The artwork you see above is by Ruth Gendler. She is an artist, poet, author and teacher based in Berkeley, California. Because of a review I wrote of her book Notes on the Need for Beauty: An Intimate Look at Essential Quality in these pages, we have been in touch. At the end of November, she sent me the poem/prayer you may savor below. I cried when I read it.   Read more...

Oh…how painful it was to discover one day, that snowman melts in the sun. That bruised hearts do not heal as fast as skinned knees. That Sean Connery is unattainable. And, that there is no Santa Claus!

The disappointments were much more when I was growing up emotionally, like happiness is so fickle and pain is so inflexible. That sex is just a consolation for not having love. The recurring disappointments of ‘Ah…I thought he was “the one”.   Read more...

The United States has a National Christmas Tree. Did you know that? I didn’t, and I probably would never have learned of except that in addition to the tree there are 56 smaller trees which make a Pathway of Peace.

The website says, “Since 1923, the United States has held a tradition of lighting a National Christmas Tree in Washington, DC. In 1978, a live 40-foot Colorado blue spruce was transplanted from York, Pennsylvania to its present site on the Ellipse, the grassy area south of the White House. In 1954, a "Pathway of Peace," 56 smaller, decorated trees representing all 50 states, five territories, and the District of Columbia were planted surrounding the National Christmas Tree. Each year sponsoring organizations from each state provide tree decorations that are encased in a protective plastic globe to shield it from the weather.”   Read more...

Recently I went hiking with three other people. When we were at the summit, one of the men, whom I had just met that day, mentioned his grandson. This child was born very prematurely, weighing 690 grams at birth. He was in an incubator for months and even now, over a year later, he breathes with tubes up his nose because his lungs are too weak and underdeveloped to support him. Even though this youngster is not yet able to walk, he is growing, is alert, and seems quite bright.

“I’m waiting for the day when my grandson will be well enough and old enough to go hiking with me. I want to share with him the important things of life, the things I love.”   Read more...

I have been a big fan of the work and person of Barbara Winter and her Winning Ways newsletter for many years. I even had the joy of dining with her on one of her many visits to New York City. Barbara is a leading expert on fulfilling work.

If you are an entrepreneur or a wannabe entrepreneur or a I-might-want-to-be-an-entrepreneur-when-I-grow-up, Barbara’s work is for you!   Read more...

They often press their little faces upon the closed windows of the cars that stop at traffic signals. Their snotty noses, dirty feet and vanquished faces tell their story without many words. These are the street children who beg at traffic signals, running between cars and other vehicles and braving the harsh Delhi winter in tattered clothes and bare feet.

India has the largest population of street children in the world. At least eighteen million children live or work on the streets of urban India, laboring as porters at bus or railway terminals; as mechanics in informal auto-repair shops; as vendors of food, tea, or handmade articles; as street tailors; or as rag pickers, picking through heaps of garbage and selling usable materials to local buyers.   Read more...

We have, once again (and so quickly!) reached the natural season of the darkest dark which can herald only one thing: the return of the light. The holy-days of all spiritual practices at this time of year are about light.

For some reason, I am especially conscious of approaching the darkest dark this year. There are just under two weeks till the cycle of light begins to grow again and the darkness is somehow more pungent, more poignant this year.

Certainly, the world economy has something to do with it. I find that I am unwilling to buy “things” just for the sake of having gifts for friends and family. So I was thrilled to discover an organization called Changing the Present where amongst their wonderful Choose A Cause list, peace takes a prominent place. My eyes, of course, went right to it.   Read more...

Going to the bank can be tedious anywhere. But when you are in a foreign country with limited language skills, it can be very challenging indeed. Despite having lived here for years, I am ashamed to say that my Japanese feebly stumbles along. I can shop and get about, talk to doctors and converse on the phone if the vocabulary is simple and the pronunciation clear. I can even manage interviews for odemagazine.com. My grammar is atrocious, but I can get my ideas across. Mostly. When it comes to precision and technical terms, I am in deep water, barely able to stay afloat. Such is a constant challenge, but a great chance to stretch beyond my current limits.

Periodically I send money overseas. When I travel, I make friends. And I often end up helping send kids to school, assisting with medical expenses, or even sponsoring small business ventures. I am delighted to do this within my humble means. But the process of getting funds from here to there can be a true test of patience. There are millions of forms, of course, with specific ways to be completed. Inevitably I make mistakes, so often have to redo everything from the beginning. Several times. The poor man helping me is a saint, explaining and re-explaining, pointing and re-pointing how I must give information. But my brain does not fit into precise little boxes. So, the entire process can take hours.   Read more...

Since the early 80's, I have known many people who have both lived and died with HIV/AIDS. Working in the Broadway theater at the onset of the epidemic gave me a unique view of the effect of the virus within an industrial microcosm.

In general, those I knew and know who have had or have HIV/AIDS respond in one of two ways. Either they deplore both the disease and themselves becoming bitter, hurt and hurting people, or they use their diagnoses as a springboard for personal transformation.   Read more...

She taught us Shelly, Byron, Milton and Keats at college; and the passion with which she recited the verses and described their meanings at length, would often leave me breathless. Her eyes would shine behind her glasses and her gaunt face would turn pink while reciting Shelley’s I Arise From Dreams Of Thee.

Our mouths agape we used to watch her sway on her feet while the words just poured through her lips. "O, lift me from the grass, I die, I faint, I fall…"   Read more...

I had a rough thing happen in my life this week. A friend I’ve had for 28 years radically, and unexpectedly, severed our relationship. It’s been a couple of days since it went down, and I’ve had some terrific insights since then which I want to share with you.

First, I felt the severance in my solar plexus. I felt like I’d been stabbed. And I knew what I wanted to create in the situation was peace.

Second, my own anger at the unfairness of the action arose. And I knew what I wanted to create in the situation was peace.

Third, the sadness hit me broadside. Sadness about my friend. Sadness about the loss of him. And I knew what I wanted to create in the situation was peace.   Read more...

Lynne and I met many years ago. We taught in the same language school in Indonesia. Our desks were next to each other’s in the teachers’ room, so it was easy for us to become good friends. In fact, it was a joy going to work and having long yarns with her between lessons.

Living overseas is always challenging. And the ins and outs and complexity of Southeast Asia were tough for many of us middle class westerners. Plus soon after Lynne arrived in Indonesia, there was a huge devaluation of the rupia. So after only one year, Lynne and her then spouse, Ed, returned to Japan, where they had previously worked. I, on the other hand, stayed on for quite a while longer. However, Lynne and I remained friends and always kept in touch.   Read more...

I don’t remember how I came across The Peace Arch, but I do remember wondering at the time what Peace Architecture might look like. Sentient beings are notoriously sensitive to the spaces they inhabit whether they know it or not.

The thing about the Peace Arch that touched me is that it’s all about space, empty, open space. Peace needs space in order to be itself. One of the reasons we don’t have a consistent peace on our planet is that there isn’t enough space for it.   Read more...

Bloggers Unite called for posts on refugees. I thought about Darfur and Bali and Pakistan and Iraq and Afghanistan and the Sudan and then I realized that I’m really not qualified to write heartfully about any of these places or events. All I could write about is my own feelings of helplessness.

Then I realized why.   Read more...

It’s true that eating healthy can be more expensive than buying junk, but there are things you can do to lighten the impact on your wallet. Keep in mind that food is much more expensive in restaurants, take-out/delivery, and fast food chains than it is in a grocery store, so don’t use money as an excuse for not buying healthy groceries if you’re eating out multiple times a week.   Read more...

I’m halfway through This Week in [Peace] History and, to be honest, I’m shocked, genuinely shocked, at how little this valuable resource is about peace and how much it is about violence. I’m no stranger to violence. In fact, it was in the midst of a horribly violent domestic abuse situation that I learned that my mission was peace!

At a particularly drastic and dangerous moment, a soft whisper filtered through my mind, “You can have peace in the face of this.” I was struck dumb at the realization. One of the things that I allowed to create great suffering in me during this experience of violence was the silence I kept about it. I thought of it as our dirty little secret.   Read more...

