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What a wonder filled World Youth Dance
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"For The One" World Youth Dance
Following an activity packed World Youth Gathering at the historic Highlander Center that included Bar-b-que, Smoky Mountain creek bathing, a potluck supper at the International House at UT, summer play in the Tennessee outdoors and a Talent Show,the dancers arrived for the Dance at the Center For Peace in the middle of a late June heat wave .
Fifteen dancers danced remembrance that there is only One of us here. The support staff worked together seamlessly and by the water ceremony on Sunday we had all fallen in love with each other and with life.
Thanks and blessings to the greater community for all the support that made this event possible.
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2010 Seymour SunMoon Dance
July 16th-19th
Chiefs: Nan & Steve Citty
We are both the Dream and the Dreamer.
The SunMoon Dance is an opportunity to move from one dimension of the dream to another. Using ancient rhythm and chant combined as movement and prayer, we shift our vibration to a spiritually "higher ground". As we begin to vibrate to the frequency of the new dimension, visions of that potentiallity come to our awareness. The Vision of that potentiallity carried back to this dimension, where we have our life resonance, begins the process of altering this dimension.
The evolution of the species has always depended on seers to steer the mass consciousness. The SunMoon Dance is an instrument of "seeing". Seeing beyond the dimension where we have our life resonance raises consciousness. By walking through any personal fear to sieze the Vision, the seer breaks through personal barriers, and experiences an epiphany for their own life; more importantly, the dimensional shift that the seer makes begins the process of re-visioning the percieved reality in which we live.
Our Mother Earth is approaching a point of dimensional shift. We have spiraled through this dimension for 5,000 years or so and are back to the gateway between dimensions. We percieve this gateway as the alignment with the galactic core. That point indicated by the calendars of the ancients. The 5th world.
The direction and magnitude of that shift will be determined by the vision of the People following the visions of the seers.
SunMoon Dance Information & Registration
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Native Nurturing Young People's Dance
August 15th
Chief: Nan Citty
(The Native Nurturing Young People's Dance is a one day dance that begins at 9 am with a Young People's Sweat Lodge. This is a gentle 4 round lodge focused on experiencing the event. That is followed by a light picnic and then the dance, which generally lasts about 1 1/2 to 2 hours. The day ends with a feast and give away.)
At the Center for Peace there are several opportunities to participate in various ceremonial dances. Some are for Vision, some are for healing, some honor, and some are for growth and awareness. The Native Nurturing Young People’s Dance was born out of a vision given during a Sun-Moon dance twelve years ago. What a wonderful way to cerebrate one of God’s blessings. We exist within our families. Our families extend both forward and backward, to our past and to our future.
Ancient native teachings speak of seven generations. Our future is carried by our children. We have been carried by our own ancestors. We now have the knowledge passed to us and we have the knowledge we have gleaned ourselves. The Young People’s Dance is a celebration and an opportunity to pass on the best of our experiences to our future. I have seen children grow and nurtured into thoughtful young adults who were shaped by this experience, this offering to our family. It is a small step towards peace among people. So, if you are called by Spirit to celebrate your family, your children, please listen and follow your heart to attend and dance. You will dance with your children or you can dance singly for your children. It will formulate a bond holding your family (whether by blood or by love) in the path of Spirit. It will bring you joy.
Nan Citty
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Star Dance
August 20th-22nd
Chief: John Pehrson
The STAR DANCE, is a sacred dance for All People given by Spirit through personal vision. In this time of fundamental change, it is important that each of us is able to remain centered and in balance. This three-day event is about bringing that balance to your life, and to the land through ceremony during which we focus our intentions through fasting, sound and "prayer in movement." This dance renews our connection to the Star People and our cosmic heritage. It is also about gaining personal inspiration, breaking out of the stuck places in our lives, and moving into alignment with our life purpose. Many have found it to be a way to accelerate their progress on the path to greater spiritual awareness.
The Star Dance can teach you to fly. More than at any time in the past, it is an important year to dance, to bring ourselves into personal alignment with a Higher Purpose, and to help bring greater balance into our lives, and to the land. To that end, we are offering this dance on a donation basis to any and all who are drawn to dance.
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Men's Hollow Bone Dance
September 3rd-6th
Chief: Steve Citty
The Hollow Bone Dance is important because it has no drumming or singing. It evokes a different plane of resonance. ...
When we do the Hollow Bone, our feet hit the ground, hence, level one drumming. The body movements is the second level of singing while in the third level the bone sound is the eaglet in distress asking for divine guidance. The adult eagles respond who are the Mother-Father God principle.
~Joseph Rael~
Like the sacred Sun-Moon Dance, the Hollow Bone Dance is about bringing peace to the land through fasting, prayer and movement. It is also about gaining personal inspiration, breaking out of the stuck places in our lives, and moving into alignment with our life purpose.
We are the Hollow Bone through which Spirit moves as breath. The arbor with the central tree is a representation of the world (matter) and the dance is movement. The three are Wah Ma Chi (Breath, Matter, & Movement), the act of creator creating.
