WORLD PEACE DAY /WINTER SOLSTICE DECEMBER 21, 2000

World Peace Day on The Winter Solstice

World Peace Day occurs on the Winter
Solstice each year.
This year it will fall on Thursday,
December 21st. Don Orne,
the Coordinator of World Peace Day
since 1994, invites
everyone to celebrate the Winter
Solstice with prayer and
meditation in his or her own way so
that we all join together
as one unified global body.

World Peace Day is a Global celebration
for all people of
Planet Earth. Imagine people all over
the world sharing an
hour of prayer and song, dance and
chanting, meditation and
ritual honoring themselves, their
families --living and dead --
their town, country and global family.
Each person brings to
the celebration the love, compassion
and understanding to
embrace the healing of social,
ecological and spiritual
challenges before him/her.

Don traditionally uses his Peace Gong
to honor the Four
Directions and to reverberate Peace
through sound and
intention to the entire global
community in conjunction with
others whose mission is peace and
Light.

It is hoped that the awareness that
World Peace Day is a
Global Prayer Day as each person prays in his or her own way, will be
enough to shift people's
actions and thoughts from fear to faith, from hatred to compassion,
from bitterness to
tenderness, from revenge to resonance, from separation to unity, and
from emptiness to fullness
of body, mind, heart, emotion and spirit.

World Peace Day is a time for us all to align our energies and put
aside differences while
honoring the sacred in one another.

PAST CELEBRATIONS

December 21, 1998 - Marblehead Lighthouse
in
Massachusetts was the site locally that
Don Orne held the 5th
Annual World Peace Day celebration on
Sunday, December
20th from 7 - 8:00 PM EST. The weather
was very windy and
cold but a cheerful crowd came to the
lighthouse to do
ceremony and song.

The war in Iraq and the impeachment of the President of the US were
events that healing focused
on.

Gongmaster for Peace, Don Orne, honored the 4 directions with his 22"
Paiste Symphonic Peace
Gong. The 12 Peace Prayers from the 12 different religions were
recited. The Great Invocation,
the Invocation for Peace and the Saint Francis Prayer were recited and
music by Elton John and
John Lennon was played.

This group of Emissaries of Light also chanted "Love Be In Me/Love Be
As Me" and recited
together the original Lord's Prayer. This prayer is from the Aramaic
and is presented here in its
entirety:

"And pray every day to your Heavenly Father and Earthly Mother, that
your soul become as perfect
as your Heavenly Father's holy spirit is perfect, and that your body
become as perfect as the body
of your Earthly Mother is perfect. For if you understand, feel, and do
the commandments, then all
for which you pray to your Heavenly Father and your Earthly Mother will
be given you. For the
wisdom, the love, and the power of God are above all.

After this manner, therefore, pray to your Heavenly Father: Our Father
which art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it
is in heaven. Give us
this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our
debtors. And lead us not into
temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the
power, and the glory, for ever.
Amen.

And after this manner pray to your Earthly Mother: Our Mother which art
upon earth, hallowed be
thy name. Thy kingdom come, and thy will be done in us as it is in
thee. As thou sendest every
day thy angels, send them to us also. Forgive us our sins, as we atone
all our sins against thee.
And lead us not into sickness, but deliver us from all evil, for thine
is the earth, the body, and the
health. Amen.

And they all prayed together with Jesus to the Heavenly Father and to
the Earthly Mother.

And afterwards Jesus spoke thus to them: "Even as your bodies have been
reborn through the
Earthly Mother's angels, may your spirit, likewise, be reborn through
the angels of the Heavenly
Father. Become, therefore, true Sons of your Father and of your Mother,
and true Brothers of the
Sons of Men. Till now you were at war with your Father, with your
Mother and with your Brothers.
And you have served Satan. From today live at peace with your Heavenly
Father, and with your
Earthly Mother, and with your Brothers, the Sons of Men. And fight only
against Satan, lest he rob
you of your peace. I give the peace of your Earthly Mother to your
body, and the peace of your
Heavenly Father to your spirit. And let the peace of both reign among
the Sons of Men."

Don wishes to thank all the millions of people throughout the world who
have honored the Winter
Solstice on past World Peace Days. He sends a warm and hearty thanks to
all the people who
will honor it again during this year and he wishes everyone a Happy
Chanuka, Merry Christmas,
Good Ramadan and best wishes for the New Year to all.

Don Orne and the Mayor of Jerusalem, Israel, 1996

During the 1996 Winter Solstice, Don
planted a Peace Pole in
Jerusalem, Israel, and dedicated one of
the plaques to the
Mayor of Jerusalem. Don also donated a
22" Paiste Peace
Gong to Menorah Charney for her new
Sheila Samson Center
of Enlightenment in Savyon. The Peace
Gong was originally
presented at a Global Interlink
Conference in Herzylia, a
suburb of Jerusalem, to an audience of
over 300 participants
who had traveled there from all over
the world. Don was
greatly honored to meet with the Mayor
of Jerusalem privately.
During that conversation, Orne extended
the best wishes of
President Clinton to the Mayor.

In previous years, Don has gathered local clergy together under one
roof and a multi-religious
congregation shared each other's prayers and rituals, giving each other
the experience of the
beauty and sameness of each other's beliefs.

In 1996, Don Orne was given permission by the Board of Selectmen in his
hometown in New
England to ring the steeple bells of the Town Hall each year on the
Winter Solstice for five
minutes in recognition of the importance of World Peace Day.

Through the ages, the Winter Solstice has been honored as the most
sacred day of the year by
various cultures in many diverse ways. December 22, 99, the last
Solstice of this millennium is of
great importance. It is a full moon and the moon is in perigee at the
same time. This last occured
in 1866. It is called a plump moon and events will occur in that
fashion around the globe.

Don's vision of a meaningful event that would enhance peace in the
world occured on November
15, 1994. The idea of gathering all people together in prayer on one
day, the Winter Solstice,
continues to develop into a global event. In 1997, Don celebrated it in
Jerusalem. In 1998, Orne
informed the global community via the internet, email, press releases
and "word of mouth" so
that the event would attract as many as 5 million people. It is hoped
that one billion by the year
2000 will be participating.

To Celebrate World Peace Day

Secure a sacred space for December 21st, 2000 such as a
spiritual center, inside
or out.
Plan a program with your favorite group and get input
from everyone.
Implement their ideas.
Run a small listing in local papers about the program.
Inform your local cable TV and radio stations about the
program.
Have each person email or phonecall or snail mail
everyone they'd like to include.
Prepare yourself by raising your vibration through
prayers and meditation,
visualization, affirmations, toning, chanting, using
sage, etc. Please refer to our
suggestions on creating etheric space.
Cherish yourself. Put love in all you do.
Some group activities from past years: walking mantillas,
played musical
instruments, held hands around a lighthouse, read
spiritual material and poems,
affirmations, invocations, played John Lennon's Imagine,
used bells, chimes,
gongs, dolphin sounds, heartbeats, etc.
Offer refreshments.
Link up with other groups to strengthen the heart
connection.
Most of all, enjoy, have fun, listen to your heart and
recite the
Peace Prayers of the 12 major religions.

Wear the World Peace Day Pin(s)