One aspect of everyday Japanese culture that has always fascinated me is how the folks here seem to have a built in sense of trust that life will take care of them. I first noticed this by observing how people cross the street. When the green walk sign lights up, without even looking to either side, people step off the curb and head confidently into the road. Pedestrians know that drivers have a responsibility to keep them safe, so they proceed without a care in the world.

When I think of the many experiences I have had in other parts of the world, where cars fly around corners at top speed, the drivers only concerned with getting to their destinations and having no concern whatsoever for anyone else, I am doubly amazed by the utter trust of pedestrians here and by the caution and courtesy of Japanese drivers.   Read more...

The popular saying, “Sleep over your problems” is not a cliché. Latest research shows that sleeping over a problem is the best thing to do when you are ridden with doubts. This theory has a sound scientific basis. When you are faced with hard choices and the problem is so overwhelming that it defies every logic or calculations, just go to bed and let your gut instinct become active. A modicum of research evidence suggests that unguarded cerebral activity may do a better job than the conscious raking of brain, to find a solution for your problem.

There are basically two modes of thought: Conscious and Unconscious. In conscious thoughts we contemplate a particular issue or question, mentally list all the relevant information, weigh up all the pros and cons, and then come to a rational decision.   Read more...

Todai is anothr day in our "fast moeving" world. Todai most pieple woked up and desided to do a lot and to therepie realize themselvez.

Why?   Read more...

It's always very interesting to read and hear all the pieces written and spoken about 'peace'. The vast majority seem to speak either of peace in opposition to war or violence (and therefore still caught in the dualistic way of thought), or as having to be 'imposed' by whatever means possible on violence (which is an act of violence itself!).

Is peace perhaps beyond all of this, beyond opposites, beyond imposition, indeed beyond any word or description? Might it be the ground, or source, in which everything is allowed to be, just as it is, without any thinking required? Reality always seems 'peaceful' enough in itself, but then becomes violent when our thinking about it starts to run riot and separates us from reality. Belief in our thoughts as reality, rather than recognizing them as a tiny part of it, remains unexamined, like a crime which nobody has approached to solve. With deep investigation of these beliefs, entrenched in humanity for millennia, the truth is revealed and reality is allowed to be, and Life flows without interruption, in peace! Then there is no imposition of any sort: things (including people) are allowed to be, yet action flows clearly from this peace, when there is recognition of the wholeness of Life, without division, without the separation of 'what is' and 'what should be'. Without the wish/need to impose anything on anybody/anything, where is the need for violence? Violence may still happen, but action can take place fearlessly and effortlessly to bring it to a peaceful end. How can peace be brought about by the violence of imposition, which is as much dictatorship as any we have previously chosen to call by that name? When Life is allowed to live itself totally and unconditionally, then there may be the arising of and living in a peace beyond all concepts, beyond all thoughts.   Read more...

All We Need Is… Peace
Posted on July 14, 2008 by Marcus
In 1969, a 14-year-old Beatle fanatic named Jerry Levitan, armed with a reel-to-reel tape deck, snuck into John Lennon’s hotel room in Toronto and convinced John to do an interview about peace. 38 years later, Jerry has produced a film about it. Using the original interview recording as the soundtrack, director Josh Raskin has woven a visual narrative which tenderly romances Lennon’s every word in a cascading flood of multipronged animation. Raskin marries the terrifyingly genius pen work of James Braithwaite with masterful digital illustration by Alex Kurina, resulting in a spell-binding vessel for Lennon’s boundless wit, and timeless message.   Read more...

‘A sense of wonder, so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantments of later years - is the best gift one could bestow on oneself.’ ~ Rachel Carson

What snuffs out our sense of wonder? What kills that inner child in us?

A night at seaside revealed to me, splendors of ‘the ordinary joys’.   Read more...

I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that the headline caught my eye at once: Give Peace a Prance. Don’t you just love those clever wordplays? I do.

But then I thought about what it would mean to walk in peace, walk as peace, walk for peace, walk by peace, walk over peace, under peace, through peace. Pick your preposition. Any one will do.   Read more...

Poverty, scarcity, minority, lack of... there are all kinds of ways to emphasize the not being enough of something. And most of the times, that is considered as a problem; There shouldn’t be poverty of this something. And this something has even more variations. If we look at world issues you can see poverty of food, money, fresh water, resources, love, understanding. All of them are big issues and millions of smart and not so smart people have been thinking about solutions to get rid of this poverty of whatsoever.

Problem is, most of the people who are thinking about solutions do not experience the poverty themselves. They are not the victim, and even worse, they consider the person is impoverished as the victim. I could and would like to say a million things about that, but at least, they are talking about it, while there are even more people who are not thinking about that at all. They have given up, are cynical, resigned and bored to death because "it will never work, go away, make a difference or solve anything."   Read more...

During my two years in South Africa I lived with a host family in a rural village. My host family was the best part of my Peace Corps experience. Despite our disparate backgrounds, we connected on a soul level, on that human level that exists beyond the innocent interference of culture or even language. This intimacy revealed itself at any variety of moments, but a shared look of amusement or perplexity or grief is all it took. Connecting in this way was incredibly exhilarating; it proved the existence of a realm where our usual tools to describe reality no longer have relevance. All those adjectives that could distinguish my host family and me became utterly meaningless: black, white, South African, American, poor, rich...and simply fell away in place of a more accurate adjective: human.

In South Africa I learned how to speak frankly about race and racial tension. I learned how to provide practical insights on American culture to counter the glamour and violence of popular American TV shows, movies, and music. But poverty was tricky. I never considered my host family to be living in poverty, but I know that some of my possessions and actions probably labeled me as “rich”. I had a digital camera and I traveled to Cape Town on vacation. An animal lover, I spent money on cat food not only for my pet but also for the other stray felines who had found their way to me.   Read more...

The issue
A household is considered food secure when the family doesn’t live in hunger or fear of starvation, so food security refers to the availability of food and one's access to it. Poor households often have a consistently difficult time affording quality food and typically end up with poor diets characterized by lots of starch and refined sugar. And as one expert put it, “…it's fair to assume, these people are not loading up on brown rice and quinoa [an organic grain]. So, we're talking about empty calories that predispose people to becoming overweight and definitely increase the risk for heart disease and diabetes.”   Read more...

What comes to mind when one hears the word poverty?

Scarcity, shortage, paucity, deficiency, dearth are words that are in the Thesaurus. Yet, the word confuses me in the way it is commonly used.

I live in Sri Lanka, a developing country with GDP of about US $1,000 per capita. In western terms, this is a poor nation. I became a resident of Sri Lanka in 1988 having lived in Canada for 15 years. Economically, Sri Lankans have less material wealth than an average person in the west. In happiness, I am not sure.   Read more...

October 14th is a significant anniversary. On this date, the Peace Corps was proposed by then-Senator John F. Kennedy. On Tuesday, the Peace Corps will be 48 years old. In its time, the Peace Corps has sent nearly 200,000 volunteers around the world to fulfill its three-point mission:

• To help the people of interested countries and areas in meeting their needs for trained workers
• To help promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served
• To help promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans

Poverty is such a pregnant term. Probably the first image that comes to mind is physical. We can so easily visualize people alive, but virtually skeletons. Sadly, thousands today are burdened with malnutrition and the anguish of not knowing where their next meal will come from. In the mind’s eye it is easy to envisage beggars, shantytowns, inner city slums, and refugee camps. Associated with those come images of crime, violence, and danger. In fact, who anywhere can say they live in safety?

But there are other less apparent dimensions of poverty, too. Emotional, for example. How many people live in the abyss of emotional starvation? How many cover up their echoing hollowness with excessive drug use, selfish sex, constant stimulus, violence, or greedy relationships? How many live in the grip of existential loneliness and despair?   Read more...

Poverty in Africa is predominantly rural. More than 70% of the continent’s poor people live in rural areas and depend on agriculture for food an livelihood, yet in recent years, many rural areas have suffered from a decline in the capacity of agriculture to provide livelihood for their inhabitants and development assistance to agriculture is decreasing. In sub Saharan Africa, more than 218 million people live in extreme poverty.

