“… And is not peace, in the last analysis, basically a matter of human rights — the right to live out our lives without fear of devastation — the right to breathe air as nature provided it — the right of future generations to a healthy existence?” President John F. Kennedy, June 10, 1963

today is a special day of re-membering and entering the deep silence of the inner ground and gathering seeds for the almost new moon in sag……

as i till this organic field of consciousness, i am transported to that friday sixty years ago and into my 12 year old self sitting in my 7th grade classroom in a sleepy, backwater town… the world took a dramatic turn when the principal appeared at the door of our classroom with a newsflash: the president has been shot and is dead… i re-member my outrage now as if those words were just pronounced and how i could not believe how cavalierly he uttered them and with a smile… we were shooed out to recess where all of my classmates circled around me knowing JFK was like a member of our family… three years earlier, I had traipsed around the state with my father to his speeches and to his senate office in DC and i can still feel my heart almost beating out of my chest every time i’d get to greet him and shake his hand… and then the inauguration and his address that stirred a nation and now, 1000 days later, we’d be heading back to DC for the state funeral… today, i’m both a 9 year old living in Camelot on the brink of a new world and a 12 year old taking comfort in hearing strains of “We Shall Overcome” rising from the somber and dignified crowds of people gathered to say goodby to our fallen leader…

may we take this moment, this beautiful moment, to salute all poetic peace pilgrims with JFK’s invocation of peace in the quotations above and the video below of the whole speech that is magnificent…   these quotations come from this greatest speech of his ever, a commencement address given at American University some four and a half months before he was gunned down in Dallas… these words live on eternally as a clarion call for a peace for all time…

may we all awaken to the wisdom of this radical (rooted) vision of peace…

“Oh Great Spirit who dwells in the sky,
lead us to the path of peace and understanding,
let all of us live together as brothers and sisters.
Our lives are so short here, walking upon Mother Earth’s surface,
let our eyes be opened to all the blessings you have given us.
Please hear our prayers, Oh Great Spirit.”

~Native American Prayer~

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“PEACE IS A DAILY, A WEEKLY, A MONTHLY PROCESS, GRADUALLY CHANGING OPINIONS, SLOWLY ERODING OLD BARRIERS, QUIETLY BUILDING NEW STRUCTURES. AND HOWEVER UNDRAMATIC THE PURSUIT OF PEACE, THAT PURSUIT MUST GO ON.”

~JFK~

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in this creation moment of eternity bathed in the waters of gaia’s womb, may we wage peace…

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