The Hollow Bone Dance is danced with no drumming, no singing, and very little support from outside the dance arbor. This encourages the dancers to learn to depend on others who are dancing the dance of life with them in the time they are dancing. It is different than the Sun-Moon dance, not better or harder or easier, just different.
A dance for men to recognize the ways in which men are like one another and to remember that we as men are here to serve, the Hollow Bone is open to all men who seek the inspiration to live a life of greater spiritual awareness and service.
Sacred dance is a way to step away from Ego for a time. It’s a time to retreat from the perceptual reality in which we live our ordinary life. It is a way to move beyond the ordinary and begin to make our life “extra ordinary”.
The Hollow Bone Dance in Tennessee grew from a vision that Steve Citty had of bringing men to experience the power of the Sun-Moon Dance. Although the Sun-Moon Dance was brought forth from the vision of a Native American, it is important to understand that it is not strictly a Native American Dance
Hollow Bone Information & Registration
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"Messiah" Training
Tuesdays 7-8:30pm
"In September of 2009, I began leading a weekly seminar at the Center for Peace around the subject of 'Messiah' Training. These are on a continuing basis [until they are not] and everyone is invited to participate.
"If you have read and liked such books as Richard Bach’s ILLUSIONS and/or are intrigued by the teachings of A COURSE IN MIRACLES and/or follow the visionary path taught by people like Joseph Rael, you already may have been studying up on this subject – already a 'messiah in training'.
"Please do not let the language throw you! These times together are very little about doctrine, demands, or nice ideas and much more about self discovery, personal power, and mutual support."
Perry Robinson
More Information on Messiah Training
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Fire Ceremony
7th of each month, 7 pm
~ led by Katy Koontz
The purpose of the FIRE CEREMONY is to heal and purify both the planet’s physical oceans and the oceans of cosmic thought.
At 7 pm local time, fire elders light ceremonial fires at each of the Peace Sound Chambers around the world. Those present watch the fire in silence until it burns out, giving to it what we want to transmute in our lives and staying open to the messages and teachings it brings. All are welcome. We suggest you arrive around 6:45 pm.
Donations are appreciated.
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Sweat Lodge
 A sweat lodge or "Purification Lodge", is an intensely rewarding experience. By entering the womb of Mother Earth (the lodge), we seek purification and a deeper spiritual awareness through prayer.
Generally speaking the experience is to deepen spiritual awareness. The steam, heat, and darkness intensify prayers and personal introspection. The lodge leader (pourer), with help from the fire tender, hold an energetic space of safety and security while setting the intent of the lodge. The medicine of the lodge leader and of each participant helps to enrich the lessons of the lodge.
There are composting toilets in the meadow. You may change clothes in these toilets or at the Peace Sound Chamber. There is no nudity in our lodges.
Suggested Items to Bring:
• Two Towels
• Men are requested to wear swim trunks, gym shorts or something similar.
• Women are requested to wear a skirt or dress. (Something for inside the sweat that is modest and you don’t mind getting muddy.)
• Change of clothes (Preferably long sleeve and covers all of the legs to keep from getting the feast area dirty).
• Covered Dish for the Feast.
It is appropriate to bring tobacco, a small gift, or monetary gift for the fire-keeper and lodge master, both of whom offer their services to the people as a gift.
Cash donations are used to support the Sweat Lodge. We use lots of wood for the fire; supplies like herbs (sage, tobacco, cornmeal, etc.), drinking water, and more. If you are feeling abundant, a donation would be appreciated.
There is never a charge for Ceremony. If you are not feeling abundant, PLEASE do not allow this to prevent you from coming.
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Drumming Circle
Every Friday @ 7 pm
~led by José and Tamy
Drumming is a powerful, sometimes dramatic, way to break into other levels of our mind. Sensitive instruments can measure the way that drumming affects the brain waves. That’s the reason for tens of thousands of years the shaman has journeyed with the drum.
This drumming is not specifically for journeying; but you get to use it whatever way you wish – including having a good time doing it!
So, on Friday of each week, bring your drum, and come join us.
Donations are appreciated.
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Perry's Ponderings
Little Toy Shovel
By Perry Robinson
I am amazed at how truly insignificant even my highest thoughts become, once I get a glimpse of the vastness of God.
It makes me feel like a child, taking on Mount Ranier with a toy sand shovel, or a dolt, picking at a loose fiber in a cloth factory, or sot, awakening from a binge in the Sahara Desert, trying to look wise by examining a grain of sand.
In the brilliance of Divine Grace, the avatars, gurus, and sages become like the lead goose in the migratory V; the Pope becomes like an arrogant carp; and I become like a gnat, barely able to cause someone to scratch!
This is not about belittling our highest efforts and aspirations. It is about deleting the self-important swagger that we humans tend to get, whenever we achieve a glimmering of wisdom. There is always infinitely more, awaiting our attention!
To my mind spiritual life is about continuing the search and discovery, even though it may seem as overwhelming as trying to dip the ocean dry with a spoon. The search and discovery is the key!