In many African economies, the rural situation is characterized by continuing stagnation, poor production, low income and increasing vulnerability of poor people. Lack of access to markets is a problem for many small scale enterprises in Africa. The rural population is often isolated beyond reach of safety nets. They are vulnerable to diseases like HIV/AIDS which has put an unbearable strain on poor rural households where labour is the primary income earning asset. In addition, health care services are often inadequate or non-existent.   Read more...

Glenn Kibble my Thermodynamics lecturer at the Seneca College Mechanical Engineering course in Ontario back in 1980 said there are three “T”s in life. Thermodynamics, Tennis and the other “T” he got away with as it was an all male class.

At that time I was mostly interested in the unmentionable “T”, yet I took the fundamental nature of the thermodynamic laws to the existence of our physical universe for granted as true. However, as I live a life of inquiry, study human nature and spirituality I am beginning to question the laws of thermodynamics as final scientific truths.   Read more...

The current financial market troubles have led me to look more closely at our economic ideas and rules. Capitalism is based on so called growth, which means the economy is stuck if you don't grow or if it grows too slow. In a certain way it makes sense: if you sell more you can enjoy more material things, which generates more spending and therefore more money for others as well. That way a huge amount of people benefit from those 100 USD that you spend. Even if you just put it in the bank it contributes to society because the banks can't stand the temptation of writing a loan to the first person who wants to buy anything ... even an overvalued house.

Here's the problem with investments: If the market for cars will grow 10% next year as the economy is going well (this is not now by the way) and every car maker wants to own those 10%. For that they need to invest heavily in marketing, production, etc. So as everybody is investing to grow faster than all the others, the market has to grow 20% to justify the total investment made by the sector ... so big surprise ... many are going to loose money. That's capitalism: everybody borrows money in the wave of positivity and greed and then ... what a surprise, the growth wasn't sustainable!   Read more...

Muriel Lester, tireless peaceworker, wrote, “The job of the peacemaker is to stop war, to purify the world, to get it saved from poverty and riches, to heal the sick, to comfort the sad, to wake up those who have not yet found God, to create joy and beauty wherever you go, and to find God in everything and in everyone.”

Only that?   Read more...

Quality time together
Many couples already spend considerable time apart because of career demands and other responsibilities, but the need for quality time together often increased dramatically when preparing for a wedding. What was once free time is now spent picking out invitations and meeting with vendors, so they are looking for ways to stay connected. Having a scheduled workout appointment with a personal trainer is a way to guarantee that they’ll have at least a bit of bonding time every week.   Read more...

Whenever I read the articles sent into www.odemagazine.com, I am always struck by several things. The first, of course, is the hopefulness. Also there is creativity and imagination. The focus is not on greed or grabbing, but rather on openness, generosity, and trust. Plus the diversity of expressions, projects, and happenings are very titillating. And like icing on the cake, there is often a touch of humor and fun, too. Just the fact that so many souls from so many backgrounds and outlooks contribute is very exciting indeed.

The prism of perspectives, creativity, and hope-filled endeavors are magnificent, but there is a deeper dimension, too. And that is an underlying theme or pattern that holds them all together. That unifying principle might be compared to a white light that bursts forth into a spectrum of many colors, or the reverse, where the many return to their common source, the light. From the Buddhist perspective it could be seen as the integral relationship between emptiness and form.   Read more...

The streets are relatively safe to ride, but any group larger than three has its own dynamic. At that point there are only two ways you can turn. Up or down.

Evening falls. W rides his board on a concrete slab through the park. Three lamp posts down the path two girls stand like amateur hookers. Some primitive force crawls up his spine and sends his attention through the bushes where he sees three young predators lurking in the dark. Make no mistake - this is no time to be a hero. W remembers one of the few lesson that stuck by him from high school - there is no free lunch unless you are the lunch.   Read more...

Have you ever felt a loss? Not the conventionally defined ones like the loss of health, a loved one, or money. I mean, a loss of self.

Have you ever felt this pesky feeling of being away from your own being. Feeling like a stranger who has lost his way and is standing at the precipice of sanity, in danger of plunging into deeper dungeons of the horrible demands of life?   Read more...

Is there a peace room in your home?

Is there a war room? (Check where you have the television.)

Alice Walker inspired me this week, “War will stop when we no longer praise it, or give it any attention at all. Peace will come wherever it is sincerely invited.”

You know, of course, that whatever we praise increases. How much time are you spending praising war? We don’t mean to do it most of the time. It’s just what’s on the news, you say?   Read more...

I recently attended the 25th Conference on Shamanism and Alternative Modes of Healing which took place on Labor Day weekend. The conference was founded by the late Dr. Ruth-Inge Heinze, who died in 2007, at the age of 88. Heinze was a long-time faculty member at Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center, and was a close associate of Stanley Krippner. The path of shamanism came to her late in life when she decided to return to school and train as a social anthropologist in her 50's. Eventually her studies led her to explore the psychology of shamanism, shamanism in Southeast Asia, and complimentary and alternate medicine.

In keeping with Ruth's personal exploration, she initiated the conference in San Rafael California 25 years ago to explore a wide range of practices and topics within the shamanic realm and beyond; topics such as reiki, qi gong, yoga, wiccan ritual, spirit mediums, comparative religions, quantum physics, ethno-medicine, bio-physics, psychology and vibrational healing among many others.   Read more...

I've always had a problem with my thoughts and emotions. I identified with them, as 99% of us do, and that brought a lot of worries, frustration, desires and fears. It was practically my whole life. Through time I learned that what they said was wrong and then I learned to fight with them, which wasn't much fun either, but in general it meant an improvement.

Now I believe I'm doing the next step: not fighting...   Read more...

Ask this question and most people would prevaricate and flounder with their answers. I have observed that people don’t hesitate when they are admitting to being satisfied with their job, life, and marriage. They would readily admit to having fun. But happy in the true sense? Well, it could always be better…a guarded look follows the shrug.

Why is it so hard to admit that we are happy?   Read more...

I found something very interesting, true and straightforward on Tim Ferris's blog (the guy who wrote The four hour work week - I highly recommend it by the way.). He quoted a speech that Martin Luther King gave and i believe it to be very inspiring. See the quote below, enjoy ...

By the way, i decided to not write "i" anymore with a capital letter unless it's at the beginning of a sentence.

"I say to you, this morning, that if you have never found something so dear and precious to you that you will die for it, then you aren't fit to live.
You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be, and one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls upon you to stand for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid.

You refuse to do it because you want to live longer. You're afraid that you will lose your job, or you are afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you're afraid that somebody will stab or shoot or bomb your house. So you refuse to take a stand.

Well, you may go on and live until you are ninety, but you are just as dead at 38 as you would be at ninety.

And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit.

You died when you refused to stand up for right.

You died when you refused to stand up for truth.

You died when you refused to stand up for justice."

-Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
From the sermon "But, If Not" delivered at Ebenezer Baptist Church on November 5, 1967.

“Peace Day Magazine is brought to you by World Peace Emerging.” This is the first sentence I saw when I opened the online ezine.

Those last three words made my heart leap for joy: World Peace Emerging. Yes, oh yes, it is, it has to, we’re doing it was the not so subtle subtext. Also, please God, Goddess, Mother, Father and way too many other deities to list here.   Read more...

Hopping around from guru to guru and being disappointed with the results, or lack thereof, has led savvy women to become empowered when it comes to their health. In the process, they have learned a very big lesson. Modest lifestyle changes can add up to major results. You don’t have to be a raw-egg-drinking-ultra-marathon-running-twenty-four-seven-workout fanatic to live a healthy lifestyle. In fact, you can be fantastic just by making a series of moderate changes and good decisions over time.   Read more...

It was just a tiny article in the Arts section of The New York Times.

Orchestra for Peace to Play in Jerusalem Compiled by Julie Bloom Published: September 9, 2008

The World Orchestra for Peace, which draws players from 70 orchestras in 40 countries, will be conducted by Valery Gergiev, in Jerusalem on Oct. 19.

