|
OccupyValentine
The current Occupy Together movement to me demonstrates the emerging global culture and community. Community isn't just a noun it's active and means people building something together – working on a common project – (Cum-munio). On my visit to Occupy St Paul's it was stated - “To enter into a conversation with a stranger about social or economic justice is one form of the growing movement.”
I started the Valentine Peace Project as a community project in February of 2005 to get a conversation going on peace - during the many school activities of Valentine's Day in the US (where it's more of a Community Valentine - kids give Valentines to everyone in the class) – to reflect on love and community along with the focus on romance. (I don't have anything against romance- being gay however I'm rarely reflected in February marketing).
What I want to create is an opportunity to express love in community, love in the streets, love's requests on us. The world religions were built on the foundation of love so it's really just getting back to basics! And the work to get back to opening up love to its many definitions from the ancient world – and now our future one.
ValentinePeace
Love wraps itself around peace like the many hundreds of submitted poems that volunteers and I have wrapped around flower stems for more than five years. Thanks to One World Flowers, FTD, Global Flower Trading, and the Dutch Flower Council this included thousands of roses, carnations and also whichever flower volunteers brought along from their garden or local outdoor market. The Faitrtrade movement has grown to include flowers among its many products and this has become a part of the Project - to underline economic justice in our symbols of peace and love. Carnations recently released through Gaza by the Dutch and Israeli government also became tools for the Project.
 As stated in The Occupied Times of London – it's time for 'New institutions to match new cultural realities.' I become a social entrepreneur out of my theatrical artist background and plan to build all-year flower and art products as tools for social change and development. Ideas include an original tulip breed dedicated and working for peace in the world. Poetry as a promotional tool for Fairtrade flowers. And events around Peace Day and Valentine's Day to draw attention to peace, justice, love and reflection in our lives as well as organisations working on peace - whether that's conflict resolution, economic development, education or creative awareness and global citizenship.
***
Re-imagine Valentine's Day
Make a card and give it to a stran ger or friend. Give out flowers purchased for someone - together - on the street or a train or at a bus stop. Bring flowers and poems to a resthome. Give out wishes or paper flowers. These are activities students participating in the Project have done for more than five years. There 's no limit to the creativity. With all the commercial romance imagery soon to be floating in your hemisphere – think about Peace – what it means to you and where you locate it in your own life and community and see it building in the World.
PEACE 2.0
The US Peace Alliance has recently launched the National Peace Academy. MasterPeace is building momentum in the Netherlands, Egypt and across the globe. Peace One Day is working on their Global Truce 2012. The budding Peace in Five Years evolved to SafeConflict; Vision of Humanity has launched the Global Peace Index; and London's Peace Direct is creating a US office in their work supporting local peacebuilders around the globe – listed at Insight on Conflict. Out of the Arab Spring there is a lot to be thankful for as well as a lot of work to do with the means to do it. As the Occupy and other recent seasonal movements have indicated – digital technology brings us closer together and makes dictators tremble. Seize the moment!
***
Enjoy a Community Valentine this year – and Occupy the Day for Love AND Peace that's meaningful (and fun!) for you.
Sign up for our newsletter on the right and keep tabs on me as I work to bring the flower trade into alliance with the peace movement – through an original tulip, through FUNdraising flowers, through post-conflict agriculture and art and poetry peace products – helping build the new paradigm of business for social change – one flower at a time.
Thank you.
Founding Director,
Federico Hewson
***
Occupy Your Heart by Rebecca Solnit
Nothing has been more moving to me than this desire, realized imperfectly but repeatedly, to connect across differences, to be a community, to make a better world, to embrace each other. This desire is what lies behind those messy camps, those raucous demonstrations, those cardboard signs and long conversations. Young activists have spoken to me about the extraordinary richness of their experiences at Occupy, and they call it love.
In the spirit of calling things by their true names, let me summon up the description that Ella Baker and Martin Luther King used for the great communities of activists who stood up for civil rights half a century ago: the beloved community. Many who were active then never forgot the deep bonds and deep meaning they found in that struggle. We -- and the word "we" encompasses more of us than ever before -- have found those things, too, and this year we have come close to something unprecedented, a beloved community that circles the globe.
