A busy month for the Peace Workers on the Bridge! The View takes a look at
the Peace Festival in Norfolk, Virginia, running for three weeks and thus
almost up to Christmas. Jody’s son David returned from Iraq, and Ilkin’s son
found that his compulsory military service takes him to a town in southern
Turkey that seems just a bit too close to the Syrian and Iraqi borders for
comfort.
New People on the Bridge
We were joined this month by some new people and would like to welcome Lana
Nasser from Jordan, now living in Berkeley, California, and Denise Rodgers
from Texas.
Lana is working on obtaining grant funding for a project entitled 'Dance
around the world barefoot for peace', which she hopes to take to young
people, working with goddess myths and dance performance. If all goes well,
Lana hopes to produce a documentary about the project, as well as a multi
media performance. If you would like to know more, please contact Lana at
corpusenchantus@yahoo.com.
Denise:
My intention for becoming a member of Peace Bridge is to connect
with others who use both night dreams and day-time dreams to build bridges
to humanity. The "bridge" metaphor is what attracted my attention because I
have often referred to myself as one who helps to bridge the spiritual world
with the scientific world.
In November, I began hosting an Internet radio show entitled "Beyond Your
Dreams: Exploring Myth, Meaning, & Metaphor in Night-Dreams and
Day-Visions". I decided to do the show (on my nickel) so I could make a
forum available for others who are doing good work in the field of dreams
and visions, & consciousness. A place where people can actually hear from
the old pioneers, like Barasch, Taylor, Van de Castle, Ullman. A forum to
hear about "Dreams to the Tenth Power" and the goals of Peace Bridge,
because people want to hear about these things.
You can find more about Denise’s work on the IASD Bulletin Board
http://dreamtalk.hypermart.net/bb2005/index.php
or you can contact her at drodgers520@austin.rr.com
Our Sons and Daughters in Iraq
As many of our readers may already know, several of the people on the Peace
Bridge have sons or daughters placed in, or near, Iraq. Jody Grundy’s son --
Jody was recently interviewed in a programme by the CNN, speaking against
the Iraq war, and working in support of war veteran Marine Major Paul
Hackett who hopes to run for Senate for the Democrats in 2006 against Jean
Schmidt -- Jody’s son David returned from his second term in Iraq last week.
Major David Grundy served as a doctor both terms.
More and more military personnel (in the US) speak out against the war in
Iraq, and I have to say it carries some weight with me when veterans and
currently or recently serving army people do so. Shortly before his return
from Iraq Major Grundy wrote an article, published in the Cincinnati
Enquirer, where he spoke in support of "Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, a
retired Marine Colonel who earned a Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts during
the Vietnam War, stood up on the floor of the House to say, from the heart,
that the war in Iraq is a failure and that we should bring our troops home
soon."
To see the whole article (assuming it remains on the website by the time you
read this):
http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2005511270352
Bridge member Jeremy's daughter and her fiancé were both posted to Iraq at
the end of the summer, and now Ilkin's son faces many months of military
service in Turkey, near the Syrian and Iraqi borders -- and we all feel for
them. Suddenly black and white, either or arguments seem more difficult, as
we have to put real names and real faces to the people our governments send
to serve at the front.
Norfolk Peace Film Festival
During the entire month of December several of the Peace Bridge members who
live in the Tidewater area of Virginia (Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Portsmouth,
Suffolk, Hampton) have been sharing in the creation of a Peace Festival,
with first-run documentary movies, video/discussion groups, seminars and
other activities. The seminars are being presented at David Gordon's Studio
for the Healing Arts.
On Friday, December 9, Bridge member Valley Reed, who also happens to be one
of the founders of the Crawford Peace House, was at the Festival with her
partner and Peace House co-founder, Hadi Jawad. Their seminar presentation
covered the vigil conducted last summer by Cindy Sheehan in Crawford, and
the other exciting events that have happened there since then. Never
missing an opportunity, Valley and Hadi stayed with Steve Swan while in
Tidewater, and Jean stayed there too, a virtual slumber party, joined by
other Peace Bridge members in the dream state. Other members of the Bridge
were invited to congregate there in the dream state.
