The organization for which I channel, L/L Research, has been studying channeling since 1962. Don Elkins and I began holding channeling and meditation meetings in our own home in 1973. We have existed as a formally incorporated 501-c-3 charity since 1980. Many people have passed through our doors in the course of our 34 years of offering public meetings. And a few have stayed, for a time, to help us as volunteers.
In 1986, after the 1986 Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarmament was successfully concluded, we received one marcher, Kim, into our home, where she volunteered brilliantly, entering into the computer hundreds of our taped transcripts. Another marcher, Victoria, moved into our neighborhood. She, too, volunteered her time generously for many months.
These two marchers had many stories to tell of the “Great Peace March,” as they called it. They wore out several pairs of hiking shoes. They were heckled and reviled by a few. They were treated magnificently, lovingly and inspiringly by the vast majority of others as they walked.
Fast-forward 21 years! People are again marching. If you Google “March for Peace,” you can find a dozen different individuals and small groups wearing out their tennies and Birkenstocks once again. I would like to focus in on one such small group.
The group initiator is Ashley Casale, a California college student. She formed the idea of putting her ideals into action and began her walk eastward in San Francisco several months ago. She is heading for Washington, D.C.
Her goals are simple and non-political, according to Criste Scarnati of the Prairie City (Iowa) News, who quotes Casale as saying that she “isn’t politically motivated for her cause. She just wants to see a non-violent rather than a military solution” to the war in Iraq.
Casale says, further, “We hope we can get people to question the war, interact with peace groups, and hopefully strengthen people’s faith.”
Her march has remained small, joined at present by Michael Israel, another college student, Antonio Kies, 31, and Isabelle Salmon, 23. According to their email to me last week, they have also added three relatively new marchers, Art, Mike and Peter. At times, their website reports, as many as 25 people have walked with them for a few days. However, no political candidate has joined them.
I took a look at their website, www.marchforpeace.info, as I began to compose this column today. They started their marching today on Route 50, near Ridgeville, W.Va. A note on their site lets people know they are largely out of mobile telephone range today! I know that woe of country living well. When I go up to Avalon Farm, L/L Research’s retreat upriver from Louisville, the cell phones get tucked away. We’re out of range in deep country.
They plan to reach Washington, D.C., on Sept. 10. The crew asked me to let my readers know the following:
“All are invited to join the marchers for the final leg of the trip. On Sept. 10 at 10 a.m., marchers will gather at the Arlington Cemetery Metro Station and take the following route to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue: From Arlington Cemetery Metro, cross Arlington Memorial Bridge to Lincoln Memorial to 23rd St. Continue north to Constitution Ave, east to 17th St., north to Pennsylvania Ave. There will be a rally in front of the White House following the March.”
If you happen to live nearby, I encourage you to welcome these footsore soldiers in an army of light whose banners are peace and justice.
Just how do such initiators as Ashley Casale make a difference? To my mind, she and many others like her are like lighthouses, shining their light on a hill that all may see and take note.
I also see her as an alarm clock. Many of us are on a snooze alarm, as far as political and social issues are concerned. Casale’s march brings us up from our doze and suggests it might be time to wake up more fully and consider how we, too, might be a difference-maker in this world of consensus reality. For Ashley Casale is a private citizen with a non-radical background. Events woke her up to a need to create a statement with her very life. Her goals, as told to Amy Goodman on the radio/Internet show “Democracy Now!” on Aug. 21, were these:
- To end the war in Iraq
- To end the conflict and famine in Darfur
- To become better stewards of our environment
- To express the need for peace and justice in this and every land
At the last poll, about 70 percent of all Americans, regardless of their political affiliation, wished to end the war in Iraq. Casale’s other goals are similarly those which most Americans would support, if they thought about it. Casale’s goal is to help bring these matters to people’s attention so that they do think about it. I find that goal admirable.
It is encouraging to me that several well-known non-profit organizations have endorsed this March for Peace. Not in Our Name, CodePINK, World Can’t Wait, Bay Area United Against War, Nebraskans for Peace, and September 11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows have all given this small band of hikers publicity and donations. Please visit the March for Peace website if you or your group would also like to help them.
What happens after the rally on Sept. 10? Casale is dreaming big! Their website says: “The hospitality that the marchers were shown as they crossed the United States was amazing and inspiring. The group is requesting in an open letter to the President that he and his staff extend the same kindness that so many folks have in the past months, by offering them a place to stay at the White House. As has been the practice this summer, even a spot to camp on the lawn will do!”
I would so very much like to see our president welcome their peaceful tents to the White House lawn! What a heart-opening, healing event that would be!
I see Ashley Casale as a good example of a member of the Indigo group of “wanderers,” the third generation of wanderers to come to Planet Earth from elsewhere. The first generation includes me. We came from other planets, according to the extraterrestrial sources I channel, in order to help lighten the vibrations of Planet Earth at this time of shifting global energies. We first-generation folks were heavily oriented toward the arts, and you can see some fine old rockers who are still singing of peace, love and the search for enlightenment from my generation of flower children and activists.
The second generation of wanderers is also from elsewhere. They are marked by being involved less in public service and more in work of a personal nature. Many of these now have awakened to more outer, worldwide goals which have their basis in spiritual values.
The third generation of wanderers, according to the Confederation, consists of those souls who have recently died on Earth and have achieved graduation to the Density of Love. They have immediately chosen to come back to their beloved native planet to join in the effort to lighten the vibrations of our planet at this time. Q’uo says about these “Indigos”:
“The third generation of those who have moved into the energies of planet Earth at this time from other places in space and time are those pioneers of fourth density who have wandered here with the firm intention of helping not only the planet’s people, but the planet itself. These entities are equipped with the ability to withstand a tremendous amount of disharmony and chaos. Their makeup is such that they are capable of independent action and have little use for the traditional kind of authority which expresses itself in your established religions and those cultural icons such as the classical philosophies and so forth. To these entities, the Earth itself is speaking.” (Jan. 20, 2006)
And again:
“The hallmark of this breed is an insensitivity to traditional modes of expressing religious dedication while maintaining a great sensitivity and an authentic feeling for the most intensive kind of work in consciousness that is chosen by the self for the self and created as an individual expression rather than there being a great desire to become a part of an already established religion.” (Jan. 20, 2006)
Lacey J. Dalton, in her wonderful CD “The Last Wild Place,” has this to say in her liner notes about spiritual activism: “Never be discouraged if you are an activist, no matter how impossible your goals seem or how much of a failure you are at achieving them within the world. For the sheer effort of standing for the truth, for justice and for the light is the absolute success of activism. By desiring to bring together the temple that lies within the open heart and the outside world, you have succeeded already in combining them.”
I open my arms and embrace your spirit. Whatever your heart whispers to you to say to the world today, please stand up and say it! The world needs your love and light now.