Eggs and peace

The Pysanky class on Sunday went really well. Some really beautiful eggs were created and a good time was had by all. I love seeing the eggs people make. Everyone is so creative and this medium is so forgiving that anyone can get good results. Everyone wants to come back next year and do more. Petra's mother may even get me to come and teach their Tole painting group. That might be fun. What a bunch of creative people would be represented there. Hopefully some time in the next week or so I can sit down and spend some time doing eggs myself whilst the dyes are fresh. I only got to do one egg yesterday and that doesn't feel like enough.

After the class ocean_song and I went downtown to the Candlelight Vigil. There were probably about 250 people there. We couldn't seem to manage a silent vigil... strains of Dona Nobis Pachem, Let There Be Peace on Earth, and other songs of peace would start somewhere in the crowd and soon everyone was singing. I liked that better than silence. Afterward people came forward and spoke. They were unmiked and many were inaudible but the ones I could hear were quite heartfelt and moving. The most amazing offering was a theater professor from San Jose State said he had a speech from Martin Luther King against the Viet Nam war on his Palm and offered to read it to us. We should think "Iraq" when he said "Vietnam" and "terrorism" when he said "communism". Okay. MLK was a prophet there is no doubt about it. What an amazing speech. I had read it before, but hearing it spoken and in this context was very moving and wonderful. A pdf of MLK's speech.

And speaking about peace initiatives. Have you seen An Alternative to War for Defeating Saddam Hussein? This is a religious initiative that came out of a meeting between religious leaders and Tony Blair back in February. It seems to me to be another credible alternative. They are asking folks to endorse it and "Tell President George Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan that Saddam Hussein can be disarmed without war."

My day continues

I spent the morning mostly getting the tech reports ready for the annual report. I'm still missing electronic copies from one department. *sigh*

I confess I also spent time printing out stories about Rachel Corrie and the situation in Palestine. I found this excerpt from an email from Rachel Corrie to her parents about why she is there quite moving, esp. in light of her sacrifice. I also printed out this article from CounterPunch about the Iron Wall, a concept I have only heard about recently but which dates back to the 1920's. I really wish the Israeli government would stop being poster children for the aphorism about becoming the thing you hate. Learn to share and play with the other folks living in the land! Get over these colonial ambitions.

Marina came by and we went to Miyake for lunch. That was a lovely interlude. We are still plotting what rose to put on my newly expanded hill of roses. I am wavering between a lovely smelling David Austin Othello or Prospero or a hybrid tea that I *really* wanted back in the early 1970's and had no place to plant. It is called Matador and it is lovely yellow red reverse but very lightly scented. *ponder*

This afternoon I finished off the tech reports (except for the 4-5 from the one department). I am officially not happy about this! I am feeling unsupported.

I posted the info I got at the vigil last night about San Jose City Council voting on an Anti-War Resolution tomorrow. mactavish pointed me at the sanjose but it is very small and new so this is probably just whistling in the wind. (I also posted it to sfbayarea)

And I joined the yahoo mailing list for the Season For Nonviolence. They are sending out daily meditations and I thought I could use having such a thing drop into my box for the next couple of week. There is supposed to be an event on the last day (4/4/03) here in San Jose but I don't have good info about it. It was announced at the vigil last night but the url from the flyer (which I copied off the one ocean_song got as there weren't enough to go around) doesn't have any info up. *sigh* I have always liked the idea of the Gandhi-King Season For Nonviolence, so I'm glad this finally got me involved even if tardily.

Off to bellydancing!›