Peace. Justice. Beauty. Re-thinking, re-building, re-living - from the Earth up
Echoes of Silence - 'artists with dirt under their finger nails' - works to build peace with justice, through beauty and concrete action. Beauty offers a glimpse of wholeness, keeping alive the vision of a healed world and moving people profoundly; moving them to take concrete actions to make peace-filled justice, crucially - as the very earth melts beneath our feet - environmental justice. With so many of the world's people unable to read, Echoes emphasizes the arts as vital channels for communication and interchange. We particularly support projects to end war, to reduce global warming, and to build community information and action networks locally, nationally and internationally. (Full project information: http://echoesofsilence.pbwiki.com - projects page)
Reflections on recent tours of US and UK by Echoes Coordinator, Paul Baker Hernandez. with resultant project outlines
To begin, thank you to everyone who helped make these tours such successes. In schools and churches, political rallies and community festivals, concerts and workshops. There's a wonderful passage in “Dr. Zhivago”. Yuri and his family travel by train from
Just so, so many of the events served as wonderful reunions of old colleagues and friends, seemingly left behind when I moved to Central America – but found again still working just as hard for a truly just One World society in a healed planet, digging out together that longed-for “line flying into the distance”. Seeing ourselves together perhaps for the first time, and with so many new people, we too were astonished at our numbers. Indeed, for the first time in years, we had to turn invitations down.
The difference? No longer
Sandino therefore helped make sense of Echoes of Silence's own: “Peace. Justice. Beauty.” “When peace finally comes, when we enter
How to go forward along that finally open line? The realization that, working together. we can make the desert bloom; that together we have the glorious wealth of the Earth and all its peoples, humour and flowers and forests and lakes, expertise from peasant to rocket scientist, art from Picasso to the child drawing, all informed by beauty itself – the transforming, powerful, beauty of Victor Jara's, “Prayer to a Labourer”:
“Stand up and see
The wonder of the mountain
Source of the sun, the water, and the wild wind.
Stand up and see
These hands with which you labour,
Stretch out, grow tall,
Join hands with your sisters and your brothers,
Working together, by deepest blood united,
Knowing together, the future can be now!”
Victor sang within
Reflecting that reality, the tour helped concretize several Echoes projects, seemingly local to truly global: Here's a brief summary (more information, please see http://echoesofsilence.pbwiki.com - projects page.)
1. Ponies and Small Persons - “A nation's moral state shows in how it treats its animals” (Mahatma Gandhi)
In its initial stages, Ponies and Small Persons is designed to bring street children and street horses together in mutual healing. Increasingly marginalized by S(tupid) U(gly) V(icous) vehicles, they are literally being dumped onto the hard shoulder of the ‘asphalt progress’ currently destroying the very planet. 'Nags and Nippers' sets out to redeem the children from hopelessness and the horses from brutal labor. Together, the animals will at last experience gentle rest while the children can express tenderness, perhaps for the first time ever. All participants, children, carers and supporters alike, will discover more intelligent ways of using finite resources and other ways to happiness than tragic consumerism.
2. Water! Not War - "We must re-discover our reverence for water, for life itself.” (Everywoman)
Few believe that the current astounding gloabl absorption of materials, economic resources and, above all, human intelligence in weapons and war is wise. Yet wars for water will be different in kind not just in degree, since, unlike oil, water is vital to all life - human, animal and plant. Echoes of Silence believes that by recovering our reverence for water as our most precious resource, we can begin to learn to heal both ourselves and the planet. Local potters fashion beautiful goblets from clay; we offer these to be used in rituals to re-awaken that reverence. Income from the goblets promotes the Water Not War campaign calling for the re-dedication of 1% of all military budgets, materiel and personnel to provide fresh water for everyone, through re-forestation, conservation, infrastructure and truly listening to those most profoundly linked to life, women, young people, and indigenous nations. Together they form the vast unsung majority of the Earth's people, yet have little representation/participation in politics-as-usual.
3. Zero Hunger - "That every child shall have milk to drink, every day" (
A program to eradicate food hunger in
4. Songs of Loveliness and Courage. “Beauty … that opens us up like a wound, to see with new eyes” (Victor Jara)
Victor Jara's songs are among the most beautiful and profound of the entire New Song Movement. In the slaughter that began with the US/Pinochet coup on 911 One (
(Victor Jara's best-loved songs, interpreted by Echoes' coordinator, Paul Baker Hernandez. Spanish and/or English [singing English translations as needed]. Negotiable fee. Please contact echoespaul@tortillaconsal.com)
5. Art in Times of Renewed Hope - "I Won't Join Your Revolution if I Can't Dance" (Emma Goldman)
Recent governments, tied to the consumerist 'death style', obliterated many of the wonderful murals of peace and hope celebrating cooperation, ecology and gender balance that blossomed throughout Nicaragua after the ejection of the Somoza dictatorship. Repaint the best of them. Join in creating new ones for these times of renewed hope.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Please use this form to indicate your specific interest in Echoes of Silence and its projects. And to make a donation if so moved. Thank you.
I/We wish to be part of Echoes of Silence work. Please send ongoing news, reports and information to:-
NAME __________________________________________________________________________________
ADDRESS _______________________________________________________________________________
PHONE_________________________________ EMAIL________________________________________
Here's a donation of £500/US$1000 - £100/US$200 - £50/US$100 - £25/US$50 - £10/US$20
- £/US$Other (circle) to bring beauty to the heart of the struggle for loving justice (cheques, etc: "Echoes of Silence")
UK, please send to: Christine Jennings, Echoes of Silence, 3,
Please print out, fill in/out and give to your bank. Thank you. (Your regular assistance enables us to work more effectively. Please inform Christine Jennings, Echoes of Silence, 3, Upper Regent’s Park, Bradford-on-Avon BA15 1EF – 01225 866181 or Paul on echoespaul@tortillaconsal.com). We will be duly delighted!
To: ____________________ Bank, at (Address) ____________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
Customer’s Details: Account Name ______________________________Account Number ______________
Phone: Work ______________ Phone: Home ___________________ Mobile: __________________
Please set up the following Standing Order and debit my/our account accordingly.
UK - Pay to: Echoes of Silence, HALIFAX BUILDING SOCIETY, BATHGATE ST, BATH, Account Number 00007911, the Sum of £ __________ every month, quarter and/or year (please circle) starting (Date) __________________ and continuing until such time that I/we cancel this mandate.
USA - Please contact Jim Burchell at jburchell@PeaceWorks.org. PeaceWorks is Echoes' Fiscal Sponsor
Signature ________________________________________Date ______________________________
Phones: Nicaragua 405 2563; UK 01225 866181; USA 603 764 9948
http://echoesofsilence.pbwiki.com - echoespaul@tortillaconsal.com
Meantime, here´s what´s happening in Nicaragua, The World, and Everything on an episodic/idiosyncratic basis.
And even JFK had the occasional good one:
'When power leads man towards arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the area of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses. For art establishes the basic human truths which must serve as the foundation of our judgement.'
Please go to Diary page
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
(£250 [US$500] employs one Nicaraguan potter to make 100 goblets or 'copas')