I didn’t know that there was or had ever been a World Orchestra for Peace, did you? And what a wonderful metaphor for the process of making peace! Music, always inspirational, and more—players from seventy orchestras in forty countries. Seventy, or more, talented people gather in one play to collaborate and create something that has never had life before.   Read more...

‘In our minds we have a vision; it’s in our hearts that we make it happen’
Dreams & Teams Course Books – Youth Sports Trust, UK

‘To inspire the desire to lead, to create one team, one dream, one world’ is a quote on the cover of the Dreams & Teams Young Leader’s Learning Log Book. So, this has got to be a special programme and it is.

As I sit here in the make shift Dreams & Teams secretariat at the Chipasula Secondary School in Lillongwe, Malawi, there are nineteen enthusiastic Young Leaders setting up for their maiden sports and arts festival for sixty young children from two local primary schools.   Read more...

This is one of those words, which our mom taught us, before we went to school and learned it in our ‘Rapid English Reader’ book. Say sorry when you make a mistake. Say sorry even when you have not made a mistake because in some way it was your fault that the other person was hurt.

It seeped into the subconscious so deeply that often I found myself saying sorry to tables and chairs and doors if I dashed against it while walking carelessly. “Ouch! Sorry.”   Read more...

U. S. President John F. Kennedy called Dag Hammarskjöld “the greatest statesman of our century.” Mr. Hammarskjöld was the second Secretary-General of the United Nations. Not only was he a Swedish diplomat, but he was also a Christian mystic. His diary, Markings, is a wonderful taste of one man’s spiritual journey.

I don’t know where I read this quote attributed to him, but I believe it with every cell of my being.

“Unless there is a spiritual renaissance, this world will know no peace.”   Read more...

Steve and I met on a subway. He was sitting across from me and looked just like my childhood playmate grown up. So when he got off, I followed him and started a conversation. It turned out Steve and I were kindred spirits: both loving to travel, both open to adventures, both consciously trying to learn and grow, both wandering souls, if you will.

Despite our twenty-year age difference, we got along well, so I did some wheeling and dealing to get him a part-time job at my college. That way we could meet several times a week and talk to our hearts’ content. Of course, our friendship deepened.   Read more...

I know you’ve heard of it…the little magic pill you can pop to help accelerate fat loss, speed up your metabolism, block carbohydrates from entering your blood stream and trick your mind into thinking that you already ate.  It’s not sold on street corners like the illicit drugs of the urban ghetto though.  No, this little pill is readily and legally available to all – even hawked in magazines that you find on popular retail shelves.  It’s promoted on television by health experts, celebrities and even some doctors. And your best friend’s cousin’s hairdresser even heard about it on Oprah last week.  It’s sold in bright-colored little boxes and marketed under various brand names.  It comes in different forms – sometimes blended in a shake, crushed into a nutrition bar or soaked into a frozen meal, but at the end of the day one aspect of this little pill is consistent.  It always represents a pipe dream.   Read more...

Oh my, oh my, I cannot begin to tell you how delighted I am to introduce to you (unless you already know her!) the stellar, brilliant, inspiring, ever-deepening work of urban shaman Queen Mama Donna Henes. What appears below is excerpted from her Queen’s Chronicles newsletter. Her latest book, The Queen of Myself, is a daily inspiration to me. Find more or sign up for The Queen’s Chroniclesat her website.

Donna’s paean to one of my favorite peace sheroes made my heart sing. So to begin the school year, I invite you to swim in Donna’s wondrous prose on the subject of Peace Pilgrim. It is followed by a prayer for peace penned by Ellen Bass that had me weeping by its triumphant end.   Read more...

There comes a time in life, when we must walk away from some of the unfinished things in our lives. When we must renew our license to dream as it does reach an expiry date after getting relegated or thwarted repeatedly. It also helps to know this fact that every dream has a ‘past its sell-by date’. Knowing this helps us to discard the old and make room for new dreams, and look at the horizon with a bright new hope.   Read more...

It has been awhile since I sent in a blog to Ode. A combination of travel and busy with family on holidays was one reason. The other was that I have been trying to write an article based on thermodynamics, entropy, self regulating systems and the mind inspired by my engineering education of the past and my current inquiry into mind and matter. The article essentially bogged me down. I was obsessed by the topic for some time that I could not think of anything different to write. I have finally come to terms with it, left it aside for now and writing again.

The travel at the end of June has to be blamed on the Ode magazine as I got hooked on the Shambhala Summer Institute on Authentic Leadership in Action in Halifax, Canada. So, I did not worry about how I could afford the $3,000 fee and $2,000 airfare from Colombo to Halifax and back, I just jumped in. It was made more affordable to me by the good Shambhala folk through their scholarship programme and this was one of the best decisions I made this year.   Read more...

Try this experiment for a week - or even just a day: Fix your plate as you normally would, but before you eat, take the time to determine how many servings of food you are taking in. You may be surprised to find out that you are ingesting 3-4x the recommended servings.

Most Americans don't know what an actual serving looks like because we're so used to receiving and eating such large portions. If you find that you're "supersizing" at every meal, you should gradually reduce your serving sizes and chances are that you will be satisfied with less food.   Read more...

Eating alien babies. Dorothy liked the Chinese restaurant very much. The buzzing conversations, the carefully contrived atmosphere of oriental chic. Plus, there’s that waiter that looks like Christian Bale. But she always thought that doing dim sum was like eating alien babies. Cute little monsters that sliver down your throat.

‘My life is effectively over.’ Millie fishes for martian shrimp and is having somewhat of a quarterlife crisis. ‘Today I had a job interview. I think they googled me and found the party pictures my ex-boyfriend posted on facebook, because they had this disgusted look on their faces. It could have been arrogance, I’m not sure. There was this woman, I swear, with the characteristics of a sweatshop manager. She asked me what music I liked to listen to and I just panicked.’   Read more...

The dots between the letters tell you, undoubtedly, that I’m using P.E.A.C.E. as an acronym—a word made up of the first letters of additional words that spells another word altogether. This one comes from the brilliant mind of the luscious Iyanla Vanzant, a spiritual teacher based in Maryland. It stands for:

Please Excuse All Crazy Experiences

Is that not phenomenal? I think it is. So very often when we hold out an ideal for our world, we dangle the ideal. Dangle it? Lambast with it is more like it, but we forget one vital piece of the puzzle. And that is the indubitable how question.   Read more...

Teenage pregnancy is a problem in South Africa. Young single mothers are ubiquitous in my village and the surrounding communities. Sometimes when I visit the post office I find a colorful queue of mothers that stretches far outside. They often have babies wrapped on their backs and some are pregnant. It’s grant day, and they are waiting to collect the monthly allowance provided by the government. Each month on the post office wall a new hand-written sign appears with three dates designated for child grant distribution. A range of years is listed after each date; mothers collect the grant based on their own birth year. Initially it troubled me to see that girls born more than ten years after me were collecting grants for their children. How could a 16-year-old possibly be a mother? I’m 27 years old and don’t feel prepared for that responsibility!

Despite my personal lack of present maternal instincts, I recognize that many women do feel those instincts at a far younger age. But an instinct alone cannot—and should not—explain the alarmingly high rate of pregnancy.   Read more...

Would you sugarcoat your words?

When conversing with one another we try to project truth but how often is the bitter truth disguised as what they say, “ sugar coated pills?” In a direct conversation, the energies are fully conscious, regenerative and articulate, but there is a set of laws that contributes to the archetypal structure of talks.

These set of laws are about being polite, being discreet, politically correct (in some circumstances) and being diplomatic in one’s speech. For example if I need to say something unpleasant to someone I would use the “ indirect speech” such as “ I think we must ‘reconsider’ our relationship, it is hurting both of us.” Rather than “I have stopped loving you, and I want you out from my life.” When I imagine myself at the receiving end of both the ways, I know which one I would prefer!   Read more...

While on a quest for weight loss, we often search for every small advantage we can find. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but sometimes it leads us to make emotional food choices rather than choosing healthy foods based on proven facts. Emotionally, the following list of foods may sound like great options, but read on to find out why they may fool you:   Read more...

