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Peace Pilgrim Celebration

Tue, 30 Jul 2024 16:11:29 GMT

Embodying Peace Everyday

Three members of Community Assemblies of New Jersey, Marcelle McGovern, Gayla Olson and Laura Jurkiewicz attended a celebration of the late Peace Pilgrim, a woman who walked over 25,000 miles on foot, for peace. The celebration was held in Peace Pilgrim Park in Egg Harbor City, NJ, where Peace Pilgrim (born Mildred Norman) was born and raised, and also where she resided when she was not on the road.

The picnic gathering included song, fellowship and a ten-minute audio recording of one of Peace Pilgrim’s many talks which she gave while travelling on the road for peace. We sat in a circle under a canopy of pine trees in “receptive silence” as Peace Pilgrim called it, taking in the strength of her words and wisdom.

Who was Peace Pilgrim? Born in 1908, she lived through the nuclear age and threat of the cold war and atomic bomb. In 1953, during the Korean War, she decided to walk 25,000 miles on foot for peace. After meeting her goal of 25,000 miles, she continued walking the rest of her life until her death in 1981 at age 73. She believed that in order to achieve outer peace, we must each strive for inner peace.

“The situation of the world is a reflection of our own immaturity. If we were mature, harmonious people, war would be no problem whatever, --it would be impossible.”

Peace Pilgrim crossed the country many times, all on foot, with no supplies, relying only on the kindness of others to supply her with food, water, and shelter. She wore a tunic which read “Peace Pilgrim” on the front and “25,000 miles on foot for peace” on the back. This got people’s attention which she used to spread her message. She never asked people for anything, she accepted only what was offered from folks. In return, she gave talks at local churches and community halls whenever she was invited, which was a lot.

Peace Pilgrim often said that she wanted each town to start a “Community Peace Fellowship” where they could reflect on peace and then take steps in the community to achieve it. If more and more towns and cities had a “Peace Fellowship” she felt it could truly change society. We felt this intention and so many of Peace Pilgrim’s teachings align with those that inspired the forming of the Community Assemblies of New Jersey, in the British Isles, and all the Assemblies of the World.

Peace Pilgrim firmly believed that “A few really dedicated people can offset the ill effects of masses of out-of-harmony people.” We share her believe that as more and more people embrace and embody peace everyday, the world will inevitably change.

Peace Pilgrim also stressed being positive over being negative and being very deliberate in the thoughts we choose to believe.

“When evil is attacked, it mobilizes, and, although it may have been weak and unorganized before, the attack gives it validity and strength. When there is no attack but instead good influences…the evil tends to fade away…”

Rather than pushing against or giving our power away through reactions to what we do not want in this world, we have the option to be creators and focus on the peace and harmony that we want to build and embody. If the Peace Pilgrim can come out of the dense materialism of being born a "Jersey Girl" and align with her own inner peace any of us can!

You can learn more about Peace Pilgrim's life and her message on the website www.peacepilgrim.org where you can also order or download a free copy of her pamphlet Steps Toward Inner Peace.

(all of the quotes in this article are taken from Peace Pilgrims free pamphlet Steps Toward Inner Peace)

Flower Mandala for Peace

"One little person giving all of her time to peace makes news; Many people giving some of their time makes history."

Peace Pilgrim Wisdom

"World peace will

be stable when

enough of us find

inner peace
to stabilize it. "

Eco-Alternatives to Glyphosate

Mon, 06 May 2024 15:06:09 GMT

Moving from Feeling Powerless to Empowered

For many years, I have been concerned about glyphosate use on our farms, roads, playgrounds and parks to kill weeds as it is carcinogenic and has been also proven toxic to our beloved pollinators. I often felt powerless to do much about the widespread use of a known toxin and felt discouraged seeing it for sale in such large quantities when walking into Home Depot. I was also very disturbed to learn that even our local wildflower preserve uses RoundUp weedkillers to kill the roots of invasive species...and they are supposed to be naturalists who care about the environment! I felt disgusted and a bit depressed when I also learned recently that our local parks and schools all use it, so I jumped at the chance to do something when my dear friend and acupuncturist, Mary Parr, invited me to be a part of a proactive new local group she calls "Coalition for the Land".

