Pritchard Park

We met at the Japanese American Exclusion Memorial on Bainbridge Island in Washington State. This particular place represents the wounding of fear caused by human separation from the “other.” Nidoto Nai Yoni—let it not happen again—became our chant as we made origami peace cranes to take with us to the beach, Pritchard Park, which is contiguous with the Memorial. This beach represents the wounding of greed, ignorance and short sightedness caused by human separation from the ground of our being, Earth. Now a superfund site due to creosote contamination, we gathered on the beach next to the old manufacturing plant and drew a giant water wheel mandala by walking it out with our bare feet. The center circle became our place of prayer as we made a large crane from whatever we found on the beach, including trash. As we began making our rad joy bird, an eagle chased by crows flew over, suggesting to me how many small ones gathered together can change the mind of the larger predator. We knew the origami cranes were to be included in our beauty making. As the inner circle was outlined with golden leaves of the dying madrona trees lined up by the chain link fence barring entrance to the old buildings, someone counted the cranes. We had eight, the same number as the annual markers of the eight seasonal shifts celebrated by many cultures. Before we knew it, eight scalloped, golden “nests” were made as homes for our cranes. Someone cried out: “Look, we’re hatching peace.” As our final act, we took turns spiraling the golden yarn from the red heart rock of the RadJoy peace crane in the center, each of us verbally expressing our blessings and prayers as we patted the yarn into the seaweed chest belly of our bird. As we completed our ceremony, a lone heron flew over, headed for its roost on the far side of the harbor. Our final prayer: May all humans learn to care for our common home. We didn’t want to leave the yarn as a potential threat to creatures, so when our ceremony was finished, we cut the yarn into equal lengths for each of us to take home. The next day two of us used that yarn to bind paper prayers onto prayer sticks which were released over a cliff to the winds high up in the Olympic Mountains. Global Earth Exchange reverence and love carried further.