In anticipation of the event for New Year’s Eve, there was a lot of internal excitement and trepidation. Since this was my first event, my thoughts were centered on what the people coming would share and experience. Wanting everyone to have a unique and memorable experience, I realized that those who needed and wanted to be here would be. The experience was for those in attendance.

We started out the evening thinking of peace and singing songs about peace. Our School Director, Diana Kenney, and I were adding the finishing touches to details in preparation for our guests of the evening. As she printed lyrics for a song, I was adding the final details to our “peace tree.” The thought for the tree originally was to add leaves to a tree that would be made of craft material. Instead, we rescued a silk tree from our school center, cleaned it and fortified it by adding more leaves to it. As I was adding the leaves I was imagining the tree full of peace cranes, which is what was decided would be placed on the tree instead of leaves. This reminded me of a quote from the book The Law of Attraction and Other Secrets of Visualization by Dr. Laurel Clark, “The greatest freedom comes from setting the mind into directive action by visualizing and then being flexible enough to make adjustments as needed.” Rescuing the tree made more sense because it was being underutilized.

Peace cranes infused with thoughts of peace would be placed on this tree like Christmas tree ornaments. This would give a sense of purpose to this tree that had once been positioned in a place where it was overlooked. When Renee Curry, one of the teachers at the Chicago School of Metaphysics, suggested using the tree, I thought it was a great idea! I’m sure the tree thought so too, for now it would be out of obscurity and have a reason to be celebrated. The intention would be to look at the tree throughout the year remembering our need for peaceful thoughts and to replicate the process of infusing peace into an object and have that vibration remain at our School of Metaphysics going forward, as is done with the tiles in the Peace Dome on the campus of the College of Metaphysics. By recognizing the tree at various future events at our school, we will be allowing more peace to come into our area of the country and adding to efforts that are being undertaken at the college and throughout the world, making this an ongoing effort and not just once a year.

Diana and I shared time and energies with the Peace School in Chicago as we entered a circle of people who were vocalizing in unison their thoughts of peace for each state in America and for each country of the world. The director would then pause and ask the group to inhale and exhale world peace seven times. This process continued for each state then for each country. Along with this meditative breathing process, we expressed thoughts, breathed and mediated on peace. Master Kim shared some thoughts about those of us who were in attendance and how we were the peacekeepers and should hold thoughts of peace throughout the year. He expressed that a small percentage of peacekeepers can have an affect on world situations, which caused me to realize that nothing happens by chance, and that I was at that particular place and at that particular time for a reason. This is something that is taken very seriously, and it is the actions of the dedicated few that support the unknowing many. I was happy to share peaceful processes with others in our community.

Three of our guests were from the Native American community and one from the Baha’i Temple. One guest in attendance was a flautist who called earlier in the day to express his interest in attending our peace event. Information was given to him by someone at the Anawin Center for Native Americans the day before. Coincidence? I think not! He mentioned he stays in the present moment and is open to go wherever the Creator leads him, and I was grateful that the Creator had led him to us for the evening! Interestingly enough, he was also attending the event at the Peace School where we were going. This showed me that he was meant to be with us, and he felt he had been led to us. I could feel the excitement and energy building as I realized what had just happened, just hours before our event.

The two ladies from the Native American community were practicing Catholics and shared with us their ideas of peace. The two sisters had a very peaceful demeanor about them that caused an immediate calmness upon being introduced. Something else interesting – one of the sisters had called the day before to say they would not be able to attend the event due to the lateness of the hour. I acknowledged her concerns and released my attachment to her attending our event. I know that everything happens for a reason. I received a call the morning of the event and was told there was a miscommunication and that she and her sister would be attending after all. This was more evidence that fortified my experience with Universal Laws.

We started our event by introductions and a brief sharing. I felt a need to emphasize the significance of all that were in attendance and how it was not by accident that we were all together at this particular time. I further pointed out the importance of each person in attendance and the meaningfulness of this gathering in creating a change in peaceful efforts going forward. I mentioned that the Universal Peace Covenant had been shared with some of our military men and women in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Qatar this year. This is considerable in starting the efforts overseas with American troops who have the Peace Covenant in their possession during times of foreign war. Also, I stated that the Universal Peace Covenant had been shared with people this year that had previously not been aware of this sacred document. This was another reason for them to become conscious that they were each involved in this special setting at this particular point in time.

In recognition of the Peace Proclamations issued earlier in the year honoring the Universal Hour of Peace, we passed around the proclamations from Governor Pat Quinn of Illinois and Mayor Richard Daley of Chicago. Our guests seemed to be moved by the proclamations and I think they realized that we take this issue of peace seriously.

The Baha’i perspective was shared by reading various quotes from contextual readings and how those ideas embraced what actions can bring about peace with emphasis on balancing gender inequalities. Our group shared ideas about the readings and thoughts of ideas and interpretations of peace. Once the conversations got rolling, we went over the timeframe that we had anticipated. I was excited that things were moving as they were with the present moment being my main focus.

After sharing for one and a half hours, we wrote down what thoughts we might have had in 2010 that prevented us from having peace. We then moved to the outside patio and each of us presented these writings to the burning bowl and our guest played beautiful renditions on his flute. It really made the actions of burning the paper spiritually uplifting and added a special touch to this process. Once inside we shared more about what peace is and passed out peace cranes to infuse our thoughts into the cranes. Later, we read the Universal Peace Covenant to the melodious sounds of native flute selections.

Happy New Year!

I learned that I have the ability to carry out a project from beginning to end, that when a thought-form is sent out with intention, the Universe responds in ways greater than we had imagined, which reinforces the Law of Attraction and the Law of Believing and Knowing. I also learned that the emotion that I had throughout the day was “the movement of energy” in preparation for manifestation, which was what the number nine represents in the Universal language of Mind. I hesitated at first to realize that this was my creation, but altogether relished the experience as revealing – internally bright and progressive and successful. My thoughts had caused the event to be something that people seemed to experience in a way that was memorable. So, my original thought did go from thought to creation to manifestation. This experience helped me to realize my value because had I not been given this project to do, the experiences of the evening would not have been received by the people present. I also was grateful for the support I received from my director and my fellow classmates. That made me realize the benefit of working as individuals to affect the whole. We were working well in that regard.

I remain grateful.

Let us know you are participating by emailing your name/city/state-country to: peace@som.org