Today was my last day of training in Oregon. Tomorrow I head for Seattle and the beginning of what is to come. On this last day, I had a ton to do to get ready, and frankly I didn’t do much of it. Tom, the reporter that is doing the documentary, wanted to do some last day filming, so we met where I knew there would be people willing to let me draw them.

The spot we chose is euphemistically called 420 park, and with a name like that, it proves to be the place where nearly anything can be had, and where the disenfranchised young and old congregate. Most people there either don’t talk at all, or are so verbose that they soon scatter their audience. Most have pain, heartache, and sorrow that lies just under their skin’s surface. It seems when I make my intentions known, and do not judge or condemn them, they open up. Hopefully they feel loved.

This is Trip, he is sort of a tribal leader or chief. Older than most of those there, and a smart and a wily character. He taught me a bit about street life, tribes, anarchy, and told me that when he was 9 years old his father shot himself in the head, and the collateral spray showered him. Like I said, these people have been through a lot, and they carry their wounds right under their skin. After giving him the drawing he paraded it around with glee, and sought to keep it pristine to give as a gift.

Ryan’s girlfriend who is 6 months pregnant just went to jail. She and Ryan have been living in the mountains outside of Missoula, Mt., but since she went to jail for beating up Ryan, he has been stuck in this town. He showed me the scar on his chest where she bit him in her attack. Yet, he is still here, and wanted to give his lady a picture of himself, for which I was glad to oblige.

This beautiful girl’s name was Jenny. She saw the other portraits that I had done, and asked me to draw her likeness…perhaps before she had time to really think about what she had just asked, and what it means to actually be drawn. She was the quiet type, the type that keeps all her pain in. She came from a bad home in Watts, CA. and was adopted when she was 5. She didn’t say as much as the others in the group with whom I drew, but it was pretty plain that she ran away. I think she liked the idea of having a portrait of herself, but having the focus of the artist on her made her uneasy. Picking up on this, I finished as fast as I could to put her at ease,  and I reminded her the reason that I do this is to help the sitters remember that they are beautiful, valuable, and divine.

Tom was able to film the interactions, and the portraits in process. Tom is an exceptional man with a generous heart, and really wants to make the documentary as good as he can to support the message of peace. I feel blessed by the universe for his gifts to the cause.

I think that this was the best way to leave this town…giving to those whose needs are so apparent and in such pain. To speak of love, peace, and joy is a worthy endeavor, yet we have all heard it. These people have been on the receiving side of the actions that don’t correlate with the words far to often. Thankfully the universe has seen fit to give me the art of drawing, that I may act on and give love, peace, and joy as freely as they were given and demonstrated to me.

Here I tried an experiment combining gouache and pastels. I did the preliminary painting in gouache over graphite, and then I drew with pastels on top of that. By combining the materials, I believe a greater illusion was achieved. Interesting, I will have to try it again. As I was painting this work, a woman and her husband came up and talked to me about it. I told them it was theirs if they wanted it. They had me inscribe it to their granddaughter Jordan.

I set up my easel to paint the Coburg hills, particularly Mt. Baldy, on a pedestrian foot bridge at sunset. When I was a kid I would hike to the top and spend the night. Some parents don’t even let their kids play in the front yard anymore. Have we really become that afraid of each other. People are good. How much in life do we miss out on? How many experiences? All because we have begun to believe the lie; we believe that there are bad people. Others hype this fear and we succumb to it, choosing terror over love.

The illusion of control is as intoxicating as it is inhibiting.

The number one reaction I’ve received regarding doing this peace pilgrimage is “Be SAFE.” Or, “Be careful, there are bad people out there.” Alternately, “The world isn’t like it used to be.”  “You are insane!” “You are gonna die!” I can sum all these into one phrase, “You should fear”. And, it has so many people scratching their heads why I don’t. Statistically speaking the world outside our doorways has never been safer. How exactly does one stay safe anyway??? You could die while sitting on your couch eating Doritos. Where has this misplaced fear gotten us in the world?  And who exactly is they?

