Geelong, Australia

report by Jenny Funston

We held our SOPP in Geelong this year on the same theme as the event at Fuji Sanctuary: “Circulation — a world connected by prayer.” We honoured the four elements of air, water, earth, and fire, then used Koshi chimes to join the prayer energies, and lit the Peace Flame as a beginning to our ceremony. We had a collection of soft toys arranged around a small globe to denote the diversity of humanity and all life—all different, yet all accepted and loved.

A group of Byakko prayer colleagues performed the Divine Spark IN. Following this, participants were asked to take a little time for quiet meditation, then choose a number of positive words at random from a basket and reflect on what these words meant to them, allowing their intuition to guide them. They were encouraged to take their words home and make use of them over the next few days.

Each participant shared their own prayer for peace, and then we offered prayers for peace in each country of the world, using the national flags. The emcee called out the name of each nation, after which we all said together, “Peace is in (name of country).” After this, we recited Masami Saionji’s Prayer of Oneness. To close the ceremony we walked around all the flags, ringing the Koshi chimes and sounding the peace bowl that I made in Ireland, focusing our attention on all world countries, honouring their existence and all that dwells therein.