Special Messages of Peace
Next, Yuka Saionji introduced the first of two guest speakers who recorded special messages for the SOPP. The first, Mr. Ben Bowler, is the Executive Director of UNITY EARTH, a global network of peace-aligned people and organizations who come together as a community and support each other in their work to make the world a safer, more peaceful, and more inclusive place. UNITY EARTH regularly hosts programs to bring people together in support of peace, spiritual and cultural diversity, traditional wisdom, and harmony with nature, including World Unity Week in June 2022 and Peace Week in September 2022.
Yuka began by showing a clip from an online event in December 2021 called The Longest Night, which was hosted by UNITY EARTH, with the purpose of reflecting on the struggles and pain that humanity has faced during the past two years. Byakko Shinko Kai was invited to offer the Divine Spark IN, as a way to purify and awaken humanity and its struggles, and the video clip showed the IN being performed for all participants.
Yuka then gave a short introduction of Mr. Bowler, who has worked with Byakko Shinko Kai and its sister organization May Peace Prevail On Earth International since 2016. The organizations have collaborated on events such as flag ceremonies and peace pole dedications in locations around the world.
Ben Bowler, Executive Director of UNITY EARTH
Greetings beloved family!
My name is Ben Bowler from UNITY EARTH. I am deeply honoured to be with you on this great occasion, the Symphony of Peace Prayers. I am honoured to have been asked by Yuka-san from Byakko Shinko Kai to be here with you, to be a part of this global important gathering and moment of reflection for peace, for compassion and for healing. Thank you for the generous introduction.
At UNITY EARTH, over these many years, we have been on a journey around the world, to sacred sites in many different parts of the world, bringing cultures together for unity, purpose and peace. And so many times, we have been partnering with Byakko Shinko Kai and May Peace Prevail On Earth International through our beloved Deborah Moldow and Fumi Johns Stewart. We have been working together now for many years, for which I am deeply grateful. The peace poles have been such an important part of the journey of UNITY EARTH around the world, both in a lead-up on the road to 2020 and ever since then. And of course, the flag ceremony—from the African Union to the Washington Mall and so many places around the world, we have collaborated deeply in a spirit of brotherhood and sisterhood. So, it is my great privilege and pleasure to be with you today. The Symphony of Peace Prayers have never been more needed.
Some of our events over these years have taken us to sacred places around the world including ‘Holy Land Living Water,’ where again in partnership with Fumi-san and May Peace Prevail On Earth International, we brought together a hundred spiritual delegates from all across the earth—indigenous people, religious people, people of the heart, people of good will, people of spiritual aspirations—to go through the Holy Land and to really be a part of this healing for the water, for the land and for humanity. We went to sacred sites. This photo outside the front of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem is a great example of intercultural community coming together for UNITY EARTH. And here we have indigenous, spiritual, and religious groups, NGOs—many organizations that have a similar objective of working together, to stand together for unity and peace in this time. You see here the power of the feminine as well, so beautifully expressed. Intercultural, interracial, international, interfaith, inter-spiritual gathering is such a strong and powerful force. And we are so proud and delighted to be partnering with Byakko Shinko Kai in so many places around the world.
This [photo] was at the end of the ‘Caravan of Unity’ across America. This is October 2020. We see here Dr. Marty K. Casey, one of our beloved partners from UnGUN Institute. It was a gathering with all of the flags in a flag ceremony and that magnificent peace pole at the Lincoln Memorial on the Washington Mall, to conclude the ceremony and prayers of this extraordinary gathering.
So many different places. This [photo] is in New York. And again, we have people from all around the world—Africa, India, Australia, the United States, South America—coming together as one people of the heart and one song, to give support. Here we see Chief Dwaine Perry and his sacred lands. We came with prayer and with purpose. This was in February 2019. These are just some of the events that have happened all over the world.
Music is so important for this work. And you see here [in this photo] the great artists Pato Banton and Antoinette Rootsdawtah, Kristin Hoffmann, Rhiannon Catalyst—so many that have come together, including Lixin the Mystic Voice from China. This was at a high school in New York, where they were bringing musical equipment to the disadvantaged community, but also a spirit of hope—a spirit of peace and good will between all people, all races, all religions, coming together as one.
This great theme of bringing out compassion within, that we are celebrating today, and healing energy for the earth, is such a significant one as we build up together toward World Unity Week in June. This is the third collaboration of hundreds of global organizations, including May Peace Prevail On Earth International. Many are coming together for unity and peace in our time. This is an expression of bringing out the compassion within our hearts, out into healing of the earth and of all life. This is our moment; this is our opportunity. And this year, we are building towards the International Day of Peace, which is Wednesday the 21st of September, 2022, and a global collaboration to unite peace movements in what is being celebrated as Peace Week 2022. We look forward to walking with you and working with you for the realization of these grand and beautiful collaborations and convergences of the heart.
Dear friends, blessings on this day, on this Symphony of Peace Prayers. We are hand in hand together. UNITY EARTH is so deeply honoured to be walking with you and to bless Byakko Shinko Kai and all the work of all the many hands. To the relatives in Japan, thank you. We are with you. We are one with you in the heart. And with the spirit above and the spirit within, we will continue to cultivate compassion within ourselves, so that we may be about the great work of healing this earth and restoring the right relationship to spirit and to goodness and to beauty and to truth. Thank you. Deep blessings. Much gratitude to Yuka-san and all of the leaders and everybody who is working there, from the youth right across the organization. We value you so much. Your work is crucial and critical. And together we can continue to achieve this great mission—unity and peace on earth.
Yuka thanked Mr. Bowler for his inspiring message and for working together with Byakko and other organizations in forging new movements for peace, becoming part of the ‘SOPP family.’
She then introduced the second special guest, Mr. Duane Elgin. Mr. Elgin is an internationally recognized speaker, author, and social visionary who received the Goi Peace Award in 2006. His recent project, Choosing Earth, is a project “to foster understanding of the magnitude, speed and depth of challenges confronting humanity and the creative opportunities for transformation.” The Choosing Earth website (choosingearth.org) features a free PDF of Mr. Elgin’s book, as well as the documentary film Facing Adversity: Choosing Earth, Choosing Life, which “explores the speed, depth and magnitude of our growing planetary crisis, and the opportunity we have to meet this crisis consciously.”
Duane Elgin, Co-Director of Choosing Earth
Many people assume that we live in a universe comprised of dead matter and empty space. And this is truly a dark night of the soul, if that is the kind of world we inhabit. Fortunately, ancient wisdom and modern science are coming together, and they are viewing the universe in a new way. Instead of dead at the foundation, it is increasingly viewed as a living system in its totality.
And certainly, at the foundation of all humanity and all of our lives and our life experience, is the direct experience of being alive. And it is this experience of profound aliveness that we share with all creatures and all humans.
Sometimes, I will say to nature, “Surprise me!” And within a few moments, I will see the flight of a bee, or the architecture of a flower. There is an astonishing degree of beauty and design in nature’s creations.
We all know the earth is in trouble. We are being called to come in to a more intimate and healing relationship with all of life. So, I would like to leave you with a simple practice. I encourage you to pause for a few moments during the course of a day, and ask the universe to surprise you. Then, open your awareness to the soft, luminous qualities throughout nature. Notice how pausing to touch into your experience of aliveness shifts your experience. From this place of aliveness, I send you blessings and love on behalf of the well-being of all life.