LIVE A PEACE VILLAGE LIFE
Greetings, one and all,
I have volunteered to speak from my heart about the Sunray Peace Village.
I invite you to come to the Peace Village if you have not done so, or to come back often if you have been here before.
Feel the quality of the space. Sit. Take in the sun. Listen to the wind in the trees as it sweeps down from or up towards the mountain.
How does that first moment of sitting at the Village open your heart?
How does that moment pacify the mind so that your pure mind can come forth again?
For me, any feelings of anger, blame, shame, business fall away. I notice my breath. I return to that central core of peace that is within me, within each of us.
Connections with people at the Peace Village are clear and open. I look directly into others' eyes with a sense of love and respect, always open to learning something, making a friend or deepening a friendship. Even a brief moment with someone can reveal a deep bond.
Children? The Peace Village allows them the freedom to be in their natural, playful, joyous state. It is wondrous to observe the children here. I am blessed to be a parent to two incredible children. After many years away from the Peace Village, it was the two of them who inspired me to return. What a gift they are.
Please come and witness the sacred fire in the Ceremonial Arbor. Fire ceremonies have been held here according to the Cherokee ceremonial cycles for years and years. Dedicated firekeepers tend the fire pit and the flames no matter the weather. The opportunity to offer prayers to the fire is a great blessing. It is a vehicle for transformation. It can help move that which is stuck. Let it open your heart and see the pathways ahead for you and your family.
I have had the good fortune to sit with the firekeepers as they've tended the diminishing fire at the end of the annual Native American Elders' Gathering, held each year at the end of July. This year will mark the 25th annual gathering. Within those dying embers, under a magnificent star-filled night sky, I have seen the truth of Venerable Dhyani Ywahoo's saying - "as it is above, so it is below" - as the thousands of tiny points of light within the embers mirrored the stars above.
The doorway to the Arbor is also a doorway into one's life. We enter from the East, where the Sun rises above the Green Mountains and brings its life-giving warmth and joy. We circle clockwise to the South, blessed with the bounty of the green corn mothers. Next comes the West, represented by the color red, with the dancing bear who stomps on fear and ignorance and allows us to move to the next rung of the spiral. In the North is the blue of the frozen lake of unmanifest potential. Each time I come here, I have asked what is next on my path of life. Each time I have received an answer.
The last three years I have visited the Peace Village for the Elders' Gathering. It is a great blessing to receive the teachings of so many wise ones. It is such a relaxed way to learn, to reconnect with my spiritual core, to have the chance to make prayers and participate in ceremony, to watch and be with my children in their natural state.
The Peace Village is a wondrous, magical, peaceful, open space. I urge you to hear your own calling and come.
But the real point of my message is to invite you to find a way to connect every day with the Peace Village that exists in your heart. It is to invite you to live a Peace Village life.
Make a connection with this land and realize that all of its magical qualities exist within you. Carry that with you and live it every day. Literally.
It is not always easy to do so. The hustle and bustle of daily life can seem so foreign to the peaceful tranquility of the Sunray Peace Village. But it is possible.
I think each person has to find their own way to live a Peace Village life. For me, what really opened my heart was setting an intention to invest in the land for the benefit of the Elders and all who visited the Peace Village. By setting that intention, a doorway opened within that has led me to renew my commitment to Sunray Meditation and the practices of Venerable Dhyani Ywahoo. The day after returning from a Winter visit to the Peace Village, I resumed my daily meditation practice that had remained dormant for many years.
The Peace Village is there for you to find your place of peace within, to live a Peace Village life for the benefit of all your relations and the health of the Earth. Please come. Please return often. You will be very glad that you made the investment.
Sincerely,
Brian J. Siebel
-- Brian has been coming to the Peace Village for more than fifteen years. He was a founding member of the Peace Village Land Trust that put the land in trust to be preserved for generations.
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