Blessings for World Peace

Prayer flags have always been a personal interest of mine. My first encounters with them were through Tibetan Buddhism and through a cancer clinic where an artist friend made these prayers for well-being and peace with patients.   In both cases, the ephemeral wind horse of Asian culture is said to carry the messages of these  flags to the Earth's four corners and beyond. 

I recently attended a World Peace Prayer Flags Meditation and Flag Making workshop in Yountville, a Napa County (California) hamlet. Others and I decorated prayer flags for a world peace project sponsored by the Town of Yountville. All 100 flags  are now installed in the town's central plaza. Below are three examples of prayer flags created that day.  

The event was the brain child of the workshop facilitator Francine Kohn. A multi-dimensional artist, educator, and healer who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, she developed this project as way for people to collectively pray for peace - each in his or her own way, and to feel uplifted and connected to others.  Francine and I recently e-chatted about this community opportunity. Here's part of our conversation:

Q: This project offered a way for the public to respond to the war in Ukraine. Can you say more?
A: Activities like this bring together people who share a desire for global peace. Everyone has a chance to express his or her own symbols of peace; sometimes adding words as well. It’s a great way to be creative, to help balance and focus the body and mind towards the spirit while having fun.

Q: What did you want people to experience?
A: The peace, within and without that comes from exploring and discovering individual as well as group power to create desired change in the world.

Q: Why did you include meditation?
A: Guided meditation can assist people in experiencing their own wisdom and creativity and often inspires them to be agents of peace. In group settings, that can effect real change - locally and globally. 

Prayer Flags       

Q: What tools from your own impressive arts and spiritual study toolbox did you use for this? 
A:  Painting, cave art, Hindustani music, energy heart healing, Nichiren/Tibetan Buddhism, quantum mechanics/perception, conscious channeling, and guided meditation.

Q: What responses did you receive from participants?
A: Everyone enjoyed themselves. Marianne Lyon, Napa Poet Laureate, collaborated with me and remarked that the workshop was deeply spiritual for her and others as well. “People have emailed me to tell me how much they needed the event!!!!!”

Q: You mentioned the workshop, which include an at-home flag making component, was a way to give back to the community which has supported your many other artistic activities, including upcoming collaborative art for grandparents and grandchildren, and a painting course designed for those who want to explore their creativity. What is it you are giving back? 
A: Safe, natural, and integral art making opportunities to assist others in trusting their own inner knowing and, at the same time, developing a greater sense of community. 

Q:Do you have plans for similar projects? If so, can you give us some details? 
A: Yes, I am working now to offer Prayer Flags and Meditation courses, as well as prayer flag installations, in other North Bay locations.

To learn more about Francine’s upcoming events, prayer flag installations, and her artwork, which has been shown near and far and is now in many private and corporate collections, visit her website . 

Here is Francine's video sample of flags made during the workshop:

                    

Flying Folktales II

Folktales On The Wings of the Tibetan Wind Horse

In Tibetan folklore, the wind horse travels to all four corners of the world. In its travels it is able to deliver blessings and prayers intended to increase the world’s sense of peace, wisdom, strength, and compassion. According to tradition these qualities ultimately lead to enlightenment which recognizes human suffering as a temporary condition.

Historically the flags, rooted first in Indian religion, were used as a means to carry forth prayers. Today, Tibetans believe that these prayers and blessings are carried by the Wind Horse (blown by the wind) to spread good will and compassion everywhere. In this way the flags benefit everyone.

So what makes them prayer flags? The people who create them pray over the flags upon which they have written prayers and drawn sacred images. According to Tibetan tradition, the flags are generally flown in sets of five, one in each of five colors. The five colors represent the natural elements of the world and are arranged from left to right in a specific order. The colors and corresponding elements are:
• Blue (sky/space)
• White (air/wind)
• Red (fire)
• Green (water)
• Yellow (earth)

Because Tibetans, like so many other indigenous cultures, such as Native American tribes, use organic bio-degradable materials, the flags in time will fade and then dissolve.

I once wrote a news story about Virginia Ray, an artist who grew the materials she used to make her prayer flags for cancer centers in San Francisco as well as Atlanta. In those intimate workshop settings the flags provided cancer patients, cancer survivors and their families opportunities to write well wishes for the entire world community of cancer patients. Her paper came from garden greens and she also used vegetation as decoration. For example, a leaf dipped in beet juice and then placed on a flag would work like a stamp and stamp pad on paper. In the end a finely outlined leaf would appear.

It’s a good thing that papers made from plant materials and inks created from ground rocks and minerals, do not last forever. How else can the Wind Horse take the messages they hold and deliver them to the far reaches of the earth?

Prayer flags can now be found in many places. Considered to be art forms as well as visual and tangible blessing tools, they not only exist in healing centers and cancer wards, they can also be seen waving in the wind at school yards, farmers markets and elsewhere.

I once facilitated a writing workshop in which the members wrote short family folktales onto paper flags that were on display during a community-wide literary project. In this way they let the world know about select treasured memories.

Families can make their own family folktale flags. The flags can be written or painted upon. They can be created at a family reunion and then laced through the branches of a tree in someone’s yard. Installed on the back porch during an anniversary they could “announce” to the Wind Horse special moments in the celebrated couples’ lives. No matter the occasion, making of the flags themselves can become the source of another family folktale.

It is important to note that while the family folktale flags are temporary in nature because they would dissolve, the folktales themselves would not be lost. Make sure the flags can carry a copy of the folktale. The original can be preserved in a book or on a computer disc.

Perhaps with family folktale flags it will be as the Tibetans believe it is for prayer flags: that blessings which ride upon the Wind Horse will become a permanent part of the universe.

Be sure to read Flying Family Folktales I about the world of family folktales and kites
.