Peace Prevails

With a gentle voice and a determined goal, filmmaker Velcrow Ripper, takes us on a journey to the Ground Zeros of the world, looking for the sacred in the scared. Looking for hope.

Today as I remember so many who have succumb to the destruction brought about by people, I once again watch this hope-filled documentary and remember the peaceful warmth that washed over my body as I stepped out of a bus into lower Manhattan Island where the towers used to stand. It was a calm and warm evening in May and unexpectedly quiet. So silent, that I could hear my heartbeat, steadily… slowly… I am grateful to have walked in this silence with a loving friend along with our daughters who also felt the shift in the energy. Initially, I assumed that I would feel a darkness, a sadness, but I did not.

My heart and thoughts surround so many babies and their mamas all over this beautiful world, as they scramble to protect and deliberately offer a brightness for the future, for a better life… be it in present day Syria or Egypt or through the past.

For:

The people involved in the Union Carbide disaster of Bhopal, India

The people affected by the Killing Fields of Phnom Penh

The people influenced by the siege of Sarajevo

And Auschwitz, and Flanders Field, and Joan of Arc who was burned at the stake.

Hiroshima, Chernobyl, Afghanistan, Rwanda and many many more.

Just as Ripper implores, I too know that no ONE is expendable and I try to make sense of this world that I live in.

And so... I turn to my pen in order to come to grips with what goes on from leader to leader, person to person, and I thank writers, filmmakers, artists, all peacekeeping missions and organizations who promote unity and cooperation that exist around our pearl of a planet. From The Afghan Women’s Network to UNAMIR, I am in awe of their strength of resolve, kindness and understanding and have to believe that our collective spirit is indeed sacred and will prevail.

~ Ellyn