Harmony Moon's World Peace Wish Tree

 You may have noticed the World Peace Wish Tree in our front window at Harmony Moon, the one with all the colorful tags tied to its branches.  We started this tradition at Harmony Moon many years ago and it has been our most popular holiday activity ever since. 

 Our Wish Tree is based on an ancient Japanese tradition.  During the annual Tanabata Festival in Japan, bamboo stalks are placed at strategic locations in a public square or park.  People write their wishes on slips of paper and tie them to the bamboo trees.  At the end of the festival, the bamboo stalks,  with all of their wishes, are burned.  The fire takes the wishes of the people up to the heavens to be heard by the gods.

The Imagine Peace Tower of Light in Iceland

Our Wish Tree is inspired by Yoko Ono’s Imagine Peace project.  Yoko’s Wish Tree art installations were started as a way to memorialize her husband, John Lennon, after his death.  Wish Trees have been installed all over the globe and more than one million visitors have tied their wishes for world peace to the trees.  The wishes then are gathered together and buried under the Imagine Peace Tower in  Reykjavík, Iceland. 

The Pathway of Peace in Washington, D

When Harmony Moon (then known as Mindful Hands) was in Alexandria, VA, we would gather our Wish Tree wishes in a basket every year and walk them down the Pathway of Peace in front of the White House and then burn them in the National Yule Log. 

This year, we will gather all of your wishes and send them off to the Imagine Peace Tower where they will be combined with thousands of other wishes from people all over the world.

In this way our wishes will become part of the Tower of Light, a grand visual reminder to the world that “peace & love is what connects all lives on Earth.”

Celebrate the International Day of Peace!

“A peace is of the nature of a conquest; for then both parties nobly are subdued, and neither party loser.”  

                 - William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 2

In 1981, The United Nations declared each September 21^st to be an International Day of Peace, an annual day of worldwide non-violence and cease-fire.   Since the first commemoration of the day in 1982, Peace Day has grown to include almost every community and nation in celebrations worldwide. 

This year’s Peace Day events begin with the ringing of the Peace Bell at the UN headquarters in New York City.  A moment of silence will be observed at noon and there will be a 24-hour global broadcast of Peace Day events around the world.  The Peace One Day celebration will include performances by internationally acclaimed artists in front of the Peace Palace in the Hague.

Check our website for a live broadcast of activities around the world.

Join in the festivities by locating a Peace Day celebration in your area or creating one of your own.  And maybe, just maybe, one day of peace will grow into 365.  

You can call me a dreamer ....

For more information:

• International Day of Peace
• Peace One Day
• United Nations: Peace Day

Prayer Wheels in Tibetan Life

If you've ever visited the Himalayan regions of northern India or Nepal, you will see these "wheels on sticks" being twirled everywhere by the old and young alike. Tibetans, being a deeply religious people, believe wholeheartedly in the power of prayer. Prayer wheels are filled inside with handwritten prayers and stamped on the outside with one of the most common Tibetan prayers, "Om Mani Padme Hum," the prayer of compassion. As you spin the wheel, your prayers fly on the wind and are dispersed to the four corners of the world, bringing prayers of peace and loving-kindness to all.

Saving the Children of India

When Anita Edgar, a grandmother from Devon, England, vacationed in India one winter, she was horrified at the hundreds of children living in abject poverty and forced to beg in the streets for a miserable living. When Edgar returned to England, she packed her belongings and went back to India, determined to help these street children however she could.

That was thirteen years ago and she's never looked back. The charity she founded now operates four orphanages, three night shelters, and three independent-living cottages for older children in and around Goa, India. It also operates a children's hospital and "Manna on Wheels," a free food-distribution program. Altogether, the charity's residential programs care for more than two thousand of India's street children.

We are pleased and honored to host Ms. Edgar at Mindful Hands (211 King St, Old Town Alexandria, Virginia) on Thursday, June 18, from 12:30 - 1:30pm. Bring a brown-bag lunch and come hear Ms. Edgar's riveting talk on the activities of her charity and the lives of the street children, both before and after their rescue from the slums of India. Like the film, Slumdog Millionaire, her tale is both profoundly heartbreaking and sublimely uplifiting. Please join us.


To learn more about the El-Shaddai Charitable Trust, visit www.childrescue.net.

Remembering Tiananmen, 20 years after

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1902741,00.html

http://www.newsweek.com/id/200220

Time for Peace?

Have you heard about The Peace Alliance? The Peace Alliance is a grassroots organization lobbying the U.S. Congress to establish a Department of Peace. This cabinet-level position will bring best practices and educational models to resolving conflicts both domestically and abroad.

Too many times, individuals as well as nations react to violence with more violence. Special interest groups often encourage a culture of violence and war because they, directly or indirectly, benefit from it, escalating conflicts beyond control and beyond any hope for reconciliation.

Well, the old models clearly aren't working. It's time to change our way of thinking. We need to replace our current paradigm of competition with one of cooperation, replace conflict with consensus and reconciliation, move away from a world segregated along special interests to one united under humanitarian interests.

Let's try some new ideas, let's try peace.

Vote for Peace: http://www.change.org/ideas/view/appoint_secretary_of_peace_in_department_of_peace_and_non-violence

Read more about The Peace Alliance.

Peace Traditions: Japanese Peace Cranes

"Peace Crane, I will write peace on your wings and you will fly all over the world" (Sadako Sasaki, age 12)

A Japanese legend asserts that folding 1,000 paper cranes will bring peace, health, and good fortune to the folder. Sadako Sasaki, born in Hiroshima, Japan, was only 12 years old when she died of leukemia, the "atom bomb disease." She had folded 644 paper cranes. Her classmates folded the rest so that 1,000 paper cranes were buried with her. The statue erected in Hiroshima Peace Park in honor of Sadako is inscribed with her wish for the world: "This is our cry, this is our prayer: peace in the world."

Peace Traditions: Tibetan Prayer Flags

In Tibet, prayer flags flutter everywhere. They are strung from the highest mountains and across the lowliest valleys. Tibetans believe that, as the flags flutter in the breeze, the "lungta" or windhorse will carry your prayers for peace and compassion to all the world.

World Peace Begins With Inner Peace

Living a harmonious life means working towards developing that inner peace that can then result in increased caring for others, leading ultimately to world peace. One of my most favorite quotes about world peace comes from His Holiness, the Dalai Lama:

"World Peace must develop from Inner Peace. Peace is not the absence of violence, peace is the manifestation of human compassion."

"The Peace That Brings Happiness"

One of my favorite things is the musical compositions of Tibetan singer, Dechen Shak-Dagsey. "Shi De" is Tibetan for "the peace that brings happiness." Dechen Shak-Dagsey, the daughter of a Tibetan lama, adds her crystalline voice to these hauntingly beautiful original compositions. With titles such as "Care for the Animals," "Care for the Environment," and "A World Without Weapons," these songs are an appeal to all people to tune into their higher selves for the sake of world harmony.