Peace is… (Definitions From Around The World) – Story I

In 2008 I asked my Facebook friends to help me create chalk drawings of peaceflower symbols in the places where they live. The response was amazing!!! THANKS! I received over 50 peace chalk art designs, created by more than 100 people, from over 20 countries around the world!

I wrote a few stories throughout this – my first ever global art attack!!!

http://bitsandpeaces08.blogspot.com/2009/06/graffiti-revolution.html

http://bitsandpeaces08.blogspot.com/2009/06/peaceflowers-from-around-world.html

http://bitsandpeaces08.blogspot.com/2009/07/peaceflowers-from-around-world-story.html

It amazes me that things like ‘global art attacks’ can actually happen… for the first time in our history!!!

You can hear many people say that ‘Peace on Earth’ will never happen cuz it’s never happened before! But if you think about it… it could never have happened before cuz we’ve never had a globally connected civilization before – until just now!!! We’ve never had Peace on Earth cuz we’ve never had the opportunity – until just now!!!

And I never realized how significant a simple thing like… drawing a peaceflower, could be – until just now!

And this new insight about bringing people into action – from (seriously) all around the world – to focus their thinking and actions towards a common goal – has inspired me to begin a second… yes second global art attack!

This time… I’m collecting poetic definitions for the word ‘Peace’. It’s that simple! I’ll be sharing these expressions here on this blog as well as on Facebook – where I’ll be building a new album for show’n’tell!

I would like all of you – my readers - to send me in definitions, as well: peacefulwarrior333@hotmail.com! Here are a few… to inspire you!

One of my former Peacebus students wrote this poem for me and it has always inspired me to want to find a fun way to share it with the world. I decided to honour this young girl’s poem by making it my Facebook album cover and the first poem in the album.

I needed to create a few other expressions – to get people “into” the variety of ways that words can be used to define the word ‘Peace’.

After my first day, I had received my first peace poem! I really enjoyed searching for an image to compliment the words that were sent to me and Danielle was happy with my choice.

I was enjoying thinking about all the definitions/poems that will be sent to me and my mind burst out with another simple poem, in the same style as my former Peacebus student!!!

The next day, I received another acrostic peace poem…

…from my Guerrilla Gardening partner!

Later, that afternoon, I was heading off to work and I left a note for my wife asking her to create a poem for me. When I came home, just before midnight, I found the note that Joanne had left for me, in response.

She told me that she had had a very non-peaceful day at work and that she was sorry that her poem was not filled with inspiration.

I couldn’t stop laughing after I had read her poem! It was hilarious!! It reflected emotions that we’ve all felt, at our workplaces, and I’m thinking that the process used to create this poem actually helped bring peace into Jo’s mind. She told me that she felt much better after releasing her frustrations in this verse! This poem is my favourite one to date!!!

The very next day, three peace poems were waiting for me on my Facebook wall. The first one was from a girl I went to high school with.

Angie also sent me this great picture, earlier this spring. She had removed a pool from her backyard and found a circle of dead grass underneath. She told me that when she saw this circle that she thought of me and my peace efforts and she became inspired to create this peace symbol.

The next poem was also from a friend from high school. Thanks Rob!

This poem was sent to me, by a fellow Londoner. We haven’t met yet, but living in the same city may one day give us that opportunity.

I spend a bit of time finding images that I think will compliment the poems that are written for me… and the world, and I thought that this photograph of people all wearing red outfits, standing in a peace symbol formation on the side of a mountain was perfect for my friend Carolyn’s poem.

Carolyn and I also met this spring and she was a great help in my Guerrilla Gardening adventures.

All of these poems were created by people in Southern Ontario - from London, Burlington, Barrie, Toronto and Clinton. And this is all good, but I’m striving for input and participation from ALL AROUND THE WORLD!

I started witnessing my sought after expansion of geographical locations when this poem came in from Sault Ste, Marie – from Northern Ontario…

… and this poem from Massachusetts, USA. Judith has a company that is motivated to inspire people to act peacefully towards each other and the Earth. You can learn more about her and her work by visiting www.planetpals.com. Not only did Judith create a peace poem for my collection, she also designed this image to compliment her words!

Later, that same afternoon, another poem was sent to me from a person living in the state of Massachusetts. It took me a long while to find peace with my selection of this image for Laura’s statement. After a small debate in my mind I decided that while I’m promoting all of these peaceful thoughts/definitions/sayings/poems that it is perfectly all right to take the occasional opportunity to show why peace is important for our present time. And this picture surely shows us why peace is important for our world!

I’m very pleased with how this global art attack has begun. Within my first week I’ve received 11 poems from 8 cities/towns in 2 countries. I’m very excited to see how this global art attack will expand and grow as the next few months unfold!!!

Thank you – to all of my first participants!

Thanks in advance – to all of you who are now inspired to make your contributions by sending me your own unique definitions for ‘peace’ to peacefulwarrior333@hotmail.com.

Jim