6/24/2007

Organic Activism, Health and You

The goal of Prostrations for Peace is to bring people to one place—the shore of Lake Michigan in Rogers’ Park—and create a communal response to the suffering generated from war. On July 15 at sunrise a bell will ring for the first day of the Iraq War, thirty seconds later another bell will ring, and thereafter all day, a volunteer will ring a bell for every day of this war until sunset. We invite anyone to come and participate by expressing themselves via prayer, sun salutations, making flags, standing in silence, or contributing to an organic altar.

Throughout the day, if 5 people show up or 500 is not the point. The point is to break out of the numbness and bitterness that has alienated us from the reality of suffering that has darkened so many people’s lives both here and around the world. The point is to open the heart and feel that the suffering of others is our own—not metaphorically but physiologically. Ignoring pain and suffering brings illness and perpetuates more suffering.

Like many people, I have become numb to the endless death and destruction and the debates surrounding this so-called “War on Terror.” I went to rallies early on. I read news reports. I shook my head. I ranted and raged with friends. I wrote some op-ed pieces. But in the end, I thought, what can you do? I comforted myself with the idea that Bush will be out of power soon and that the democrats will do something. But the cost of inaction has taken its toll on my body and spirit, and I can no longer wait for the actions of others. My health and the health of America are too important to entrust to politicians.

Initially, the idea came to me while I was doing 108 sun salutations, which I did to try to break out of a general funk I’d been in all spring, a funk caused by my own sense of powerlessness over so many things I have been feeling: the awful violence at Virginia Tech, the emotional struggles of my own writing students, the violence that goes on everyday in my own neighborhood of Rogers Park (just last week a young man was shot on my street by the police), my aging parents and my own awareness of mortality, and of course the endless explosion we feel in our bodies every time we hear those two words—‘suicide bomb.’

Over the years practicing yoga, I have learned that like all forms of spiritual practice, yoga must be used in our every day lives to be understood and cultivated. We must make our own self-styled rituals and ceremonies of its many forms and techniques. In my experience, yoga has been most efficacious when I have felt most at odds with myself and the world, especially when overwhelmed by the emotion of despair.

I did my 108 sun salutations and felt relieved and lighter. The next day I went to the pier at North Shore beach where I often practice and I did more, and a few days later, more still. One day I did sun salutations for nearly 2 hours. The rhythm of doing the same 7 poses over and over felt liberating. The fatigue came and went. The air expanded and fed me as did everything around me, the water and the sand, the sun, the birds and the voices of people on the beach. I wanted to do more. I wanted to do them for some reason other than to just do them. Then the idea formed.

But an idea is only an idea. It doesn’t become an action until it is uttered aloud in the presence of another. Once out, it has it’s own life, and indeed, this is what happened with my idea. When I shyly told others that I had this idea of creating a kind of ceremony on the lakefront to respond the war, I heard the same frustration I was feeling: Yes. Good idea. Something should be done. A ceremony. I want to help! When? Where? The look on their faces and the sound of their voices had this vitalizing affect on me. I told more friends.

Ideas begat more ideas. Emails, phone calls, meetings, and then suddenly we have this blog and posters and a network of people working on organizing this ceremony. This is organic activism. This is what we invite you to experience and join.

When you practice yoga, particularly when you perform sun salutations, repeating 6 or 7 poses in a meditative cycle with the breath and the body in rhythmic motion, the body becomes like a cauldron. With the infusion of oxygen, we use our own heat to cleanse, revitalize, and reconnect ourselves to the world that sustains us.

Every day as organisms we create problems and suffering for ourselves and other living things. Every day we can act to heal, cleanse, inform, educate, and perform rituals to bring us together and to lessen the suffering we share.

Compassion is a physiological truth that perpetuates the health and wellbeing of all living things. Act and spread the word.

-Michael McColly

6/22/2007

MAP and DIRECTIONS

HOW TO GET TO PROSTRATIONS FOR PEACE
North Shore Beach pier
1055 W North Shore Ave

We encourage you to carpool if you must drive, as there may be a limited number of parking spaces. See our map at GoogleMaps to search for directions:


If you are coming from the suburbs, you may use the Metra or Amtrak rail systems, hop on the Red line North toward Howard, and exit at the Loyola stop. You'll find Prostrations for Peace across Sheridan on the beach.

If you live in Chicago, we encourage you to use public transportation by going to the CTA's Trip Planner.

Prostrations For Peace is located off North Shore Avenue (1055 W North Shore Ave, Chicago IL 60626) on the small pier.

Please feel free to contact us if you have any additional questions. 773.362.9362 -or- 312.413.9013 michaelmccolly@hotmail.com


After the ceremony, there will be a party held at Heartland Cafe, 7000 N Glenwood Ave, just a few blocks from Prostrations for Peace.

6/15/2007

What is "Prostrations for Peace"?

WAR ALL THE TIME?

For 1,579 days since the start of the war in Iraq we have witnessed the destruction of a land and its people in the name of peace and security.

Billions of our dollars, millions of hours of human effort, the sacrifice of thousands of lives, the torture and maiming of soldiers and civilians -- and we are no safer.

The people of Iraq live in a hellish, escalating civil war that is spilling over its borders, and the world looks at our government with fear, distrust, and bitter disrespect.

Speeches, commissions, images, news reports, punditry, fear-mongering, and false patriotism have only distanced us from the horror and suffering that permeates our world because of this war.

HOW CAN WE RESPOND?

We sense a need for a different response -- a response from the heart and the body.

We sense a need for people from every community, spiritual practice, and political stance to set aside time to come to Chicago's lakefront and join others in a practice used by all cultures in times of insurmountable suffering: the bowing or prostration of the body to the earth.

WHAT WILL WE DO?

This ceremony has no sponsors. It is an organic response of people from across the city and suburbs of Chicago.

It will begin at sunrise and end at sunset on July 15, 2007.

It will take place on the pier of North Shore Beach in Rogers Park.

We seek only your participation by either performing basic sun salutations as practiced in Hatha yoga, bows or prostrations as practiced by Buddhists and Muslims, offerings of prayer while kneeling on the sand as practiced by Christians, or simply bowing and kneeling to the earth in an act of awareness of the great need of our world for healing and peace.

We ask that you perform as many as you feel able as we count off each day that the war has continued. We suggest that you try to do 108, which is a sacred number for Hindus, Buddhists, and Christians, symbolizing a measurement of sacrifice and sustained reverence.

WHAT ELSE CAN I DO?

We also seek volunteers to ring a bell and announce each day as we move through the 1,579 days since the war began on March 19, 2003.

We ask that these volunteers sign up for one of the 40 months of the war.

Prayer flags, candles, poems, incense, offerings of flowers to be placed on the pier or on the shore are encouraged but will be removed at the end of the day.

Donations will be accepted for Emergency (www.emergencyusa.org), a humanitarian, neutral, non-profit organization that provides high-quality treatment, surgery, and rehabilitation to civilians in war and post-war areas around the world, including Iraq and Afghanistan. Emergency also trains medical and non-medical personnel in these areas.