High Schoolers Bring Hope 4 Peace

photo art by Craig Smith

Fifty high school students came from as far away as Indonesia to interact in a project to explore avenues for peace at the University of Texas at Austin. Watch their "Peaceful Moments" video and read their "Peaceful Moments" magazine online. Click on the headline above and learn all about the great work they are doing.

The Iroquois Museum ~ Nature Park

photo: courtesy of the Iroquois Museum Website
excerpts from the Iroquois Museum Website:

The Iroquois Museum Nature Park has a Stream and a River, Shagbark hickory stands, Fields of wildflowers, deer, raccoon, occasional beaver, woodchucks, squirrels, birds. All nature as kin -- alive, possible medicines, a realm of the spirit co-existing with humans.

This Nature Park of forty-five acres introduces you to the Iroquois view of nature -- Our Mother the Earth, our Elder Brother the Sun, our Grandfathers the Thunderers, our Three Sisters (Corn, Beans, and Squash), the earth as Turtle Island, the nine clan animals, the four beings who are the winds, our Grandmother Moon, Morning Star, the Seven Dancers, and the Little People who control the medicine and herbs given by the Creator. The Nature Park is literally an island that time forgot, but the living beings in the park are involved with a struggle to survive in the modern world. The Museum also tells that story.
The Park consists of fields and woods, with a feeder stream winding its way down to a creek, which flows along the entire southeast corner of the park. Sometime in the last century, a huge stone dam was built across the stream, but one of those "once in a century" storms took out the center of the dam, leaving mute but dramatic testimony to the power of the surrounding watershed. Today the stream is classified as a trout stream by DEC, but trout have yet to be discovered. Other fish, frogs, crayfish, green heron, kingfisher, and a rare visiting beaver have been noted.

Deer and racoon are plentiful, as though the site has become an island of safety for them. The woods has a strong group of shagbark hickory trees, with many venerable and stately hemlocks. A few dignified maples are engaged in their silent struggle against "Maple Decline", and the Park's many ash trees are trying desperately to survive what is called locally a "Die Off", caused by some mysterious virus. We believe acid rain is making survival difficult for all these trees.
There is particular interest in the Park’s ecology, of which some points of focus have been the bird population, the life in the stream, the watershed, the floriculture, wild flowers, and plants growing in the Park that have special uses for the Iroquois, particularly as medicines.
"These are our living kin, sharing with us a spiritual universe in which the common language is thankfulness."

The Iroquois Museum

http://www.iroquoismuseum.org/the.htm

"Tolerance: The capacity for the practice of

recognizing and respecting the beliefs or practices of others."

the Dayton Peace Museum

http://www.daytonpeacemuseum.org

PaleMale

Click on the Headline ABOVE

to see more of this beautiful creature!

We Can Change

"We cannot change the past, but we can change our attitude toward it. Uproot guilt and plant forgiveness. Tear out arrogance and seed humility. Exchange love for hate ~ thereby, making the present comfortable and the future promising." ~ Maya Angelou

We Are At The Crossroads

excerpts from a recent post by Jay at Willie Nelson Peace Research Institute:

People created families...People created tribes...People created nations...

People flourished. Now nations fight other nations. This is the normal way of life.

When nations unite under global leadership the global human family becomes strong. People can change...Those people who do not change will not be able to survive. They will be eliminated by the forces of nature as countless species and individuals have gone before them.

The planet will survive. The planet will survive because nature changes. The changes people now forced upon nature will create conditions that will become more or less devastating to the human species. We can decide how devastating these conditions will become.

It all depends on how soon people change. The people who change will survive. Soon, those who do not accept the changes demanded by the global human family will find it ever more difficult to continue. It has always been so.

There is no refuge in old patterns of thought and behavior. Everything changes and people must change to survive. There are many who understand this history, recognize the implications and are changing right now. You have a choice.

Click on the headline above to read Jay's entire story about this at Willie Nelson Peace Research Institute website. You will find this and more at Willie Nelson Peace Research Institute http://willienelsonpri.com

Rainbow Warriors