A Brief History of the Peace Poles at Meditation Mount

On January 24, 2009, Meditation Mount hosted an event to officially open its International Garden of Peace, and dedicate the newly installed “Peace Portal” designed by local area artist and sculptor, G. Ramon Byrne. Dr. Robert Muller, former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations, joined the dedication ceremonies. Dr. Muller, who has spent 40 years of his life behind the scenes at the U.N. focusing his energies on world peace, was also on hand at the dedication of the Mount’s original peace pole, described below.

There was also another special presentation in January, that of a new peace pole from Japan, gifted to the Mount by Uran Snyder of Long Beach, CA, a Peace Representative with The World Peace Prayer Society, www.WorldPeace.org. The peace pole features the Society’s universal peace message and prayer “May Peace Prevail on Earth” written on two sides in English, and the other two sides in Japanese and Spanish. In the next phase of the International Garden of Peace and its extension—“The Path”—the peace pole will be officially planted and dedicated. At that time, the new pole will become a companion to the Mount’s existing peace pole, located just outside the Mount Auditorium, where it has stood since being dedicated at a ceremony in the early 1990s. The eight plaques on that pole contain the universal message in Arabic, Chumash, English, French, Georgian, Japanese, Russian and Spanish. Shepherd Joy, long time friend of the Mount, was instrumental in facilitating the original pole and its message of peace. Shep was inspired by Andrea Kay Smith, Atlanta, www.PartnershipsInPeace.org.

Visitors at the Mount who notice that the plaques on the sides of the original Peace Pole are warped, though still quite legible, may wonder how it came to be in that condition. The history is quite dramatic, as the pole, like all of the structures at Meditation Mount, survived a brush fire that swept over the Mount grounds on New Year's Eve, 1999, damaging much of the plant life but leaving the structures intact. As the vegetation has regained its growth in the ensuing years, the warped sides of the original peace pole remain as a scarred reminder that Meditation Mount—though threatened and burned by fire—did survive to continue its service to humanity and the world. Thus, in a sense, the original pole represents the fact our planet has survived the ravages of wars that have afflicted humanity throughout history, while the new, pristine peace poll represents the ever-present possibility of a truly lasting peace.

Photo: Palm Sunday, 1992, during a Spring Conference at the Mount; Left to right: Friend of the Mount; Joan Englander, Ojai; Jeriel Smith, Meditation Mount; Andrea Kay Smith (not related), Atlanta, Partnerships in Peace.