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Writings for Peace

Bringing you poetry and prose from around the world to reflect the broader humanitarian mission of Peace Partners. It is our hope to provide a safe space for compassion, empathy, and insight into our shared want for a more peaceful society. Here we showcase work from familiar names and those too-long overlooked by history, as well as the new and emerging voices of today.

EARTH DAY 2023

15/4/2023

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     Every year, April 22nd, marks the anniversary of the birth, in 1970, of part of the modern environmental movement. This year’s Earth Day theme is: Invest in Our Planet. The effort of hundreds of millions of people globally continues to redress exploitation of Nature’s resources, and practically regain a sustainable and balanced life-style for all of humanity.

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This poem is dedicated to and honours this beautiful, beautiful Earth in which we live:

Mother  - by Geri Andrews

The Earth is my mother,
I was born from her, and in truth, not from any other.
I love and cherish her as my own,
And never far from her cradle do I want to roam.

For when the final breathe leaves this body in which I dwell,
She’ll take it back into her womb, so a new life she can meld.
How can I not feel humbled and respect her awesome might,
There is no point this inevitable fact to fight,
But rather surrender, in a state of hope and joy,
To relish each passing day and thankfulness employ.

The will of life to live itself overcomes all constraint,
And seeks to manifest a continuous creation in replicate.
Each breathe energising a soul so unique
In its individuality, in its very own special mystique.

Forever one, forever countlessly diverse,
Such is the nature of my Mother Earth.
A perfect peace is born of love to nurse,
In which all beings are blessed with the ability to converse.

Her nature is my true nature, the core of my heart,
The place inside of me from where I must not depart.
For to lose touch with that ocean of repose deep within
Leaves me feeling stranded on a beach of grief and chagrin.

So I pray to my Mother and friend
Her grace and beauty my soul to attend,
That I may any trials or troubles transcend,
Have recourse to her strength on which I depend.

May I accept the living breathe flowing freely within me,
Its delicate indestructibility is my life, is my key.
May I continue to thirst for the knowledge of peace in my heart,
To feel each day as a fresh new start,
That gentle feeling, neither here neither there,
Just loving the moment, to care and to share.


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  An arial view of the Heart of Voh, New Caledonia
Image by xiSerge from Pixabay
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PEACE GARDENS

15/4/2023

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   Image: Giverny P. Bernardon Unsplash

    A garden is a plot of land around or near a dwelling that is planted, cared for and cultivated, as distinct from the wild forest. Since moving from a nomadic to a settled mode of life, people have been gardening, not only for food production but also for the pleasure and enjoyment of being with plants and trees.

    Evidence exists of people gardening for at least five or six thousand years, although most likely much longer. In Mesopotamia, “the land between the rivers”, in what is modern day Iraq and Syria, there were temple gardens, royal gardens, courtyard and walled city gardens containing vegetables, medicinal, and herbal flowers and a wide variety of plants. Ancient Persian gardens were developed to protect from the harsh, arid landscape of the Iranian plateau, and water was brought up from subterranean aquifers to create places for poetry, contemplation and seclusion, as well as food. Gardens were much cherished by the Ancient Egyptians and on the Indian subcontinent there are records of gardens in the ancient Hindu texts. Buddha is known to have stayed in the town of Vaishali, famed for its beautiful gardens, Emperor Ashoka created fabulous gardens as did the Mughal emperors. On every continent people have gardened in the environment in which they live, not only for sustenance but also from a deep need to connect and commune with Nature.

    A theme that runs through the history of gardening is that the enclosed or walled garden inherently lends itself as a place where people can feel safe to be in nature in a protected place. Although gardens have often been to impress and show off wealth and status, it is around monasteries, temples and places of worship where gardens have persistently been nurtured and cherished, seen as sacred places for meditation and contemplation. In the Middle Ages in Europe, the concept of the garden was thought to unite the earthly and the Divine, gardening was seen as an act of humility, and it is described in early Islamic texts as an allegory for paradise, to reflect the inner garden, the inner experience of the Divine. In ancient Britain and Ireland, oak groves were planted near henges and dolmens to provide a naturally sacred space that could grow into lofty, vaulted canopies of leaves and branches.