It's late, and dark. We're in one of the many suburbs of Dar, more than an hours drive from the center. The roads are more potholes with some little road on the side then anything else. Houses have space here, there are trees and bushes and it doesn't feel like town. Our passengers have fallen silent, or are asleep and only the driver and me are awake. Every junction we guess: right or left, in an attempt to escape the web of dirt roads and get back to the main road. Families sit at their verandas, eating and talking in the fresh breeze. We talk with long pauses, about work, home, religion, the future and how hungry we are. Then the topic changes to politics.   Read more...

One of the fancy places in Dar es Salaam. A fast food chain, a bakery, internet café and little tables host lots of youngsters and elderly sipping their juices, chatting. I'm talking to Athman, a student of banking, working in his sister's duka, shop, and always looking for new challenges. We discuss the differences between Tanzania and the Netherlands. He has been in Holland twice on an exchange project and is well acquainted with a Dutch family who treat him like a son.   Read more...

When I was in my early twenties, Simon and Garfunkel were immensely popular. We would play their tunes night and day, and revel in the idea of being part of the culture they, and others like them, were ushering into the world. One song in particular that stuck like glue was “A Bridge Over Troubled Waters”. It is still with me. Round and round and round it has played in my head and heart over these many years.

* * * * *   Read more...

Dropping from the bus my sandal breaks. The repair shop is right in front of me. Dave seizes the opportunity and makes a place on his bench under a tree. While stitching my sandal, the discussion moves back and forth between the six or seven guys around him. Street vendors that keep their tangerines in Dave's eyesight, a guy selling cigarettes per piece from Dave's pack, others seemingly just sitting there advising Dave on the stitching methods.

"Who taught you to fix shoes?" is one of my curious questions to the young Rastafarian. "Njaa, hunger is the best teacher" is his simple answer "I just knew".   Read more...

Lauren Child, one of the world best known children’s authors and the creator of Charlie and Lola is donating the royalties from her best-selling book “That Pesky Rat” for three years to UNESCO’s Programme for the Education of Children in Need.

UNESCO created the Programme for the Education of Children in Need in 1992 to offer a future to vulnerable children through education. Since its creation, over US$33 million has been raised in private funds and these have been fully and directly invested into immediate support for over 332 projects in 92 countries worldwide.   Read more...

More than 300 colleges and universities give degrees in Peacebuilding and Peace Studies. The current spectrum of our peacebuilding expertise includes leading edge technologies in the fields of conflict resolution, peer mediation, post-conflict reconstruction and many other forms of alternative dispute resolution (ADR). Regrettably, current policy-making tends toward reactive, not proactive, approaches to reducing violence. We typically wait until violence has occurred and then ask our already over-taxed police and military to address these symptoms of violence through activities such as imprisonment of offenders and engagement in armed conflict. While such suppression of symptoms is vital, it is incomplete and must be augmented by stronger preventative measures, with a specific focus on the identification and treatment of root causes.

Please join us in saying, "I Stand for Peace." Help us save lives, save money, and save our country for future generations.   Read more...

Try this experiment for a week - or even just a day: Fix your plate as you normally would, but before you eat, take the time to determine how many servings of food you are taking in. You may be surprised to find out that you are ingesting 3-4x the recommended servings.   Read more...

“You will need to marry five men then."

Said Mama, with a poker face and without looking at me. She kept knitting calmly while I sat there with my mouth agape. I looked at her expressionless face and noticed the suppressed smile hovering at the corner of her mouth. From her face, I gauged that she was aware of my torrent of questions that she knew would follow her declaration, and was waiting for me to speak first.

This happened some two decades ago, when arranged marriages were quite prevalent in India and mama told me that they have looked for a match and I must be prepared to get married soon.   Read more...

Life shows “me” that “Eyes” and “Me’s” don’t really matter. What so called individuals want isn’t what happens, what needs to happen and what makes us happy. Happiness seems to fall on to people, in unexpected moments, in unexpected ways and certainly not when worked on by “I’s”.   Read more...

This is a call for license plates from around the world! If you see a license plate bearing witness to peace in any aspect, will you send it to me please at SeedsDrCorso@comcast.net? We want to see if we can get them from all 50 states of the U.S.A. and all the countries of the world. So far, we’ve covered Virginia and Massachusetts.   Read more...

Waves of information overload the senses. Awkward truths encourage many to get comfortably numb. Then technology lands us in a strange place, some off-beat world, where legislators sit stunned into silence as the whole of society turns itself upside down.

Now we think sideways and sort by opportunity. We talk in metaphors, because the source-code for public discourse has been hijacked by fanatics. There are no procedures for these circumstances, no maps for these territories. A mediated reality has infused us with simultaneously a sense of loss and a sense of excitement. It is as though the moment has gripped us and won’t let go.   Read more...

Some days, you just won’t feel like working out. Maybe you haven’t been able to get as much sleep as you need or you've been having some stress at work or in your personal life. No matter the reason, sometimes you just aren’t in the mood for moving and sweating. Whenever this happens to you, try these strategies for working up the desire to hit the gym:

Remind Yourself of Your Goals - Start thinking about why you started exercising in the first place and what the end results will be. Do you want to lose a certain amount of weight? Get more toned? Have more energy? A quick reminder of why exercise is important to you can be just the motivation that you need to eek out another set of reps.   Read more...

When I gave motivational speeches to nuclear scientists many years ago, I used to ask them all a question.

Do you think world peace is a good idea?

To a person, they all thought it was rhetorical—every single time. I had to assure them that I didn’t ask rhetorical questions, and I always asked it aloud a second time.

Do you think world peace is a good idea?

A mixed alto and soprano rumble usually began in the room amongst the women present, those who carried into life the sons and daughters who might have to go to war in a world crisis. Then the men in the room would jump on the theoretical bandwagon and agree. The rumble got some tenor and basso notes.   Read more...

Sasaya is a small rural village in Northeastern Japan. It consists of one street with houses on both sides. Behind these long narrow homes runs a river, which considerately divides itself to flow on both sides of the street. The water is crisp and cool, coming straight off the mountain. Locals use it as is for drinking and cooking. And since it never freezes, despite the rugged winters in that area, it is appreciatively used year round.

Behind this small fast-flowing river are huge vegetable patches bursting with summer produce that bring tomatoes and cucumbers, onions and squash, daikon and potatoes to the family table. Since the one and only supermarket is a long drive away, homegrown food is a fact of life, as it has been for centuries.   Read more...

One thing is to read statistics: "One out of every three French farmers has problems finding a partner", or "20% Of the French say their pessimism towards the future economy prevents them from having any children."

Another thing is to cycle from the Netherlands to Stes Maries de la Mer and see it all for yourself. Having left Luxembourg and its posh behind, we faced sheer emptiness. Thousands of acres of maize fields give way to even bigger fields of wheat, sometimes sunflowers to break the dull. In between little villages; five, six houses around a church.   Read more...

Circumstances can seem to run the show in our lives. This happens so that happens. That happens so I do this. Circumstances can also supply the gift of boundaries to us.

My thesis project in college involved directing a play. As a senior, I had first dibs on whatever space I wanted to use. I was offered a black box theater that I could arrange any way I wanted. It could have been proscenium, three-quarter, in the round. I was paralyzed by the choices.   Read more...

Who knew there was a merchant association for purveyors of peace-related paraphernalia? Not me. I found it on the Bark for Peace site and it made me laugh out loud with delight. Check out their members: www.peacemerchantsassociation.org

I found ribbons, magnets, mugs, t-shirts, bumper stickers, soaps, books, buttons and more. The genuine more isn’t more stuff though—it’s more people like me who have and are realizing day by day that what we all [all, no exceptions] want is peace. It’s a universal goal. We may not all agree on how to get there, but we can figure that part out. We are figuring that part out daily.   Read more...

