Speech: Peace Around the Corner (PACE)
“Today we want to invite you onto a journey of exploring our humanness. Meeting not as business owner, university teacher, student, farmer, politician or any other identity of some kind - but as human beings - with all the beauty and the flaws that each and everyone, and our institutions bring into this space today. We invite you into a space of experiencing a kind of being together, that we might call peace. Together, with sincerely good intentions, heart openness and respect for one another we can co-create an atmosphere where authentic conversation and relationships can arise, a space where the long-held vision of peace and harmony becomes a reality that is practically just around the corner.
In a time where all information and knowledge is immediately available through our digital extensions, our smart phones, the most valuable currencies we have as human beings are our attention and our innate capacities to feel and sense what’s within, around and beyond us. Because, where we put our attention, our energy goes and that which is attended - grows. Paying undivided attention to something or someone, is therefore the greatest gift we can share. Our full presence and attention in a conversation, a moment at the supermarket counter, walking through a forest or driving to work by bike or car.
With all atrocities and unsustainable behaviour going on in today's world, there’s a need to give room to that which is often untold, unheard, unseen. That which either limits our potential and collaboration or which enables and enlightens it. But how might we hear the inaudible and see the invisible you may ask? Our ancestors, the people who have inhabited this land before us and also many tribes living among us now, have known the answer for long. We are just to pay attention carefully and listen closely, with our minds and hearts open to ourselves, one another and what surrounds us. To take the time, even if it’s just a few moments, to slow down and rest our attention on what is. This might not always be easy, I know. No worries though, this is why we’re coming together to practice, to learn with and from another.
Our experiences and expressions, personal and as a collective, on many different levels, matter more than we might think. Our thoughts, words, acts, the ways we are and interact with one another and our surroundings, mother nature - all have an effect and are causes of effects in and of themselves again. Just take a moment and think about the times you smiled at another human being or you helped someone, and the times you were in a bad mood, ignored somebody or answered with a rough voice… How did people react around you, how did situations unfold?
Depending on the quality of our attention and behaviors, we create either healthy outcomes, or unhealthy ones, right? This is why we’re invited, today more than ever, to pay attention to ourselves, our words, acts and deeds, and with what qualities we walk through everyday life.
Change happens all the time, in fact, it’s the only constant there is. Whether you see it clearly, slightly or not at all just yet, our systems and institutions we have created across the world as well as we ourselves, as humans, are going through a massive change. A transformation that is often compared to a caterpillar turning into a butterfly. A time of total renewal, yes of chaos too, but with the potential for great beauty unfolding. It is the birth of a new civilization, one that consists of individuals acting in alignment with their life’s purpose, embedded in, conscious of and co-creating with the great web of interconnected living beings - the web of consciousness. Just as with every birth, and the parents among us, especially our beloved mothers will know, that it’s quite an effort to bring forth new life - for those who are born, and the ones giving birth.
As we as a human, planet spanning civilization are in this process of being born anew, we cannot pretend to manage this situation all on our own, without our co-inhabitants of mother earth, the animals, plants, rivers, lakes and beings beyond the visible. This moment we are living in and co-creating requires us to come together, to unite as human and earthly family, to jointly create the conditions for our flourishing to unfold. We need to help ourselves out of the cocoon that we have woven ourselves into, that has served us for a while but is now ready to be broken up, for us to fly with the beauty of a butterfly.
So here we are, at the beginning of the path, a few among many, yet deeply committed to walk this journey together. To slow down and listen, to feel and sense, to gift our presence to another and our surroundings. To stay with what creates beauty and let go of what needs to, to make our vision a reality through us, among us, now and in everyday life. Let’s be open and practice being peace and harmony together.”
Calendula in our shared garden in Villach, Austria.
