December 1, 2024
We got pretty lucky when Thom and I were able to get a home in Tenants Harbor, a seaside-town located in Saint George, a quiet and magical lobstering village on a peninsula located between the St. George River and the Atlantic Ocean. We are headed up to Maine soon, smack into winter, which has me excited because I just adore the winter there, but also has me thinking about how the sea air and cold is affecting my poetry poles. So far we have installed five of the poles that I painted over this past summer.
My poles evolved, like a lot of my projects, in a different direction from what I thought they would be. I came upon an article on Peace Poles, and did a deep dive on finding out more. The first peace poles were constructed in Japan in 1983. Since then, more than 200,00 have been placed around the world.
Here’s a little history lesson on peace poles…
- The idea of peace poles was first imagined by Masahisa Goi, the founder of the Byakko Shinko Kai, a new religious movement in 1955 (the year I was born) in Japan. The phrase, “May peace be upon the earth,” comes from a chanted prayer. The group is considered an offshoot of the Seicho-no-le.
- Goi believed that thoughts effect reality, and the chanting of prayer was the most effective way to achieve world peace. He wanted to restore the impression of Japan and the Japanese by demonstrating to the world that they sincerely wanted peace, and he came up with the idea of the Peace Pole.
- In 1976, in the last years of Masahisa Goi’s life, the Byakko Shinko Kai began erecting peace poles throughout Japan. Poster, leaflets, and peace poles with “Prayer for World Peace” were spread over a wide area of Japan and abroad.
The peace pole project today is promoted by The World Peace Prayer Society as well as other groups and individuals. Most peace poles today feature the standard peace pole message of peace – “May Peace Prevail on Earth” arranged vertically.
It is a wonderful movement and I wanted to figure out how to be a part of it. As things progressed in how I wanted to make my poles and what messaging I wanted to put out there, things shifted around a bit until I found my groove with the poles. My “Tikkun Olam” pole is my only piece which I ended up executing as a true “peace pole”. Tikkun olam is Hebrew for “repairing the world” – given how broken the the world is, we humans can make conscious efforts to repair it by committing to social justice, political activism, or, in the broadest sense, ethical behavior. Yes, it’s Jewish, like me — but it has universal implications. I understand tikkun olam as a daily challenge to me – and any of our friends and neighbors who consider the poles planted in the clearing between our cabin and the sea – to move out of our comfort zones.
The poles have become my very own personal expressions. My first pole, before I ever thought there would be four more, is a quote that Thom and I love – “Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air” by Ralph Waldo Emerson. We began calling our little cabin in the woods and across from the sea Wild Air, so we were both drawn to this perfectly lovely quote. Before I knew it, my project launched itself, and here I was from last summer on, making poetry poles. Each pole has it’s own unique theme and message, a mix of poems, quotes, activist battle cries and Indigenous concepts. The art I paint on each pole reflects the sentiment of these words, ideas and philosophies.
Thinking about how my planting poles project has unfolded, I’ve noticed something about myself — most of the art I am drawn to is story telling. From my one-of-a-kind tile tapestries that tell a story, to my short fling with encaustic painting, and now these past months these poetry poles. I am trying to say something…from my point of view, of course!
So far the literal “point of view” of my planted poles has been wandering around our Wild Air. But I’m taking the project on the road this winter, when I leave Thom in the frigid temps of Maine to fly off for a week to the Florida Keys where I will paint and install a pole for my family there. This is going to be my first poetry pole outside of my woods in Maine, and I have been planning with my brother and his family themes and ideas particular to their stories and mine. I’m excited to extend the project of planting my poles beyond their birthplace in Tenants Harbor… Who knows where my poles and my stories will take me. I only know there’s a lot of healing, joy and inspiration that each one brings me when I plant it in whatever soil awaits.
UPDATE – DECEMBER 31 2024
Here’s a pic of our grassy space fronting the cabin, now with snow and five poetry poles…
Here From Away 