The dawn of a new era

Tomorrow, Oct 1st, a group of around 500 people will start a peace pilgrimage through the rainforest of Colombia, led by Padre Javier Giraldo (Colombia), Sabine Lichtenfels (www.the-grace-foundation.org)  and Benjamin von Mendelssohn (www.prvme.org). The participants are inhabitants of the peace village San José de Apartado, but they are joined from people all around the globe. They come from Israel, Palestine, Europe, USA and other countries of South America. (More information: www.grace-pilgrimage.com)

I want to greet them with a quote of the book “Future without War” by Dieter Duhm:
Sun Bear, a native American tribe elder said once: “Sometimes I dream that I am at a place where small groups of people are approaching over a hill. We all embrace each other and call out: “Brother, sister, you have survived!” All “isms” have disappeared. We no longer say: “Which religion do you belong to? To what do you belong? None of this is of importance anymore.”
I see a new generation of pilgrims from all countries travelling across the earth. They are not bound to any nation, language, race, culture or religion, to riches or possessions. They help in areas of crisis, they visit holy sites and they are on the way to centres, to new anchorages. They encounter each other at campfires, in barns or hostels, share their bread and develop a new quality of community, hospitality and willingness to help. In this way a young world citizenship of a new kind and beyond all institutions will come into existence – a different type of globalisation will take place. This development is supported by the emergence of completely new centres spreading slowly across the earth. We call them “Healing Biotopes” or “Peace Villages”. They serve the pilgrims both as hostels and as places to study and work in. In these centres concrete research is conducted, facilitating the development of a technological, spiritual and social basis for a non-violent world society. The centres stay in touch with each other through the growing flow of pilgrims. They are aware of each other, they are on the same path, and they have taken on responsibility for the future of the planet.
The beginning of a new culture, the dawn of a new era.

May the youth of all countries step out of their pasts and enter into the possibility of a new era of planetary thinking, planetary friendship and planetary joy. May the young people from Toronto, Sydney or Nairobi, from San Francisco or Kiev come together and meet. May they celebrate their new world community in Colombia or with the Zapatistas in Mexico, in Bethlehem or in Tamera. May they draw and actualise the information and forces from the world code that will lead us into a future worth living on a wonderful planet. They will do it, the “Movement for a free Earth” is under way!