Rent-a-cop runs but has all the odds against him as W pushes off for extra speed, then pops his tail and plants his skateboard on the handrail. Backside smithgrind, slightly tweaked. Rent-a-cop sees a combination of private and public transgressions. W thanks his predecessors for sanding off the skatestoppers. As the board slides, the trucks grind and sends up a beat. Too bad there’s no fisheye to capture this. Sponsors pay good money for close encounters.

Curve corner, clear gap and he’s back on track. Some claimed that his reputation as a skateboarder would flip into a disadvantage in the field. But group dynamics are tricky to ride. You need image of self, or at least a cloke.   Read more...

In Asia the Goddess of Mercy and Compassion is an integral part of daily life. Most often she is called Kwan-Yin in China, Avalokitesvara in India, or Kannon in Japanese, but there are other names as well. Sometimes, too, this divine being takes on masculine expression. But no matter the form, this beloved entity always shows deep, unconditional love for all manifestations of life.

She comes in many images, the most captivating of which has a halo of 1000 arms fanning out from around her body. This multitude of appendages makes a perfect circle of all embracing Love radiating out from the Heart center of the divine. No one or nothing is ever left out, no matter how imperfect they may be.   Read more...

The video which appears below was posted on a friend’s Facebook page. It features British filmmaker Jeremy Gilley and his extraordinary journey to create one calendar day a year for peace. That day has been established as September 21st.

Watch Jeremy and then I’ll share my observations:   Read more...

BarkForPeace.com is about people and their pets. It’s a sweet, whimsical website that serves as a tasty reminder of the absolute fact that there is no such thing as a small act of peace. Here’s some of their copy.   Read more...

I rejoiced at the news that former Colombian Presidential Candidate Ingrid Betancourt had been released after being taken as a hostage by FARC rebels more than six years ago.

Ingrid was abducted in February 2002 while she was campaigning for president as the candidate for the Colombian Green Party. Prior to her run for the Presidency Ingrid has been elected to the Colombian Chamber of Representatives and Senate, campaigning against corruption and for peace and social justice. Her first campaign distributed condoms, with the motto that she would be like a condom against corruption.   Read more...

Do you know the difference between a harper and a harpist? How about a fiddler and a violinist? If you did not know before, you have probably figured it out already. A harper and fiddler play traditional tunes, whereas a harpist and violinist play orchestral music.

Such interesting tidbits I learn from my friend Markio, who is an Irish harper. She is only in her early 30’s, but is finding herself in a budding career that she never dreamed of.   Read more...

I’m a believer in broadcasting my message. That’s part of the reason all my Ode posts are peace-themed. This week someone sent me an invitation to link to his air shoes site. Air shoes? I checked it out and found the image above. Ah. Peace sneaks. That I can do. Here’s what he says about them:

“Vans recently released the “Peace Pack,” which features a Sk8 Hi, Slip On, and a Old Skool. This pack may remind you of their “Hippie Pack” from last year. But the “Peace Pack” is all about the peace sign logo.   Read more...

We're sitting in a circle in the beautiful back-garden of The Hub in Rotterdam. The 17 students that started this journey. People of all sorts. Entrepreneurs. Artists. DJ's. Jean-sellers. Farmers. Psychologists. All united with our year of common history. Year of highs and lows. Year of extreme experiences. An intense year. And just like that, it's over. I doubt that it had even occurred to all of us that this moment would be the good bye moment. The moment where our paths dissemble for the summer. All our focus had been on wrapping up the year by securing next years beginning; selecting a Team 2. We had forgotten that our year was now ending.

As the birds sang in the trees, birds that I do not recognize, foreign birds that don't live in my hometown, in my country, and a cat tip-toed between our wooden chairs we realized that this was our ending ceremony. Unplanned we just sat in a circle and shared. Shared our concerns. Shared our wins. Shared our losses. Shared support. Shared gratitude.   Read more...

We grew up in a typical hippy environment: vegetables in our backyard, self-knitted sweaters for Christmas and hiking outings with like-minded families, all together in a bus.

The more our parents cooked buckwheat, soy and parsnip, the more pocket money we took to the candy store. Few days went by without protest against our being 'different'. "They never have this at Sandra's place!" "Why can't you wear normal clothes?"   Read more...

Visions of calico dresses and poke bonnets, wagon trains, prairies and the wild, wild west? Me too. Pioneer brings that up. Bizarrely or not, the word comes from Old French and means a foot-soldier. I’m not too enchanted to link the idea of soldiers with peace, but consider this news from The Student Peace Alliance on the Web.

“We are so proud and excited to share this news! Ben & Jerry's, the Vermont-based socially conscious ice-cream maker, announced today at its New York City Times Square Scoop Shop that Aaron Voldman, Executive Director of the Student Peace Alliance (SPA) and Board Member of The Peace Alliance, is one of two nationwide winners of its "Peace Pioneer" contest.   Read more...

My sister Joyce Tannian is my hero.

So many of us, myself included, aspire to help others, to make a difference in the world and often get tied-up in our daily lives. My company manages engineers, producers and musicians, but we’re not solving world peace or providing solutions for the energy crisis.   Read more...

The crowd surges, hands grazing for the dreamscape overhead, its pulse locked into the synthesized loop spinning from the dj's drumkit. Dorothy tends bar, gently rejecting pleas for sex and pouring cocktails for comfort. She stares peacefully at a virtual representation of a Mayan witch-doctor dancing across the club in mid air.

For the past few weeks she has been working double shifts. Turns out her course credits are in direct proportion to her bank's. So she skipped this semester’s exams and allowed herself some time to decide on a Master for next year. But it's hard to think that far ahead. It's hard to think past the case which is about to come to justice or which might boomerang around the corner and stop her dead.   Read more...

For ten years now, I’ve sent a spiritual email every Friday to a growing mailing list. I call the gratis publication Seeds. My Seeds were originally inspired by Emmet Fox, the great metaphysician. His books are compilations of his miniature essays. What I wanted to do was write a sort of reminder of the spiritual approach to life to get people through the weekend. Anyway, ten years is a long time, and I can’t imagine stopping now.   Read more...

First of all ... congrats for Obama! I would have been happy with Clinton running for president, but I always felt Obama had more to offer. And let's face it, the states need a decent president. I have faith in Barak, but that scares me a bit as well. Because we know what frequently happens to charismatic leaders that want and are able to do too much positive change: they get shot by some individual lunatic that has no connections whatsoever with others (that's hard to believe isn't it?!).

But for us all, I hope he wins and changes the world for the better. I hope he can rise above the fear and temptations and make us proud of being humans and that he restores faith in politics.   Read more...

For the most part Japanese people are focused on new things. They are hooked by the latest gadgets, the most recent conveniences, up-to-the-minute fashions, modernized homes, and the newest model cars. The latest. The best. Image. Identity.

On rare occasions, however, I get to meet someone outside that focused desire for material newness. The other day I was invited to a young couple’s home in the country. The husband, Ken, grew up in Tokyo. He was always fascinated by Spain, so after high school headed there for a stint to learn about life and himself. About other cultures, too. And in the process how to cook Iberian dishes. Later he returned to Japan and worked in various offices, even for a local government. But his heart was always in the countryside. He had loved animals and the out-of-doors since he was a child. And the longer he worked in offices, the more he longed for the country.   Read more...

I like to know something about the sources of quotes I read so Wikipedia has become my best Internet friend. This quote came to me this week, apropos I think, for my one-year Ode blogging anniversary.

When we have done our best, we should wait the result in peace. J. Lubbock   Read more...

Africa is poor. There is a high unemployment rate. People are uneducated. Food is scarce. Environment is a big mess.

 So cool that the situation in Rotterdam is nearly perfect. Take a look at the Duysstraat this morning:   Read more...

Yippee! At long last, I am not a lone voice crying in the wilderness. There are others who take peace seriously—seriously enough to call for a National Peace Academy. It will be a place to investigate peace, to study peace, to learn to practice peace. And do we need it!

Here’s just a taste from their website. Their prose is below, my additions are in blue.

The Academy founders recognize that peace is serious business, requiring rigorous study and discipline. If done right, it will save America money and lives.   Read more...

