daily haikuchrist buddha allah
we all celebrate their birth
mystery and peace
The Peace Tree
by Christine Valentine
Our tradition started so many years ago that I can’t remember exactly when it began. When my first husband was alive I bought a flock of 24 Chinese paper doves. I perched them on pine boughs placed around pictures, windows, doorways etc and they looked very pretty.
After I remarried I bought a large white dove made of feathers and started decorating a small tree in my kitchen with little white lights, all the paper doves, and the large dove crowning the top of the tree. The year that Americans were taken hostage in Iran I wrote a prayer for their safety and placed it in the beak of the large dove. After Christmas, on Twelfth Night I burned the prayer with some cedar in a small personal ceremony.
Each year this tradition continues. My family looks forward to the peace tree, and my friends ask, “Will you put up your peace tree this year?” Prayers for those involved in wars continue, not just for the soldiers but the people of those countries who are hurt, dying and dead: the Gulf War, Bosnia Herzegovina, Afghanistan, Iraq, Congo, Ethiopia, Darfur, Haiti, Israel and the middle east, and Kenya, among others.
by Christine Valentine
Our tradition started so many years ago that I can’t remember exactly when it began. When my first husband was alive I bought a flock of 24 Chinese paper doves. I perched them on pine boughs placed around pictures, windows, doorways etc and they looked very pretty.
After I remarried I bought a large white dove made of feathers and started decorating a small tree in my kitchen with little white lights, all the paper doves, and the large dove crowning the top of the tree. The year that Americans were taken hostage in Iran I wrote a prayer for their safety and placed it in the beak of the large dove. After Christmas, on Twelfth Night I burned the prayer with some cedar in a small personal ceremony.
Each year this tradition continues. My family looks forward to the peace tree, and my friends ask, “Will you put up your peace tree this year?” Prayers for those involved in wars continue, not just for the soldiers but the people of those countries who are hurt, dying and dead: the Gulf War, Bosnia Herzegovina, Afghanistan, Iraq, Congo, Ethiopia, Darfur, Haiti, Israel and the middle east, and Kenya, among others.
The paper doves are falling apart now. I fix them with tape and hang them anyway, because always there is a war somewhere, always I need to write a prayer and burn it on Twelfth Night. I look forward to a Christmas when I do not have to write a prayer because there is no war.
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Oh wise one, how did you manage also to write in your blog with all that you've been doing lately? Thanks for sharing the picture of the peace tree. You had shared the haiku and article earlier.
ReplyDeleteMay your Christmas be blessed, peaceful, and full of love.
And may 2010 be full of acceptances from prestigious magazines and contests.