  
|
 Join us on Facebook
|
|
Frontpage Slideshow (version 2.0.0) - Copyright © 2006-2008 by JoomlaWorks
|
|
|
|
|
VPP Poems
Before the night dies again on my lips,
flash a sign from there my love,
make a sign of life- so that I can live
ending howls in sounds of peace
From To a Soldier, Ada Aharoni, Israel
Ieder deel onderdeel
Samen een geheel
Afzonderlijk nietig en klein
Groots Samen Zijn
All individual pieces
Part of a whole
Negligible and small on their own
Together make something big
Anja, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Instead of wanting roses
Or chocolates (just a few)
What I want, from the heart,
Is peace from me to you.
From Roxanne, Marlborough School, Los Angeles
One day...
when the dust settles
and the rain washes us clean
The story of the olive tree will emerge.
From Planted Olive Trees, Anonymous, Bethlehem
Peace is the courage to speak out, shatter comfort, demand justice. .
That Buddha is not napping . . he's resting from a conflict resolution conference
with his roommate.
He is considering the next move he will make to stir petals into beauty.
From Painted Blossoms, Kimberly Wilder, New York, USA
Teniamo sempre in riserva il nostro azzurro in tasca,
ci potrebbe essere utile sempre.
Inseriamo nella nostra tasca oltre l'azzurro del mare e del cielo
l'arcobaleno e sicuri avremo per sempre la pace.
Let’s save our blue sky in our pocket, it can be used always and everywhere
If we take in our pocket the blue of the sky, the blue from the sea and a little bit of rainbow
We will be sure to have peace forever….
From Peace (Pace), Alberto Teodori, Rome, Italy
Oh, Cupid and your bow of Peace
If you use the bow to bring the world together
Nobody will ever be alone. .
Our steps to love and peace are
Larger than you know.
From Oh Cupid, Megan Kincaid, Paul Revere School, Los Angeles, USA
I have always been able to find it. In Myself.
In a Book that inspires me. In Family.
In my Dad's cooking. In Friends.
In the eyes of a stranger. In a soup kitchen.
In an airport. The key is to never stop looking.
From Love, Courtney, Marlborough School, Los Angeles, CA, USA
We celebrate your gift
However vaguely remembered
By romantics and poets Your love essence remains
Yet we only know it now as a dress rehearsal . .
But a higher love beckons
One we will yet experience
From Letter to St. Valentine, Sophia La Toa, New Zealand
This poem isn't here to make you feel guilt,
But to make you stop and think about the world around us.
So that maybe one day.
We can enjoy
A day where we appreciate
some chocolate, or a homemade card.
From Laura, Marlborough School, Los Angeles, CA, USA
The world reflects back digging deep down inside . .
The doors are open to a whole new store . .
The past is gone, things you must live without . .
Away, away, away, peace is everywhere.
From Justin Ruder, Paul Revere School, Los Angeles, CA, USA
I have a poem for peace to the world
A poem that'll never accept dictatorships
A poem that'll victoriously shine in the midst
of darkness to steer the world for light
From I Have a Poem, Walter Keyombe, Nairobi, Kenya
Art contains the essence of what is deepest in each of us. .
Although you are far & I do not know your face
I know your heart . . you are the white doves
you are the glory of peace.
From The Glory of Peace, Ammar Banni, Algeria, Africa
To keep home you must see beauty
To see beauty you must know love
To know love you must learn to fly
From Fly to Love, Wayne Visser, England
It's Cupid's day off, And in his place
Is a Cupid with the same face
But a different mission, a different cause
The sub for Cupid will be waiting . .
From Cupid's Day Off, Ali Ryan-Plasil, Paul Revere School, Los Angeles
It is contained in the marvelous crystalline lattice,
held by the heart strings, plucked like a harp,
We are here for just an instant and vanish like a snowflake. .
But the heart, the heart- it lasts forever.
From The Crystalline Lattice, Terri Glass, San Francisco, CA, USA
Let go of everything you know
And let all become new . .
By seeing the beauty in all things . .
From Student, Boise, Idaho, USA
Ne rêves-tu pas d’un monde meilleur? D’un monde nouveau, bâti sur de vraies valeurs, Une vraie justice, Où l’Amour et la paix règnent en vainqueur! Toi et moi devons y contribuer.
(Don't you dream of a better world? A new world, built on real values, real justice, where Love and Peace win. You and I must contribute to this.)
From Amour, A. Soro, Ivory Coast, Africa
|
|