Who is the boogey man? Bin Laden, Muammar Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein, Khameini, Robert Mugabe, Kim Jong-Il, or King Abdullah? These are just men. I could put a million other names in their places; Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Genghis Khan, Atilla the Hun, Nero, Ramses the Third. Why stop there, fear people too. Doctors, Lawyers, Bankers, Priests, North Koreans, Chinese, Blacks, Whites, Hispanics, Indians, Taliban, Al Qaeda, White Supremist and Arabs. Fear the poor, fear the rich. Fear the government. Ultimately, fearing everyone else is suicide. Kind of an oxymoron. Because truly, what we fear, is really inside of us.

So don’t believe the lie of fear. Surrender to the fact that you can’t be safe. You are not in control. You can’t be careful. But, you can love.

In his book, “Love is Letting Go of Fear”, Dr. Gerald Jampolsky writes, “It is our prayer that as we heal our own minds of fear and negativity, the world we see will be healed along with us. I could see peace instead of going through life with a belief system that our happiness is largely determined by the events in our environment and reactions of other people to us. We need to instruct our minds to change our perceptions of the world and everything in it.” As Gandhi said, “You must be the change you want to see in the world.”

Let there be love in the world, and let it begin with me.

There is an old term called knit hearts. It refers to friends whose attachment and affinity for each other is so sincere that it is as if their hearts were knit together. People are good. Today I informed everyone I know in the world about my pilgrimage. I have friends whose love for me and more specifically this pilgrimage is such that when they heard of it, that they leapt at the possibility of helping.

Let me tell you about Joe. In Buddhism they believe there are three emotions that lead us to do bad things: Lust, Passion, and Aversion. We in the Judeo-Christian world are well versed in the first two, but just gloss over the later. We have no problem in this society being grossed out by people with ailments. We publicly display our aversion to anyone whose health, smell, or ailments render them less than desirable. We make no qualms about it either as we sign up to salute the clean, well washed and perfectly tailored. But, most would have a problem if a “street person” wanted to give them a hug.  We have become so germ-a-phobic in our culture that grocery stores even have sanitary wipes for the shopping carts. But, if we are to follow the examples of the Buddha and Jesus, we should hug, love, and dine with the lepers and those whose physical ailments may turn our stomach.

But, we were talking about Joe. My dear friends former job, was to walk the streets of Hawaii with a giant bag of condoms and lubricant on his back every night and distribute them to anyone who wanted them. But, his nightly targets were the prostitutes, the addicts, and party bar frequenters to help quell the spread of AIDS and HIV. He would actively seek out the people that most individuals would cross the street to avoid. Joe walked up to and hugged, loved, counseled, laughed with, and cried with those that I am sure Jesus would have hung with too. He didn’t preach to them and tell them to get off the street. He didn’t arrest them as would the police. No he loved them, and catered to their needs where they were at. He sought to love the rest of world as best he could by preventing the spread of a real disease not the imaginary ones that “might” be on a shopping cart. Joe was love.

So today when I let everyone that I know in the world learn of my imminent departure, Joe did what he thought best. He broadcast it to the world, or his tiny section of it. He believed in me, but more specifically, he believed in the message of peace so much that he recognized that I am doing what I can do for peace. He in like mind would do everything within his power to work toward the same ends. Love.

However, he was not alone. I know two twins, “The Barbie Twins” as I lovingly refer to them who one-upped Joe. They broadcast the message of peace to their circle of friends, and then they began working as my unpaid and unofficial PR group. These wonderful girls with the most sincere hearts began mining my writings for the kernels that spoke truth to them and began to relay and transmit the message of peace as they knew how and as their tremendous networking skills led them. Terri, my calabash sister, cast her net to secure housing and food for me throughout my travels by appealing to her former sorority sisters.

My friend Susan, whose son is depicted above, has certainly done more for this Trek than any other person. She has fed me, driven me, counseled me, and loved me. She has listened to my diatribes, and comforted me when I cried. She did what she could do, and as such, she pretty much helped the Peace Artist come into being. Without a doubt this whole sojourn would not be possible without her help, for which I am humbled.