After seeing the film "Into the Weeds" at an event sponsored by this coalition, I felt sad and powerless at first and then angry and discouraged that we humans are poisoning ourselves and our fellow living beings on this planet with proven carcinogens and allowing corporations to get away with not even paying those who rightfully sue them who get cancer from their products! I cried while watching the film as the man with cancer whom the film is about seemed to be slowly and painfully dying before our eyes and although he won the lawsuit again Monsanto, they are lowering the payout amount each time they appeal it and he may never see any of that money in the end. I reallyhated feeling so powerless & wanted to move up the scale of emotions beyond anger and reconnect with my heart so I began doing some heart-coherent breathing techniques to inch my way closer to the frequency where creative solutions are apparent.

After the film, I spoke with an environmentalist who had worked for the last 40 years on glyphosate abatement and a representative from the NorthEast Organic Farming Association of NJ (NOAFNJ) who both informed me that we could break down glyphosate already in our soils using probiotics, especially the ones that are in sauerkraut juice. I felt so empowered to be able to DO something proactive and not just feel powerless and hopeless. I also learned that the most effective non-toxic weed killers use a more concentrated form of acetic acid than the white vinegars we use for food products and I went and bought some 45% white vinegar online to mix with dish soap and epsom salts to spray on my own patio and share with my neighbors.

The Coalition for the Land is starting by working with getting local park services to switch from using RoundUp /glyphosate to using an acetic acid product that is non-toxic made by Contact Organics Our next action step is to see how the land steward Mike Long and his team from Mercer County Parks plan to use their tests of Contact Organics . All of us are also encouraged to begin reaching out to nature conservancies and see if they are interested in learning more about Contact Organics as a viable alternative to Round-Up.

I am so grateful to be able to "Zoom Out" and look at the bigger picture of what we can do incrementally on the local level to switch to weed-killers that are honoring of the birds, bees, humans and Mother Earth while also using natural ways to clean our soils and be able to grow organic foods in our own back yards. I hope to share these ideas with my own newly forming Community Assembly of Lawrence and to others at our summer FreedomFest gathering on the 4th of July. Feeling empowered so rocks that one just has to share it and pay it forward!

Please reach out directly to Mary Parr at Sourland Wellness (609)793-9981 to find out how you can help, to volunteer to make calls in your area, or to apply what we have learned in your local area and Community Assembly.

Connect & Thrive: Finding the Roots to the Healer Within

Sat, 27 Apr 2024 21:42:29 GMT

Connect and Thrive: Finding the Roots to the Healer Within

"The whole is greater than the sum of our parts". - Aristotle

Everything is connected. Our health is directly related to the conditions around and within us. We are interdependent and interconnected to the immediate land, our food, air and water. We also have an energetic system that includes our spiritual power. The spiritual sciences give us proof that we have the ability to also connect with souls that have passed away. We are connected and influence each other even beyond the grave.

Buddhists teach a lifestyle of moderation and to be "self-centered" is part of the Noble path to enlightenment.

We meditate to know ourselves and listen to ourselves better. This allows us to be of service to our community and the world. "Centering" yourself can be emotional, mental and physical. Your intention with each of these helps to inform and fortify the well-being of others. With healthy community resilience we will and do thrive!

"Every sickness, ailment or disease all stem from lack of self-love and self knowledge." - Elena Bensonoff

Let's switch gears to what we have been herded into over the past 200 years. The MIC (medical industrial complex), the health insurance companies and corporate pharmaceutical companies have made it their mission to capture our lives; mind, body and spirit. It's a wicked web that takes us much effort to break free from. But breaking free is what we must do.

The term "allopathic medicine" (AKA western medicine) was coined in 1810. Many years of a slow drip of indoctrination to think that their way is the ONLY way there is, has established this mind-set as the scientifically agreed upon authoritative default. Their way being the ONLY way is the BIG LIE . The MIC has long abandoned the true scientific method to serve greed and power instead of serving humanity.

We deserve the truth.

My direct experience and acquired knowledge over the past 30 + years with clients as a wholistic healthcare practitioner has proven to me beyond the shadow of a doubt that we need to flex our intuitive muscle and get free of this medical cage.

If you have found yourself here searching for a better way, Welcome! Free yourself and your family with your curiosity and your belief in something better. Look here to our website to organize and find upcoming resources listed. We intend to provide alternative, integrative, wholistic and fellow freedom-loving practitioners and organizations.

Let's get back to real solutions. Empower yourself with the wisdom of our ancestors including the Earth allies. The time is now to take notice of your life's conditions and make positive changes.

Welcome to the Age of Aquarius!

Sat, 27 Apr 2024 16:29:19 GMT

Welcome to the Age of Aquarius!

