Click here for today’s photo slideshow from Japan.
Angel Gibson writes:
We breakfast today at the top of our hotel looking down upon the city of Nagasaki. We do our roll call and board the taxis, soon arriving at the Nagasaki Peace Park where our Traveler and sound team awaits us. Today is beautiful, sunny, clear blue sky, comfortably cool. There is a tall column mounted on steps that marks the place of the atomic blast’s epicenter on August 9, 1945 at 11:02am. We place ourselves around the monument radiating out. A Moment of Peace begins with John and a little levity that brings relief and opens us to go deeper. As John continues, we weep and shake; there are silent sobs. The Light is being placed, even as emotions pour forth from some of us. We start to walk towards the old Asian church that was destroyed and is now rebuilt. It is situated high on a hill. Waves of tears move up and out as we walk through different spots. At the church we sit in different pews. I am very happy to be doing Spiritual Exercises now. As John does a blessing of Light on this site and the city, I start to see the blessing in this action that impacted so many people around the world. My vision of the bomber plane and mushroom cloud is being transformed into a light vehicle bearing lotus flower translucent petals that shower down on beings rising up and reaching for them. Great Light Beings stand over the epicenter and the city. There is a change of consciousness that is taking place for more than this city or country. When Spiritual Exercises are over, we head for the Nagasaki Memorial museum. Here we move step by step through the history of that day, August 9, 1945. We see pictures of Nagasaki before and afterwards; we see the immediate and time-delay effects of radiation. We listen to stories of survivors, and of people who dedicated themselves to peace because of that day. At one point as I’m reading one of the displays I am joined by an older Japanese man, and some Japanese school children. We are all intense in our focus. I am touched that we stand together in empathy as we digest what took place.
Now it’s time to leave Nagasaki and go into nature and the mountains. We continually let go and move on, staying present with each other. I am grateful for the gentleness and caring we have exhibited for each other this day. We have become one. On the train we listen to Enya and then Sting playing on KZEN. We watch the ocean and breathe a deep collective sigh. In Hakata we change to a bus. As we drive towards the mountains Steve Beimel gives us a 5 million year tour, as he calls it, on the history of Japan and how it got into the war. We applaud as Steve finishes in just a little over an hour with an amazing display of knowledge. I only heard parts as I fell in and out of sleep. The air gets cooler; the scenery is lush with trees in the beginnings of fall foliage covering the mountains. Paul Kaye reminds us that we are now coming into a time of healing and retreat. We will be staying at the baths – onseins. We get to our inn and within minutes the group has dispersed ready to hit the baths. Ah, just sitting in the outdoor bath – the heat of the water perfectly balancing the coolness of the air – I hear the groans of relaxation and letting go all around me. We have a grand banquet prepared for us this evening and the courses just keep coming. My favorite is a fish that is roasted/grilled in such a way it still looks like it’s swimming. We gently wish John Morton a Happy Birthday and do a little process with each other. Then we hear some words from a John-Roger tape and off to bed for rest. Tomorrow is another day!
Thank you for your Light and Loving each step of today; for me you were our batteries. God bless us all!
Paul Kaye shares:
If God is going to be called forth, you sit and listen.
If you get nothing and it’s still,
you must realize that underneath the stillness is the Creator,
who is holding the stillness.
So, in everything you do, whether failure or success,
you must realize that God is containing and holding all of that.
-John-Roger
