One Mile between Hiroshima and Nagasaki

 Every year we commemorate the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Every year it is the hottest time of year and usually the energy of the town is lethargic. I think back on our commemorations and do not find that that was always true but of late nuclear war has faded from the criticality list of people concerned about the loss of life in Gaza or hundreds of other worries.

 This year the call came out subdued and last minute but with the quiet resolve of Diane Suzuki's voice. We met here at One Mile in strange post rain humid but cool weather and walked a little bit upstream to where two Tai Chi practitioners were completing their forms.

 In the quiet, almost still waters of our drought quieted Big Chico Creek we stood and rang bells at the time of the Hiroshima bombing... we didn't face East, we faced our life giving endangered water.

 We spoke of the inspiration of Ancestors and closed a small circle with the surrender to time and the visage of perhaps more war and suffering to come as balanced by the beauty and nurture we experience in the earth around us... the Good so palpable and available.

 On Saturday, tomorrow, people will meet again... for Nagasaki a busy street corner before our regular Peace Endeavor Vigil... the bells, the cranes, the thoughts and prayers winging on concrete, surrounded by the structures of commerce.

 We read a children's book about the Cherry Tree of Hiroshima, how burned and wounded it was, yet how it has blossomed and created new cherry trees. The legend of the Phoenix, the story of earth, always remaking itself after every seemingly terminal event. All our planet has to do is stay in alignment with its sun and what we do may not matter so much in the very long run.

 But we are here now. Witness to the beauty and seeming stillness within the incredible energy of Livingness and also witness to the degradation, forgetfulness and outright determination to destroy. We are hinged between catastrophes as well as celebrations and ride the solemn peace train forward to the next bend in the river of our lives. We continue to write our wishes on the wings of paper cranes as they fly all over the world. In Loving Memory of all those who have suffered.