Traveling to the Peace Village

July 17, 2009

My flight to the east coast was a mean 'ole red-eye, but it did its work of getting me there at a time of day that functions:  buses running, friends up and able to receive me, all morning and afternoon to get where I need to go.

The soft, lush greens of New England contrast sharply with the warm, toasted grass smell of Sacramento as we drove to the airport in California.  Vermont has gotten way too much rain this year, causing hay crops to rot in the field, and forcing farmers to buy food for their animals from other states.  Ahhh, and in this economic crisis already.

As I flew across the country I contemplated what I need to come to peace with at Peace Village. I ask this because I know from Dhyani Ywahoo's book, Voices of Our Ancestors, that the traditional Peace Village was created and maintained by the Cherokee People as a healing place where criminals went to restore, find wholeness, recreate themselves, find forgiveness.  And I haven't read a statement on The Venerable Dhyani's creation of her community Peace Village in modern day Vermont, but I can guess there is an element of healing, forgiveness, reconciliation, teaching and learning.

So, for what do I need to forgive myself?  Some levels of self-neglect. Certainly neglecting my emotional needs, and neglecting my gifts by staying in trapping situations for too long. And now?  Regardless of whatever difficulties I am having, I am soooo free.  And here I am following a dream of visiting Dhyani Ywahoo's Sunray Meditation Center in Vermont!  I have been reading Dhyani's book for about 7 years. And Felicity, who turned me on to Dhyani, would get the vision going:  "Diane, we should go out to Vermont and see Dhyani." Felicity couldn't make the trip this time, but I am living the dream for both of us, and also for all my supporting community all over California and Oregon and Hawaii and Europe. And I make peace with myself as a gesture of peace for all, within and without.

I've spent a lot of time with Venerable Dhyani's Voices of Our Ancestors over the last 7 years. Here are some powerful pieces from that book that I read on my flight to Vermont:

She says, "The idea of ignorance is transformed by affirmation:

I honor the sacred law of life.

I honor the beauty in myself.

I honor the sacred duty.

I honor the mother-father within."

"Be courageous in giving and receiving love. Love is a stream and we are all part of it. We can be fished from the sea of ignorance in an instant; the line is right above our heads and can always be grasped with our hands. It is for us to lift from our attachment to ignorance, pain, and desire to what is in the process of correction. It is to acknowledge the good and to be in the moment, to see each moment for its wholeness and to appreciate it as a unique gift.  This is a discipline in itself: to be still, to be loving, to know 'I am in this moment creating cause for all moments.'"

My crimes are against myself.  I need to make peace with myself. I need to feel like I can trust myself.

I travel by bus through the countryside of Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont, wondering about the Trail Trees.  Also known as Indian Trees, Bent Trees, Prayer Trees, they mark very old foot paths. They were bent to show the paths by the native people here, and have been documented in 40 states.  My dad works with Don Wells and his non-profit, Mountain Stewards, which is chronicling all these trees, actually thousands, marking them on maps with their longitude and latitude, and preparing to make a documentary film about the trees.  Since Mountain Stewards is based in Georgia, Cherokee country, and she is a Cherokee elder, Dad wants me to ask The Venerable Dhyani Ywahoo if she knows about or of any of these Trail Trees. I will find a way to ask her.