From Laura Jurkiewicz inHightstown:

I was recently watching Canadian geese and how they fly in a V formation with one goose leading and the rest forming two impressively straight lines, fanning out to form an inverted V. Then, to my surprise, one of geese in the

trailing line, breaks formaon and speeds up to replace the leader. The leader immediately moves to the

side, slows down and seamlessly rejoins the middle of the line, while the renegade goose takes the lead.

This transition doesn’t upset any of the other geese and they follow their new leader without any fuss. I

was amazed because I never knew that birds take turns being the leader. This means that cooperative

leadership is part of nature. Other species on this planet actually cooperate. Other species share leadership, understanding that their time at the helm is not more important than the welfare of the whole group. If only our human leaders could show the same cooperation!

Ah, but we are not birds, we are mammals. There is much written about “herd behavior” and the

“alpha male”. It is true that we descended from apes, however we left the primal Savannah long ago. The

social structure that ensured our species the greatest survival rate is no longer necessary for our species

survival, and hasn’t been for many centuries now. What helped humanity thousands of years ago, now

holds us back. It’s more than a new government, it’s a new civilization that we need to create now.

What does that look like? People living in cooperation, leaders serving, not governing. The people govern, our leaders are just trusted servants. Do you trust your government leaders? At the federal

level? At the State level? At the local level? If not, why not? Some sample reasons why we don’t trust

the government that we tell ourselves:

“All politicians are the same”. “It’s just the way it is”. “Power corrupts”. “There’s nothing we can do

about it”. “If we do vote them out, the new politicians are just the same”. “It’s no use trying”. “I give up”. “Let’s just tolerate things because it never changes”....blah blah blah...

I’m not going to thump you over the head with trite Pollyanna euphemisms about how important it is

to vote and how we can change the system, because we can’t change it. That’s right, we can’t change it from within it...we need a whole new kind of government that represents the new way that we want to live. The old system’s cracks are showing & pretty soon the whole system is going to crumble at our feet. When this will happen is anyone’s guess, but it doesn’t matter when this will occur because we don’t have to wait for this to happen to create a new government that works for us. A new path based on attraction and cooperation rather than power over and coercion. As more people join us, the old system will fade away...

Welcome to the age of Aquarius!

To Converge or Not Converge

Sat, 27 Apr 2024 16:29:19 GMT

To Converge or Not Converging

Much to my chagrin, I admit that I’ve spent a good deal of time thinking about building alliances or coalitions. With whom or what organizations can we align? How many shared values and goals make a good match? What tenets are deal-busters? After encounters with varied possible partners, I have yet to come up with a definitive answer, but believe we need to be both very intuitive and carefully mindful about any formal, codified connections. This is not to be exclusionary; we share much with many, and each of us is learning, changing, and evolving. However, as we move forward, we likely want to avoid or delay coalitions that might dilute or distort core values along the way.

Our group has been engaged in identifying potential ally individuals and groups. Our collective efforts are small scale at this point but recently, one of us came across a treatise of sorts based on the concept of Divine Government. Could we align with this group? The document was shared and comments solicited, with varying responses. Those exchanges prompted me to examine my own negative response, with the following result:

Religions and governments are largely antithetical to sovereignty because they build fences around free will. Both control through approval and reward, disapproval and punishment. If you follow the law, you will be approved by society. If you break the law, you will be fined or imprisoned. If you are devout, you will be rewarded. If you sin, you will suffer the wrath. For me, in our existing paradigm, the phrase Divine Government describes less a solution and more the double whammy of a theocracy.

Is my reaction valid? My answer is “Possibly.” Will this same reaction always be valid? My answer is “Probably not.” Adding to that uncertainty, I always reserve the right to simply change my mind. Still, we shouldn’t be stalled by what might be. The only way forward is to connect, converse, and by informing and teaching each other, build a growing consensus.

If you have seen Close Encounters of the Third Kind, you know that the story revolves around many, many people receiving a mental image of Devil’s Tower from soon-to-visit-earth extra-terrestrials. Reactions to the message vary, but for the most part people are driven to understand. Some only wonder, some do countless sketches, and one goes so far as to build a replica of Devil’s Tower on his kitchen table. The point is, each of the invitees has some portion of the image, but none have the whole picture. As the few get closer to Devil’s Mountain, they meet and start sharing their individual details, details that finally get the main characters to the landing site.

Finally, my current thinking is to aim at convergence rather than coalition, community rather than alliance. As we share, the complete image unfolds. Picture many ships crossing an ocean, coming from multiple launch points but all heading for the same port. Through ongoing communication and navigation adjustments, the ships will eventually converge, sailing into harbor in larger and larger groups.