Peggy Thompson put us into the right frame of mind for the evening by sharing a reading from her Yoga teacher:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Symptoms of Inner Peace<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Be on the lookout for symptoms of\ninner peace. The hearts of a great many have already been exposed to inner\npeace, and it is possible that people everywhere could come down with it in\nepidemic proportions. This could pose a serious threat to what has, up to now,\nbeen a fairly stable condition of conflict in the world. Some signs and\nsymptoms of inner peace:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2022 A tendency to think and act spontaneously rather than on fears based on past experience<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2022 An unmistakable ability to enjoy each moment<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2022 A loss of interest in judging other people<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2022 A loss of interest in interpreting the actions of others<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2022 A loss of interest in conflict<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2022 A loss of the ability to worry (This is a very serious symptom.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2022 Contented feelings of connectedness with others and nature<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2022 Frequent attacks of smiling<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2022 An increasing tendency to let things happen rather than make them happen<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2022 An increased susceptibility to the love extended by others as well as the uncontrollable urge to extend it back to them<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lynda Fuchs <\/em><\/strong>shared with us her collection of beads from\naround the world. She first became interested in beads during a trip to Senegal\nto visit her daughter, who was in the Peace Corps there. Admiring the beautiful\nbeads worn by men, women and children in the small Senegalese villages, Lynda\nbegan buying beads for herself in the local markets. From that modest\nbeginning, her collection has grown to include beads that come from many\ncountries and are made of a wide variety of materials. With a background in\nanthropology and sociology, Lynda has taken up this hobby with a passion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lynda held us spellbound as she described\nthe bags and strings of beads before she passed them around our circle for us\nto admire. She started with hand-painted ceramic beads from Peru. She showed us\n\u201ceye\u201d beads (beads with small, incised \u201ceyes\u201d to ward off evil) from Brazil; she\npointed out that similar beads are also made in India and Egypt, illustrating\nhow various cultures share similar concepts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n She showed\nus elaborate glass beads from Venice, long noted for its production of glass. Hundreds\nof years ago, Venetian glassworkers were exiled to the offshore island of\nMurano so as to contain the fires that occasionally were ignited by the extreme\nheat needed for glassmaking. Because formulas for coloring glass were handed\ndown through families, many Venetian glass colors are found nowhere else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lynda pulled out several African\nnecklaces made of different-sized fish vertebrae and seed pods. She showed us a\nWest African necklace created from coconut shell discs. She shared two lovely\nnecklaces fashioned from recycled glass, like Coke bottles, that had been melted\nand formed into beads. The beads of one of the necklaces were beige with lovely\ngreen swirls; those of the other necklace were sea blue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some beads are scented. A multi-strand\nbelt containing tiny bits of myrrh, a tree resin, carried a wonderful, delicate\naroma. Myrrh was also used in a necklace intermixed with seeds. Lynda said that\ntiny eucalyptus caps can also provide a familiar scent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Semiprecious stones make beautiful\nbeads. Lynda had two sets of German carnelian and banded agates. In quick\nsuccession, she showed us felted beads, which she had made; paper beads; 2000-year-old\nbeads; a string of lava rock; Hawaiian kukui seeds; vinyl beads; ostrich shell\nbeads; Baltic and African amber beads; batik beads made from horn in Kenya;\nsilver and copper beads made of recycled pot metal; opal beads from Australia;\nopalescent glass beads; black jet beads that are actually fossilized wood; New\nZealand abalone shell beads; yak bone beads from China; and Tibetan beads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The documented history of beads\ngoes back 30,000 years, to caves in France. Historically, most beads have been\nmade by men, but in Mauritania, women make highly decorated kiffa beads out of\npowdered glass. Lynda pointed out that beads can be made from recycled\nmaterials and are frequently recycled from one necklace to another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although Lynda had far more to tell\nus, time constraints dictated that we break into small groups to make our own bracelets.\nEach woman received a baggie of small bead spacers, a bead shaped like a dove,\nand a wire with a clasp already attached. Each group received a plate of beads\nof many types. We were to add a bead, then a spacer, and then pass the\nassemblage to the woman on our right. In this way, each bracelet would be\nconstructed by all the members of the small group, with this beautiful object binding\nus together. When the bracelet was of sufficient length, Lynda and Sabra\nReichardt added the final loop. It was wonderful fun to move around the room\ninspecting the various bracelets that were created!<\/p>\n\n\n\n We returned to our large circle to\nthe sound of drumming by Jeanne Boudreau<\/strong>.<\/em> Jeanne learned drumming from a Native American woman; she participated\nin this woman\u2019s drumming circle until the latter\u2019s illness brought the circle\nto an end. Jeanne has continued drumming, bringing her gift to patients at\nUniversity Hospital; to students at Syracuse University; to women at<\/em> <\/em>the\nCenter for New Americans; to friends at Shalom Mountain\nRetreat Center; to friends and family at picnics, her home, and St. Augustine\u2019s\nChurch;<\/em> and to us! Jeanne encouraged us to join in,\nusing drums and rattles that she and Terra Harmatuk had provided. She urged us\nto feel the healing energy created by a drumming community. As we kept pace\nquietly and rhythmically, with closed eyes and open hearts, Jeanne chanted, \u201cO\nGreat Spirit\u2014Earth, Wind, Fire and Sea\u2014You are inside and all\naround me.\u201d<\/em> Our drums and rattles created a cocoon of\nspace and sound that took us on an internal journey. Participants felt\nconnected and balanced within the space that the rhythm created, with bodies\ntaking over the mind, and circling energy waves making a sacred space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the first round of drumming,\nwe exchanged instruments and began again, this time with eyes open, moving\naround the room. Spontaneous dancing began, with laughter and interaction among\nthe participants. At a drummed signal from Jeanne, we sat again, then joined\nher for a closing song, echoing the words to \u201cFly Like an Eagle.\u201d Our physical\ntime together had come to a close, but we left with hearts and spirits\nintertwined: \u201cHo! Mitakuye Oyasin (pronounced: ho metaque assan): We are all\nrelated.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We celebrated by creating bracelets and drumming together.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-programs",""],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7531"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7531\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8601,"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7531\/revisions\/8601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}