In a seminar of her own, "Women and Children in War: Dreams of Peace", Jean
will present the World Dreams Peace Bridge Aid for Traumatized Children
Project, showing the PowerPoint presentation created for this years's IASD
conference, and sharing the article on the group's project, "Dreams and the
Children of Baghdad," written for the summer issue of Dream Time.
Halfway through this festival, and to tie in with the Iraq theme above, Jean
Campbell reported being part of a team of two who facilitated a discussion
of the films "Caught in the Crossfire" and "Operation Dreamland" at the Naro
Theater, as part of the Peace Festival.
Although there weren't as many members of the military there as I might
have hoped, one interesting thing was that we had four members of the Army
Press Corps (public relations people), one of whom was in charge of
embedding the seven hundred members of the American press who covered the
story of the bombing of Fallujah. Well, of course, that made for a pretty
interesting discussion.
One good thing was that a number of the members of the Tidewater Peace
Alliance attended the films, and the military spokespeople met with a far
more educated and articulate audience than they thought they might
encounter. For example, one man, a Vietnam vet, spoke about his experience
in the military, and then challenged the idea of "I'm just following
orders." He ended up asking the military people, given Bush's response to
terrorism, that if Bush were to ask them to take him (the speaker) out as a
terrorist, would they "just follow orders?" "You wouldn't come after ME
would you?" he asked. (Nervous titters from the audience.)
DaFuMu in November
Our dreams this month sparked some interesting conversation, touching on
what lies at the core of the work of the World Dreams Peace Bridge – the
potential for change that lies in our dreams, and in reality creation.
But how can I do justice to the wonderful discussions that take place on the
Bridge?
I don't know if recall is all that important. I tend to side with Robert
Moss, its about being CONSCIOUS in a dream, and what one brings back is the
message. -- Ron
Just watch people for a few days -- you'll notice they are constantly
jockeying for "rank" through words and actions designed to position
themselves vis a vis everyone else they come in contact with. I think this
forms one of the basic unspoken structures of human interaction, and should
be recognized so we can figure out ways to work around this tendency. -- Gina
I've always felt there was a 'pecking order', even just in social groups --
but never could put my finger on it or always hear the words -- 'you create
your own reality' -- to dismiss what I see to be true. How does the 'create
your own reality' mesh with this pecking order business? -- Liz
I think we create our realities - up to a point. That's actually one of the
things that I choke on most frequently with all the new age teachings,
'well-meaning' people telling me to think positive and create my own
reality. We simply cannot create our realities independent of those around
us . . . -- Olivia
. . . and again I find refer to an ecology – where it seems to me we CO create --
the rest of it is real, is Not us -- AND -- we, by our choices & actions, how
we hold it – have almost infinite effect. Isn't it in how we 'take' our
reality that we create it? Not the arrogant stance that we make it all –
what we make is our part of the dance with it . . . -- Anna
I so resonate with the concept of co-creation that has both energies in it:
it holds space for our individual choices and our ongoing life learnings and
also holds sacred space for the communal and world energies that move in us
and through us constantly . . . -- Rita
Ron, I love the idea of Peace T.V. I've gotten more involved with media
again than I ever expected to do. Anne and others are looking into the
contract of the local cable station to see if independent programming is
still possible. -- Jean
I will dream the existence of a peace channel with you, Ron, to be created
in your lifetime. -- Rita
I hope so. I just found out there is a military channel. And of course
Eric and I just recently got our new gay channel LOGO. So if we can have a
gay channel, a military channel, gosh darn we ought to be able to have a
Peace Channel. -- Ron
Or, to paraphrase St Francis of Assisi: Make me a channel of thy peace. -- Olivia
Sound like fun? Come and join us on the Bridge!
And we shall see, what dreams may come.
The World Dreams Peace bridge is open to all people who dream of world peace:
http://www.worlddreamspeacebridge.org
or discussion group: worlddreams-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
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