   Given the natural affinity for people to garden, it is inevitable that the term Peace Garden would eventually be coined to describe a place to go and sit or walk, and consciously reflect on peace within and around oneself. Globally there are 159 registered Peace Gardens, although in reality there are many more, given the nature of the garden is to be a place to enjoy tending and caring for plants, and to appreciate their colour and beauty. The first formally named Peace Garden was opened in 1932, straddling the border between Manitoba and North Dakota, and was conceived and dedicated as a memorial of peace and friendship between Canada and the USA. It covers an area of over 2000 acres, an impressive size for a garden, yet a Peace Garden can equally be a small corner, a shelter in one's own garden, a favourite chair or bench, somewhere to sit and rest. The Oldham Peace Garden, in Oldham, Greater Manchester, provides a verdant recess, an arbour dedicated to peace, inviting passers-by to sit, relax and just be for a while, intended as a space to breathe and re-set. Weymouth Peace Garden in Dorset is a garden on the site of an old burial ground once owned by the Religious Society of Friends. A group of dedicated volunteers have created a garden intended for contemplation and meditation that is enjoyed by local residents and visitors alike. Historically Quakers have worked for peace, justice and equality, making the garden a perfect place to honour their commitment to peace.

    There is no agreed style for a Peace Garden, simplicity is the key feature, minimal in concept and design. It is about the feel of place, the feel of peace, an indefinable quality which is something to be experienced and enjoyed personally. In the Zen Buddhist gardens around the monasteries and temples of Japan, this practise is expressed and elevated to a high art form.

    In London, the Tibetan Buddhist Peace Garden, opened by his Holiness the Dalai Llama in May 1999 was intentionally situated next to the Imperial War Museum in Southwark.

    Public gardens and communal green spaces are very important for people to share and enjoy, especially in the urban environment. Any unused or abandoned corner can be turned into a place of colour and joy and there are countless examples of people brightening the area around their street, along terraces or alleyways. Once planted and cared for, elevating spirits and giving joy to both gardeners and passers-by.

    Modern science now shows the sights, smells and sounds of Nature lift the mood and measurably boost feel good hormones, which is essential for mental and emotional well-being, something that has long been known from subjective experience. 
Creating a place to have an atmosphere of rest and repose, a place to nurture good health, is something to be valued above all else, and even within an indoor living space or on a balcony, a few plants can lift the feeling of a room, rewarding the love and care given to them. The lack of an agreed defined style of the Peace Garden is its freedom. It is what it is for everyone and anyone, anywhere, anytime.
   

​After the first World War, as a symbol of peace, Claude Monet gifted a series of
 paintings of the water lily pond in his garden in Giverney, Le Havre, France, to the nation, and they were installed in the Musee de l’Orangerie, Paris. These huge paintings are an immersive experience of colour and light. Over the decades his eyesight had steadily deteriorated, until, as an old man and nearly blind, he painted his most beautiful impressions of the reflections of light and colour on the water of the pond.
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     image - Peace Lily, Unsplash
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Claude Monet - Water Lilies
 Written by Geri Andrews

This prose poem was written whilst sitting by a lily pond in the sheltered garden of a 900 year old church, one warm late summers afternoon.
The Lily Pond   - by Geri Andrews

Rooted in the mud and sludge,
   the water lily rises up to seek the light,
      a tangle of tough fan-shaped leaves arc
         like solar panels to soak up the sun’s rays.

Resting in a state of transcendent beauty,
   flowers float upon stagnant water and
      beneath the surface of viscus decay
         a dark world of nascent life,

Hidden, womb-like, transforming,
   is nourishing an interconnected
      self-sustaining
         interplay of plants and creatures.

Nobody stops to peer through the motionless
   carpet of verdant weed
      despite an alluring magnetic attraction
         some primal instinct warns of danger.

Mothers tell children drawn to know 
   what lies beneath
      “It’s water, stay away”!

All the while, the flowers gently open
   their
 exquisite petals and offer up their nectar,
      liberated from the muddy matrix from
         where they have come and to where they will go.


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  • Home
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