ready to move the picture of ourselves out of that sunny glen, or off the roof top that our mind goes to when we think of what peace means to us personally. When the T.E.A.M. Committee decided that we wanted to plant a Peace Pole as part of the February 2000, conference, we didn't talk "about" peace either. Perhaps it was that each of us, in our own way, had come to the conclusion that to try to do so would be distracting. What happened was that we heard a story. It was a story of the experience of a couple who found two different peace poles in unrelated, unexpected, and marvelous places in the course of a single summer. Hearing that story, we, as individuals and as a committee, found ourselves transported into our various inner, most personal spots of deep understanding, and emerging from them with the resolve that was needed to put "our own" peace pole into the ground. Certainly we needed an education about what they were exactly and where they came from. We had to satisfy ourselves as to the "neutrality" of the manufacturers. But we KNEW that the stories that could come from our action could be as beautiful and as profound as the one we heard. We knew - for a brief moment that would last a long time - that by way of that story, we had been carried, though our various personal reveries, into the one place that connects us with one another. We knew that the stories that could come from our action of planting a peace pole, could do the same for others. Obviously, this speaks to the power of "the story." It also speaks to the power of quiet yet decisive action. Each of the thousands of Peace Poles around the globe has its own unique and powerful story. They are stories of, sometimes quiet, but always decisive, action. - Could it be that "peace" is really an action verb well disguised as a noun? For me, the decision about what languages would be represented on our pole represents the core of our story. It wasn't an easy decision -until the moment that it arrived. It took us several months. We brainstormed, and wrote lists on the board, and brought in language experts, and negotiated with the appropriate university representatives. We even argued with one another. We knew that we needed to do our absolute best to represent all of the vast array of peoples that now and in all times have inhabited this globe. We talked about colors, and geography, and history, and global versus local. And, while we did all of that we spoke in the English language. Our moment of unanimous decision came when we gave up the requirement that our own language represented the definitive or best of all languages. When we asked ourselves about the PURPOSE of our doing and gave up our own English to that purpose, there was a literal shift in the air of the room - we all heard/felt it - and it was done. The languages on our pole are: Esperanto - for the young, trusting and believing: Aramaic - for the elderly, wise and knowing: Hopi - for the hopes of the Earth: Tibetan - for the prayers of the Universe: Animal tracks - for the fauna that helps to guide our way if we let it: and Leaf and Twig tracings - for the flora that feeds and heals us. Each of those says, "May Peace Prevail on the Earth." Planted in the Earth it has grounding. Pointing to the sky it has potential and purpose. The construction of our Peace Pole required the piecing together of six sides that creates a hollow spot at its foundational center. That hollow was filled with hundreds of little slips of paper on which were written the hopes of those that were with us during its planting. It is these hopes that represent its true heart, our dreams and visions for the future. As I stood with our ceremonial guests in the meadow just north of the Physical Education building, waiting for the procession to bring it across the NEIU campus to its designated spot, I could hear the drums that preceded it. They were, however, not the drums of our players alone. They were the drums of all the storytellers and doers who have come before. They were the drums of South America and Africa, of India and the islands. They were the drums of the northern wilderness. They were the drums of our own Native Americans. They were the drums of the hearts of those who made up the heart of the Pole. They were the drum of my own heart. All of these drums came to this one spot to beat together because we had acted. They beat because we took the time to enter into an experience of the movement - not only the talk - of what it means to live with one another in a harmony that crosses the barriers of time and space and brings us into today. Their beat was in the celebration of the birth of our story. Undoubtedly they will beat at the birth or your story as well. May the journey on the way to your story be at least as fulfilling as ours. We hope you come to visit the Peace Pole we planted February 19, 2000 at Northeastern Illinois University. |