Many of us have handed over our health and well being to an outsider called the ‘good doctor’. In effect, we have given up an innate capability of healing ourselves when something goes out of balance in our body. This capability comes through our own belief system. As with anything, if we believe we can, it may come true and if we believe otherwise, that will come true too. This is true for our health too.   Read more...

I walk the path of a warrior and settle on enemy ground. Take on their color, logic and language. Dance with their daughters. Make notes in the dark. Daylight comes early and breathes life into the apartment. The sun casts a nostalgic glow on the books as they stand row upon row upon row. The harddrive hums attentively, hosting a fresh batch of downloads. Sleeping in the apartment is like crashing in an airport holding room. Ghosts of globalization drifting in and out.

I wake to the sound of thunder as the DINKIES upstairs throw their morning fit. The one advantage to freelancing is that it strips life to its core disciplines, my morning ritual now burned into my physiology. It is as though I am released into the day from a deep stage of hypnosis, my subconscious mind fully functional as my conscious mind still searches for a point of recognition.   Read more...

Bulungula Lodge is perched on a small hill where the Bulungula River spills into the Indian Ocean at the fringe of a remote Xhosa village, Nqileni, in the Eastern Cape. It’s part of that majestic land known as the Wild Coast.

High tide comes swiftly on the beach, but if you plan your day well, you can spend hours roaming the ocean’s edge without seeing another soul. Swathes of vibrant shells decorate the shore and farther from the water, tangled knots of trees dig into the sand, transforming the beach to forest. Occasional goats, cows, and donkeys relax in the trees’ shade.   Read more...

Japan has a reputation of holding women back. But women here have a way of holding their own. Despite their demure manners and deferring behavior, they can be astonishingly strong. For the most part they are hardworking, unafraid of making decisions and of sticking by them. Also most often they will be enthusiastically contributing members of any group they belong to. “We do our best in whatever we are called upon to do,” they will tell you.

Many strong, focused women of ambition choose to start their own enterprises, rather than be trapped in the often limiting, ritual-strangling, demeaning jobs that a regular company has to offer. One such person, Miyoko, is a perfect example. She started low, observed, learned, held onto her dream, and worked her way up to where she is now, the owner of a fine study-abroad company.   Read more...

Last weekend, the new Cultivation Team of the international learning network Pioneers of Change (http://pioneersofchange.net/) met in Copenhagen to define their purpose for the upcoming year.

We kicked-off the weekend with a round of sharing our life stories and our connection to Pioneers of Change. I had been introduced to Pioneers of Change when I was on the Board of AIESEC in Germany (www.aiesec.de). I heard the name in the office and that the network had been set up by some AIESEC Alumni. It took me 3 years to engage with the network in Amsterdam. I was working with Greenpeace International then and a colleague from Kenya invited me to join the local “Personal Sustainability” conversations (http://pioneersofchange.net/communities/sustainability/scneth/).   Read more...

This is how it feels like at the moment, being totally submerged in our may projects. One month of working on assignments from our various partners of the school, one month of showing what we learned during the first year, one month of being in a team with 3 or 4 people instead of our usual 17. Silence at school, lots of activity outside. Exciting!

I heard of movies being shot, meetings held at the beach, interviews being done and websites being set up.   Read more...

Patrick Ireland is dead! Long live the Irish Peace!

A Thursday, May 22, 2008 article in the Art & Design section of The New York Times tells the story of Patrick Ireland’s funeral. He was 36.   Read more...

When you say trains I think Siberia Express, endless tracks in snowtopped mountains, philosophical discussions with long pauses, excited anticipation of what will reveal itself around the next corner. I feel the rhythmic movement of the carriages that empties my head of thoughts.

When I use trains lately I experience crowds of hurried people, long lines in front of the ticket machine, loud phone conversations about things as interesting as the state of someones plants, the smell of fries mixed with sweat and sticky seats. I read that commuters experience more stress than the average soldier in Afghanistan. I believe it.   Read more...

I am a tree person because a Giant Sequoia saved my life. Twenty years ago I was pregnant—delightedly so—and in my heart of hearts, I knew something was dreadfully wrong with my child. It was one of the hardest times of my life.

On a cross country trip wherein we stopped at almost every single rest stop, pregnancy being what it is, we stayed in Eureka, California and communed with the redwoods. There, despite my certainty that something was wrong, one of the mother trees made something right for me.   Read more...

KaosPilots talk. KaosPilots act. KaosPilots do. KaosPilots sing. KaosPilots dance. KaosPilots co-create. KaosPilots smile. KaosPilots laugh. KaosPilots cry. KaosPilots sing Siyahamba when they're exhausted. KaosPilots pretend to be Samurais. KaosPilots gather freckles on their nose. KaosPilots play. KaosPilots care. KaosPilots tell stories. KaosPilots fight. KaosPilots travel. KaosPilots visit. KaosPilots invite. KaosPilots party. KaosPilots make maps. KaosPilots feed worms. KaosPilots shoot footage. KaosPilots applaud. KaosPilots welcome new friends. KaosPilots love. KaosPilots fall in love. KaosPilots entertain. KaosPilots give insights. KaosPilots surprise. KaosPilots help. KaosPilots do espressos. KaosPilots drink Mojitos. KaosPilots involve. KaosPilots get involved. KaosPilots listen. KaosPilots shout. KaosPilots change.

…and now they blog.   Read more...

I have been thinking about what to write next for Ode. I have been playing with several things I have experienced or seen recently. But when trying to write something I found myself lacking a specific conclusion or goal in the story. The writing seemed a blurry, messy thing without direction, something not well defined. Which I, and most others, find annoying to read.

One focused message that I was able to draw from this mess is that the mind always asks us for a conclusion, a message or idea of what is true. It has to be short and easy to remember so that the world makes sense. This is kind of contrary to what the world actually is, the world isn’t fittable in a two sentence formula. Unconsciously we always let ourselves be run by a theory (or feeling, which is basically the same) and if one is not convincingly there we feel totally lost. We are addicted to theories and think we are right and important and in control if we have one that we believe in.   Read more...

The well-known Peace Symbol was designed in 1958. This year is its 50th birthday.

Wikipedia says, “This forked symbol was designed for the Direct Action Committee Against Nuclear War (DAC) and was adopted as its badge by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) in Britain, and originally was used by the British nuclear disarmament movement. It was later generalized to become an international icon for the 1960s anti-war movement, and was also adopted by the counterculture of the time.   Read more...

When we talk about HIV and AIDS, more often than not it’s about the incredible numbers of who’ve died or who are now infected with the disease.

We think of the pandemic in somewhat monolithic terms. But the pandemic is in fact a series of epidemics, which affect people and the communities in which they live in different ways.   Read more...

Practice makes perfect, we all know this. What it has meant to me as a spiritual counselor for the past twenty-five years is that I look constantly for things that make for conscious spiritual praxis. One came to me the other day.

What if every time you received, read, wrote, deleted or sent an email, you first said aloud to yourself, “Peace?”   Read more...

Ted has been my friend for well over thirty years. But curiously, I have never met him. I get a very gentle magazine called “Fellowship in Prayer”, and once long ago they asked if subscribers would like to correspond with prisoners. Of course, I said yes. And that is how Ted and I got connected.

I have never asked my friend what he did to land himself in prison. I felt it was not important unless he wanted to tell me. He never has. And I respect his privacy and dignity in this matter. So, Ted and I relate on more hope-filled dimensions than the mistakes of the past.   Read more...

I saw a great movie yesterday (again). The peaceful warrior. For those who don't know it, it's about a student athlete preparing for the Olympics qualifiers. He is just like most people, a thinker, restless and plagued by ambition and the fear of not being able to reach his goals. He finds a master in the gas station clerk, which he calls Socrates because he won't tell him his name. He shows him the way of living in the here and now, beyond the thoughts and feelings that trouble us and blind us. The gymnast is still quite rebellious and challenges Socrates ideas.   Read more...

Okay, I admit it, I’m up past my eyeballs in a new computer and things are not going as swimmingly as promised. Let’s leave brands and operating systems out of this equation. My situation prompted a question for me.

