A vision quest and a day of peace
09/12/2010

I’ve been asked to speak for 20 minutes at a Peace Festival in Tonasket, Washington, this coming Saturday.  International Peace Day is September 21 and in some locales there are events and activities this entire week.  Earthdance.org will coordinate a global, synchronized song and prayer for peace at 4:00 p.m. PST this Saturday.   Around the globe, people are uniting in the awareness that consciousness is causal.  That being so, let's create peace.

Because Tonasket is a small town just south of the Canadian border, this will be a small peace gathering.  Fifty to 75 people are expected—and they’re certainly not coming because they’ve heard of me.  They’re coming because peace is a cause they believe in and work for.  No doubt they hope that by showing up they’ll give global consciousness a tiny shift in the right direction.  Who knows?  Millions of people all over the world are coming together this day in the name of peace…How many times in history has that actually happened? 

I was both honored and humbled to be asked to speak, even to so small a gathering.  After all, I stand by myself on a street corner in Santa Barbara, California, in the name of peace.  How surprising to find people a thousand miles away interested in my story!

I don't anticipate having much that is earth-shaking to say to them.  Just the tale of my need to do something to protest the destruction of life, goodwill, national infrastructure, and so much more that our horrendous military machine calls all in a day’s work.  And the people and conversations that solitary peace vigil has engendered.

However there is something else momentous happening this week that may totally upend the script I now anticipate speaking.  I will undertake my first vision quest with Methow spiritual elder Spencer Martin this Wednesday night.  He will take me and another apprentice up on a mountain top, bundled in winter’s down, to sit alone and wait upon Spirit. 

I don’t expect to have the same consciousness when I come down from the mountain as when I go up. 

...To be continued!