jai

Peace Talk--Pittsburgh:
The Balance of Tensions

A Peace Room-Poem
created by an international group of 11 women

Exhibited at
Smithfield United Church
Pittsburgh, PA
January 30-February 13, 2000

Participants

•	Irina Azar, founder of Feed My Sheep, a non-profit created to help develop a women's training center in Tanzania. Irina was born in a German refugee camp after her parents escaped from a Siberian internment camp.
•	Katie Barksdale, an 18-year-old, African-American poet-artist.
•	Maria Cherkasskaya, an artist-illustrator. From Russia.
•	Sharon Flake, an award-winning African-American novelist, published by Disney.
•	Pamela Johnson, Executive Director of Writers Workshop, a non-profit created to advance community writing programs.
•	Anne Kuhn, President, Pennsylvania Peace Links.
•	Christine Doreian Michaels, a psychologist and poet. From Great Britain.
•	Molly Rush, co-founder of the Thomas Merton Center, Pittsburgh Ministry for Justice and Peace.
•	Ksenija Simic, a poet, studying mathematics at Carnegie Mellon. From Yugoslavia.
•	Heather Stein, a writer, and avid wife and mother. and
•	jai, a poet-artist and peacemaker, President of Vision and Values.

Creating this Peace Room-Poem Participants spent a day discussing peace. jai then wrote a 25-minute dramatic poem based on their discussion. The group recorded the poetic text. Then the women used paint, paper, fabric, and objects to create peace all over the walls of a corridor room in the Smithfield United Church in downtown Pittsburgh. (Note: The words and art in a room-poem extend rather than duplicate each other. So the poetic text may not connect directly with the art that has been created.)

Future Peace Room-Poems To create peace, people everywhere must be involved in envisioning peace. Every room poem will be different since the participants will be different. Therefore, jai is seeking funding to create future peace room-poems with diverse groups in various locations nationally and internationally. If you would like discuss possibilities, e-mail jai at jai@vision-and-values.com.

Some visual and textual segments from
Peace Talk: Pittsburgh
The Balance of Tensions
© 2000 jai
(May not be reproduced in any fashion without jai’s written permission.)

(Prologue)
Ten women in a room.
Peace is the tune.
Ten women in a room.

Chris: Blue
Irina: Blue
Ksenija: Blue
jai: Peace is...
Chris: Blue as the dress I never got to wear.
Anne: Blue as the sky when the weather is fair.
Ksenija: Blue as the sea away from all the din.
Irina: Blue as the quietness within.

Peace, Unfinished, with Doors
Door 1
by jai

Pam: (exclaiming) Yellow
jai: Peace is...
Pam: Mr. Yellow, the Yellow Buddha, a living sculpture for peace. His face and robe were neon yellow.

Aaahhhhhhh!
by Sharon Flake

Sharon : I was driving down from Stanton Heights and there was this whole bunch of leaves...orange...yellow. Driving through them, my level of intensity immediately went...
All: ssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhuuuuuuuu
Sharon: ...peace.

Peace for Irina
by jai

Irina: In Tanzania, there were no lights except in a big city. And after the sun goes down, poof. There’s nothing, not even dusk. Just dark, dark, dark, and everybody walks, and when you walk in the dark you can hear other people but barely, barely. Most people walk barefoot, I have sandals, and you hear their soft sound...no loud talk...nothing but their soft sound. There are people around you all the time and such peacefulness. I never felt afraid or worried.

Peace
by Ksenija Simic

Ksenija: When the whole war in Serbia was going on, I was active. I went to DC, I was translating for my friends back home, they were making a website about it. Right now I'm involved in this group that's working against sanctions in Iraq. I guess I'm at an age, whenever I see a cause I go for it. But we're not getting anywhere and it’s my experience from Serbia that we’re not going to get anywhere.

Peace Corridor
In the Foreground: Peace
by Pamela Johnson

Pam : It can’t be peaceful if you don’t have food and shelter and stability and joy in your life and the absence of violence and stress. If we could provide a peaceful childhood for every child, then theoretically that would the first generation of children to create a world at peace.