Does technology foster peace?   Read more...

"Are you looking for peace and harmony on the Internet? Enter Seiwa-en where you can experience such quietude. This garden is a project of the Missouri Botanical Gardens, designed by 'Koichi Kawana, M.F.A, Ph.D., a native of Japan and Principal Architecture Associate and lecturer in Japanese art, architecture and landscape design at the University of California, Los Angeles. Kawana Sensei not only designed Seiwa-en but also supervised its construction and development until his death in 1990. Here's your opportunity to experience this 'wet strolling garden' in the solitude of your home and maybe even develop a few ideas of your own for recreating a similar masterpiece in your own backyard!"   Read more...

Until the current global grain shortage the issue of hunger had largely slipped from the rich world’s consciousness. But the food crisis being reported in our papers and on our televisions isn’t a strange blip that will go away. It’s a reminder that hunger is a real and persistent issue for the billion people worldwide who live on less than a dollar a day.

Malnutrition in mothers and their young children will claim 3.5 million lives this year and millions more will survive but fail to thrive because of chronic food shortages.   Read more...

Ernest Holmes was the founder of a scientific, practical movement of Christianity called Science of Mind. He was a prolific student of all religions, all philosophies and all ideas of his time. The practice was a synthesis of his thinking. He wrote the words below.

In this peace that holds me so gently,
I find strength and protection from all fear or anxiety.
It is in the peace of God in which I feel the love of a Holy Presence.   Read more...

This is the final section of this series honoring my father. The reason I chose to write about him in the first place was because many of the values he espoused might do well being reinstated. They could possibly blend happily into today’s world, which in many ways is seeking a new identity and connection to its emerging soul.   Read more...

If you’re reading this post, like me you probably spend too much time on the internet, much of it contributing to online communities of shared interest. As exciting as it sometimes is to find people with similar views and interests online I’m not always confident that my virtual networks are going to amount to much.

Social Innovation Camp (www.sicamp.org) is interested in addressing exactly that issue: how the online world can be used to create better solutions to social problems in the real world.   Read more...

There's a thin line between action figure and father figure. And when it comes to kicking fatherly ass, Steven Seagal is your daddy. Off-screen he is an actual Aikido sensei, the first Gajin to open a dojo in Japan. He tests his students with the famous three man attack.

If we follow Seagal we learn that for young men anger and sometimes aggression are perfectly natural things. But they have been pushed to the edges of what we call civilization. It's great to want to be civilized, but what about the impulse? Violence dominates the media and we seem to have projected all our darkest urges onto 'the bad guy'. Only there are no protectors, no heroes, no rolemodels. Some critics complain that young men have lost their manhood. Have we no anger? Are we not men? What is a man? This lack of definition seems to be at the core of our current existential crisis. Let me answer that question, bluntly and honestly, the way real men do.   Read more...

I went to visit some friends this weekend. I live with my girlfriend in Campinas, Brasil, it’s an 1.5 hour drive to our friend’s house in Sao Paulo. There are three of them living together, two girls and a gay guy, right in the middle of this enormous city. It’s always great to go there, the atmosphere is really relaxed. When I visit I always get a specific feeling that I also got in the Netherlands when visiting another gay friend there.   Read more...

Rev. Jesse Jennings, writing in Science of Mind magazine, says, “The world is seeking to sow peace, not just as the ending of open hostilities, but as a durable, perpetual field of play in which mutual respect and understanding are the norm.”

I liked his idea particularly since it gives the world a soul. “The world itself is seeking to sow peace . . . .” Delicious.   Read more...

Another touching story that shows my father

Writing in Science of Mind, April 2008, Rev. Jane Beach, minister of the Conscious Living Center in Mt. View, California, says, “The presence of peace is in all things, awaiting our attention.”

Rev. Beach’s words made me think about how I make the choices in my own life. I determined many years ago that Peace was my number one value. The thing, idea, energy that is the most important to me. Other people use other values: love, joy, wisdom. Always intangibles.   Read more...

It�s a sunny day despite all the previous week�s rain. We pull up onto the rutted, muddy roadside and park. If it weren�t for the rough dirt roads, the neighbourhood could pass for a middle-class neighbourhood in western Europe. A driveway pattern of black and maroon bricks leads up to an impressive house.

This is where Cecilia lives. I�ve been invited to a celebration for her youngest daughter, whose initiation into womanhood concludes today. Cecilia and her family are Ndebele, the ethnic group whose brightly coloured geometric painting and beadwork has come to represent South African art around the globe.   Read more...

Sir Arthur C. Clarke, visionary, science fiction writer, inventor and a good human being passed away on 19th March 2008 in Colombo, Sri Lanka, his adopted home. In many ways, Arthur was responsible for us to stay in Sri Lanka and establish a solar power business in the late 1980s. He was always there to encourage and help us even when we would get discouraged by the various obstacles that were in the way. He was a good friend and we will miss him and so will the world.

It was the summer of 1977 and I was on holiday in Sri Lanka from Canada with my cousin Viren. We had just stumbled into the table tennis room of the Otters Sports Club in Colombo and saw this European playing a hard game of TT banishing his young opponents away. As we stood there, he challenged us for a game and sent us away in no time too. After the game when we asked him whether he was on holiday here, he said - �Oh no, I live here, write a few books and do a bit of diving� only to realize he was Arthur C Clarke, the science fiction writer made real famous recently by �2001, A Space Odyssey�.   Read more...

As I write this, it is Easter Sunday in the Christian calendar. I was intrigued to read the ideas of Marshall Breger, professor of law at the Catholic University of America, reprinted in Utne Reader from Moment, an independent magazine of Jewish politics, culture, and religion, on statecraft, diplomacy and religion.

First I must cop to my own religious status. I would call myself an omnireligionist despite being an ordained minister with a doctorate in divinity. Translation: I don’t really care what you believe, I care that you believe. I believe that belief is a deeply personal matter and that it’s up to each soul to discover what works for her or him.   Read more...

I've just had the privilege of visiting refugee camps in Dadaab, Kenya, as part of my work with Book Aid International (www.bookaid.org).

Home to over 170,000 people the camps have provided a safe haven for refugees fleeing conflict for over 15 years, starting with the flight of people from neighbouring Somalia in 1991. The majority of people living in the camps are still Somali, though there are also refugees from Sudan, Uganda, the Congo and other countries in conflict. Many have lived in Dadaab for over a decade, unable to return to homes still embroiled in chaos.   Read more...

The email was innocent enough. Sent by a well-meaning and always interesting friend, I opened it. Here is part of his text to me . . .

Hi Friends,   Read more...

I decided I want to be more social, make more friends and be less ego-centric. I notice that I don't feel good when if I

My father, an old fashion country doctor, used to make house calls to farms near our town. On days when we kids were not in school, we were allowed to accompany him. Farms are terrific places for youngsters to wear off excess energy. So, we would run and play in the fields, peer at animals in the barn, scramble up haystacks, climb fences, and swim in the creeks. We city kids rode cows and rubbed horses

I have recently written on my personal blog about North America’s consumer societies, and my wish, instead of being a consumer, to be consumed. Consumed with fire, passion, and energy to do what I came to Earth to do.

Tony Kaye, creator of a documentary about both sides of the issue of abortion called Into the Fire, is quoted in the newest edition of Utne Reader.   Read more...

International Women

How old do you have to be to have grown up with the internet, cell phones, text-messaging, social community sites, collaborative sites (wikis), and interactive games? As more and more of you, who have been so reared, enter the work world, the harder and harder it will be for organizations to attempt to manage you by command and control methods. That lesson came clear to the USA Army, according to Steven Mains and Laura W. Geller in their article "Freeing Ideas from Their Silos," in strategy&business' current on-line magazine (http://www.strategy-business.com/li/leadingideas/li00062)   Read more...

Every year, thousands of children arrive to California. These students along with first and second-generation American students look for educational spaces willing to embrace their cultural diversity. Inner-city schools respond to these needs in three different ways. The majority of schools promote a pure assimilation/acculturation to the mainstream culture. Occasionally, the schools

Even though Ode