I was blessed today to hear words of encouragement from old friends like Sean, Gray, Thomas, Joey, Keith, John Sr., and many others who also cast nets and publicized and proclaimed the dispatch with reckless abandon to all their intimates and confidantes. Today I received offers from complete strangers and old friends and family for lodging and food in Arizona, California, Idaho, Wyoming, North Carolina, and 10 other states. Fellow artists, photographers, illustrators, sculptors, musicians, and thespians also commented on how the pilgrimage is motivating them to see what they can do for peace, love, and the brotherhood of man. I was contacted by a mother who recently gave birth to a baby with special needs, and it radically changed her life. The experience caused her realize how special and beautiful life is. She has come to grips now with the fact that we are all human, but that doesn’t make us weak as the cliche often states, “Well, I’m only human”. But rather, our humanness is what makes us humane, makes us powerful, beautiful, and divine.

All this from a candid email. It really is this simple my friends. If we all do what we can do, and only what we can do…well then there isn’t anything we can’t do.

I began this email with the notion that two hearts can be knit together. The human heart has the dual capability to produce both magnetic and electrical impulses. The electrical are 10 times stronger, and the magnetic are 100 times stronger than those produced in the brain, and over 1000 times stronger than anywhere else in the human body. We know that strong electric and magnetic forces can cause particles, cells, and perhaps even the world to change. The power of us all working, thinking, and fixating upon peace with hearts knit together with and by love will change the world.

Thank you all for a day of rejuvenation, invigoration, and stimulation. Thank you for a day of peace.

Below is a video that isn’t very historically accurate, yet I believe true in every way. As I prepare to return to the land, and put faith in the providence of nature, it now seems most appropriate that I do this in Seattle. It is fitting that the point of departure from the insanity of our present consumption and devastation of the earth happens in a town carrying this man’s name. He knew then what we are only beginning to understand and believe now. Below the video is the supposed actual speech he gave. Yet, he spoke in the Lushootseed language, and someone translated his words into Chinook jargon, and a third person translated that into English. Again, does it really matter if it is 100% correct and authentic if the powerful warnings are just as true? I think not.

Version 1 (below) appeared in the Seattle Sunday Star on Oct. 29, 1887, in a column by Dr. Henry A. Smith.

“CHIEF SEATTLE’S 1854 ORATION” – ver . 1

AUTHENTIC TEXT OF CHIEF SEATTLE’S TREATY ORATION 1854

Yonder sky that has wept tears of compassion upon my people for centuries untold, and which to us appears changeless and eternal, may change. Today is fair. Tomorrow it may be overcast with clouds. My words are like the stars that never change. Whatever Seattle says, the great chief at Washington can rely upon with as much certainty as he can upon the return of the sun or the seasons. The white chief says that Big Chief at Washington sends us greetings of friendship and goodwill. This is kind of him for we know he has little need of our friendship in return. His people are many. They are like the grass that covers vast prairies. My people are few. They resemble the scattering trees of a storm-swept plain. The great, and I presume — good, White Chief sends us word that he wishes to buy our land but is willing to allow us enough to live comfortably. This indeed appears just, even generous, for the Red Man no longer has rights that he need respect, and the offer may be wise, also, as we are no longer in need of an extensive country.

There was a time when our people covered the land as the waves of a wind-ruffled sea cover its shell-paved floor, but that time long since passed away with the greatness of tribes that are now but a mournful memory. I will not dwell on, nor mourn over, our untimely decay, nor reproach my paleface brothers with hastening it, as we too may have been somewhat to blame.

Youth is impulsive. When our young men grow angry at some real or imaginary wrong, and disfigure their faces with black paint, it denotes that their hearts are black, and that they are often cruel and relentless, and our old men and old women are unable to restrain them. Thus it has ever been. Thus it was when the white man began to push our forefathers ever westward. But let us hope that the hostilities between us may never return. We would have everything to lose and nothing to gain. Revenge by young men is considered gain, even at the cost of their own lives, but old men who stay at home in times of war, and mothers who have sons to lose, know better.