Door 2
by jai

The Water
by jai
(compiled from the words of the people indicated)

Ksenija:: Scuba diving--far away from everything, all the turmoil. Perfect quiet.
Pamela:: Sailing on the Chesapeake at night under the stars--no sound, no one.
Anne:: Swimming at night...pitch dark...millions of stars...when you come out, the wind could blow through you like leaves in the trees.
Sharon:: Under the water--and I mean just regular pool water--I can hear the quiet, I can feel it. If fish looked like they had more fun, I’d want to be a fish.
Heather:: Fountains...your little rock thing with water falling...bringing a bit of nature in.
Molly:: That feeling you get body surfing, when you get ahead of that wave.
Chris:: You mean the moment before it churns you under.
Molly:: No, if you get it right, it doesn’t do that. It just glides you in there.
Ksenija:: Is that really peaceful?
Molly:: Oh, yes...
Chris:: ...because you’re no longer controlling it.
Chris & Molly:: It’s carrying you!
Anne:: I spent more than a month and a half on islands this summer, off and on. Island time and off-island time are totally different. If you practice meditation or prayer...
Chris:: there is an island there, with a palm tree.

Top: We’re all part of one another.
by Molly Rush
Bottom: Ocean bottom
by jai

Molly: I’m six, eight, and nine years older than my sisters. I’ve always felt very close to my family, but their memories of our childhood are so different from mine, completely different. If just that age difference has made such a difference in perception among the people I’m closest to, understanding people has me kind of stumped. There is such a need to really have that deep level of communication to understand other people better.

In Prayer
by Katie Barksdale

Katie: I'm most peaceful when I talk to my grandparents. They put a lot of stuff in perspective for me, like television, stuff that I take for granted that they didn't have. I learn the most from them.

In background: Peace and Compassion
by Anne Kuhn
In foreground: Recognizing Peace
by Heather Stein

jai: What is the one most important thing that our city or country or government could do to bring about peace?
Anne: Banning land mines and nuclear weapons worldwide. A woman from Chechnya spoke at The Hague. She learned English in three months so she could come and tell us that they needed help because there were two land mines for every woman and child in the country. They couldn’t go out. Kids were having limbs blown off when they went to school. And mothers were trying to work in the field and were being killed or dismembered.
~~~ Heather: I like nature, the colors of the sea and the colors of the forest. When I'm in a state park or at an ocean, those are my most peaceful times.

The Blue Dress
by Maria Cherkasskaya

Poem for Chris:
The Case before the Court
by jai

(plaintiff, child voice)
The case, your honor,
that must be redressed
has to do with me
and a pretty blue dress.
I was supposed to be a boy
so made a fair request,
"Mother, please buy me
a pretty blue dress."
I begged and I pleaded,
I said, "I’m oppressed."
Still, my younger sister
got the blue dress.
I’ll grow up and show them.
I won’t be suppressed!
I’ll spend all my money
on every blue dress.
So parents take heed
(This is no jest!)
the needs of a middle child,
should never be repressed,
or you’ll go to purgatory
and that will be a nasty story
and this angry hortatory
won’t be very transitory
unless you buy your middle child,
(upper crust, matronly voice)
"a darling girl,
so meek and mild"
a BLUE, BLUE, BLUE, BLUE,
BLUE, BLUE, BLUE,
and I don’t mean pink!
BLUE dress.
Your honor, I rest.
(judge)
The court finds
for the plaintiff!
(child)
YES!!!!!
(all clapping, cheering)

In background: Door 3
by jai
In foreground: Peace: Balance of Tensions
by Christine Doreian Michaels

jai: If you had a symbol for peace, what would that be?
Chris: For me, the yin yang symbol because it has the light side and the dark side together, and inside the dark side is a piece of light and inside the light side is a piece of dark. Not the absence of the dark, but some way in which dark and light coexist and integrate. Everything keeps its distinct features, distinct colors, distinct differences and yet somehow finds a way to hold you together, not blast you apart.

Door 5
by (and with) jai

Poem for janet
I have never listened so for laughter.

Perhaps it’s all our words,
said and unsaid:
things we know,
things we’ve seen,
where we wish
we’d never been
that makes me value so
our laughter,
exploding like an after-winter
thunder of spring rain.
Again.
Again.

Molly: I find that the thing that is keeping people from working for peace more than anything else is the lack of hope, a lack of a sense that their efforts will make a difference, that they will be able to make a positive change. I have learned that hope is a decision. You act on that decision and that’s where the hope comes in.

Irina: When there’s a real summer rain and then the rain stops and everything is clean and fresh, it smells so good.
Anne: Even the cement smells good.
All: That’s peace.

Chris: compassion
Anne: hope
Katie: quiet
Pam: faith
Sharon: God
Irina: Shalom
Ksenija: Om
Molly: sharing
Heather: satisfaction
jai: love

That’s peace!

jai: As you leave, we'd like you to take with you this thought:
Do something to create peace today--in the world, in your neighborhood, in your life, in your heart.

To obtain a copy of the full text for Peace Talk--Pittsburgh, send a check for $3 (Pennsylvania residents, send $3.21) to jai, 733 N. Highland Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15206.