22 April 2008

Peace and love alone means...


It was too dull to paint. The light was simply not good enough for close work. I have been writing. I could easily prefer writing to painting.

Today's writing was for the peace blog. I am going to try writing the weekend posts. You can't read my bits until Saturday and Sunday. You can read the blog every day, though, the link is on the right of this page.

I want to write about building a culture of peace without making the job look too big to even start, without being too negative or moralistic. I have decided that the only way I can do that is to write from the heart.

I am going to use the cropped photograph above as a metaphor. I sent it to Bruno. I told him I thought the blog was too heavy, too grey, like my palette. I want colour, and I want optimism. Not surprisingly, perhaps, he invited me to write too. It is almost impossible to write that way when you are writing about what is happening in the world.

I started by writing about things I have seen, things I have felt. If it is real for me, maybe it will touch someone else too. I have written two posts. They are grey. Light grey. I don't know how to write colour. Do you write colour with peace and love? "Peace and love alone means nothing!" said my friend. I am still thinkng about that one.

Peace and love, awareness through education, followed by reflection and resulting in action might mean something. Painting, writing, talking. Is that action?

Today I visited the New Zealand memorial at the railway station in Cassino. If I clear away the grass and plant more flowers there on Anzac Day commuters will notice it once more.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them
A tiny action, very very tiny, but it is a place to start.
I googled "culture of peace". You have to persist and click refresh to get to many of the pages. Maybe that is a better metaphor... persist, refresh, click a mouse and not a trigger.

I found that today is Earth Day. That is also a good place to start. Resources is what it is all about, really.

If anyone knows of any writing about peace that has substance and colour, please send it to me.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I can see it all at the railway station. When I stood there the weeds were there and a wilted wreath lay on them but somehow that didn't seem to matter. Pull some weeds for me and remember them. Cat

Kay said...

That same wreath is still there. It is down to the plastic base. I have watched its decline. I keep meaning to ask the embassy to send me one to replace it. Next year, for certain. But before would be better. Four years on and noone has thrown away a faded wreath. It sits almost on the platform of a busy station, respected in its dismal faded state.

Kay said...

I had to smile when I checked this tonight. I have used a capital letter for Peace. The subconscious gets it right again...