Our good father in Washington–for I presume he is now our father as well as yours, since King George has moved his boundaries further north–our great and good father, I say, sends us word that if we do as he desires he will protect us. His brave warriors will be to us a bristling wall of strength, and his wonderful ships of war will fill our harbors, so that our ancient enemies far to the northward — the Haidas and Tsimshians — will cease to frighten our women, children, and old men. Then in reality he will be our father and we his children. But can that ever be? Your God is not our God! Your God loves your people and hates mine! He folds his strong protecting arms lovingly about the paleface and leads him by the hand as a father leads an infant son. But, He has forsaken His Red children, if they really are His. Our God, the Great Spirit, seems also to have forsaken us. Your God makes your people wax stronger every day. Soon they will fill all the land. Our people are ebbing away like a rapidly receding tide that will never return. The white man’s God cannot love our people or He would protect them. They seem to be orphans who can look nowhere for help. How then can we be brothers? How can your God become our God and renew our prosperity and awaken in us dreams of returning greatness? If we have a common Heavenly Father He must be partial, for He came to His paleface children. We never saw Him. He gave you laws but had no word for His red children whose teeming multitudes once filled this vast continent as stars fill the firmament. No; we are two distinct races with separate origins and separate destinies. There is little in common between us.

To us the ashes of our ancestors are sacred and their resting place is hallowed ground. You wander far from the graves of your ancestors and seemingly without regret. Your religion was written upon tablets of stone by the iron finger of your God so that you could not forget. The Red Man could never comprehend or remember it. Our religion is the traditions of our ancestors — the dreams of our old men, given them in solemn hours of the night by the Great Spirit; and the visions of our sachems, and is written in the hearts of our people.

Your dead cease to love you and the land of their nativity as soon as they pass the portals of the tomb and wander away beyond the stars. They are soon forgotten and never return. Our dead never forget this beautiful world that gave them being. They still love its verdant valleys, its murmuring rivers, its magnificent mountains, sequestered vales and verdant lined lakes and bays, and ever yearn in tender fond affection over the lonely hearted living, and often return from the happy hunting ground to visit, guide, console, and comfort them.

Day and night cannot dwell together. The Red Man has ever fled the approach of the White Man, as the morning mist flees before the morning sun. However, your proposition seems fair and I think that my people will accept it and will retire to the reservation you offer them. Then we will dwell apart in peace, for the words of the Great White Chief seem to be the words of nature speaking to my people out of dense darkness.

It matters little where we pass the remnant of our days. They will not be many. The Indian’s night promises to be dark. Not a single star of hope hovers above his horizon. Sad-voiced winds moan in the distance. Grim fate seems to be on the Red Man’s trail, and wherever he will hear the approaching footsteps of his fell destroyer and prepare stolidly to meet his doom, as does the wounded doe that hears the approaching footsteps of the hunter.

A few more moons, a few more winters, and not one of the descendants of the mighty hosts that once moved over this broad land or lived in happy homes, protected by the Great Spirit, will remain to mourn over the graves of a people once more powerful and hopeful than yours. But why should I mourn at the untimely fate of my people? Tribe follows tribe, and nation follows nation, like the waves of the sea. It is the order of nature, and regret is useless. Your time of decay may be distant, but it will surely come, for even the White Man whose God walked and talked with him as friend to friend, cannot be exempt from the common destiny. We may be brothers after all. We will see.

We will ponder your proposition and when we decide we will let you know. But should we accept it, I here and now make this condition that we will not be denied the privilege without molestation of visiting at any time the tombs of our ancestors, friends, and children. Every part of this soil is sacred in the estimation of my people. Every hillside, every valley, every plain and grove, has been hallowed by some sad or happy event in days long vanished. Even the rocks, which seem to be dumb and dead as the swelter in the sun along the silent shore, thrill with memories of stirring events connected with the lives of my people, and the very dust upon which you now stand responds more lovingly to their footsteps than yours, because it is rich with the blood of our ancestors, and our bare feet are conscious of the sympathetic touch. Our departed braves, fond mothers, glad, happy hearted maidens, and even the little children who lived here and rejoiced here for a brief season, will love these somber solitudes and at eventide they greet shadowy returning spirits. And when the last Red Man shall have perished, and the memory of my tribe shall have become a myth among the White Men, these shores will swarm with the invisible dead of my tribe, and when your children’s children think themselves alone in the field, the store, the shop, upon the highway, or in the silence of the pathless woods, they will not be alone. In all the earth there is no place dedicated to solitude. At night when the streets of your cities and villages are silent and you think them deserted, they will throng with the returning hosts that once filled them and still love this beautiful land. The White Man will never be alone.

Let him be just and deal kindly with my people, for the dead are not powerless. Dead, did I say? There is no death, only a change of worlds.