It was cute, when I was a child and I found a sand dollar on the beach. I had to show it to everyone who would admire it! It was beautiful and I felt grand for having found it. But it was a sand dollar, after all. And now I know that there are thousands of them washing up on thousands of beaches around the world.
Fortunately, this did not prevent the child from searching. The older and more wise I have become, the more precious the “sand dollars” I have discovered. And, yes, oftentimes you have seen me declaim in this medium a new-found thought with that same childish enthusiasm; and, I suspect, you have practiced indulgence in admiring them with me. Thank you for doing do! For this indulgence has encouraged me not to give up the search nor lose interest in the discovery!
As long as we can hold our perspective, knowing that it is, after all, only perspective, perhaps we can avoid the pitfalls of pomposity and ponderousness, which have plagued the spiritual scene throughout our lifetime – and through written history.
I was already [age wise, at least] an elder, when I began to discover that there were people of ancient civilizations who looked upon the manifestations of the vast world religions of our day as the playacting of the children! While they are technically correct, they, nevertheless, remain in the same boat with us “younguns”, in the sense that they have not yet completely comprehended the totality of that vastness.
So?
Maybe the object of it all is not so much completely to comprehend the totality of the vastness as to take up the piece of that vastness that fits my hand [mind] and see how I can turn it into a blessing for me and for my people.
I am grateful to a friend who recently drew me into a “theological debate” about religion and our thoughts, beliefs, and experiences in the practice thereof. I think he was somewhat shocked about some of the things that I accept and teach. Having traveled through the church in my early life, I was easily conversant with the feelings and attitudes he was expressing – after all, I have had them. On my part I was shocked to discover some deep pockets of resentment toward aspects of organized religion, which I clearly had not brought into balance. I thought I had moved through all that! The good part is that we still can share. My hope is that we shall continue to help each other “rattle the cages” surrounding those points at which each of us may have been stuck and, thus, become more free to accept, understand, and respect each other – even support each other – in the pursuit of our highest aspirations.
Which brings me back to the idea which inspired this article: how arrogant it is to insist that “my understanding” is correct and “you ought to believe it” – no matter what side of what issue I may be standing on or how many stand there with me.
In 1970 I took my leave of organized religion, partly because I became very clear that at some point I must account for my life. [I believe this is true of everyone, no matter how we may visualize that happening.] I knew this accounting would be based upon the actions of my mind, heart, and hands and that excuses and temporizing would not suffice. “I did what the church told me” or “I believed the right things” or “I achieved recognition and honors” would not suffice. The accounting is to be based upon my thoughts, my heart, and the works of my hands. Yes, I knew that Jesus would be there with me at that time, just as he has been with me throughout this lifetime.
So it did not occur to me to think this accounting would be about whether I will go to “heaven” or “hell”, having experienced both of them already in this lifetime. It is, rather, about whether I fulfilled the plan that – I now believe – I accepted for my life upon entering into this life episode, the plan that I committed [or recommitted] to in 1955, when I offered my life to God as a nineteen year old.
“When I was a child, I thought like a child, I acted like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put away childish things.” [St. Paul wrote] Maybe what is up for us here is the part about “becoming a man”. There are many points in my life, when I have looked back and quoted those words of Paul, only to discover later that my “becoming a man” was somewhat prematurely assumed.
Now at the age of seventy-four I am clear that, if “becoming a man” means achieving the highest, my body may not support me all the way to that goal.
Yet I am content and at peace, knowing that life is more about the journey than the goal. If the “goal” were the most important thing, then we would not have left the heart of God – where it has already been achieved – to come here.
Rather, I believe, the important thing is how much of that “Light of Heaven” I am willing to draw down into my conscious, physical, life in this world to “plant” it in this world. That is the way I look upon my life.
It would be truly arrogant of me, if I were to say to you that you “ought to” do the same thing or think the same way I do. I feel guided to remind you, however, that we all probably shall face an accounting.
In other words: it doesn’t bother me very much that this “Mount Ranier” is still here in front of me and all I have is a toy shovel. I’m still digging.
Contact Perry
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Calendar at a Glance
WEEKLY
Tuesday, 7:30 pm
Messiah Training
Friday, 7:30 pm
Drumming Circle
JULY
July 4, 3pm
Pipe Circle
July 7, 6:45pm
Fire Ceremony
July 10, 9 am - 4 pm
Work Day for the SunMoon Dance
July 11th
Special meeting of the Council 1 pm
Monthly Council Meeting 4 pm
July 16th-19th
2010 Seymour SunMoon Dance
July 22, 6:30pm
Thursday Night Sweat Lodge
July 24, 10 am
Saturday Sweat Lodge
July 31, 9 am-4 pm
Work Day for the Young People's Dance
AUGUST
August 7, 9am-5pm
Native Nurturing Young People's Dance
August 7, 6:45pm
Fire Ceremony
August 14, 9 am-4 pm
Work Day for the Star Dance
August 20th-22nd
Star Dance
August 26, 6:30pm
Thursday Night Sweat Lodge
August 29th
Monthly Council Meeting
SEPTEMBER
September 3rd-6th
Men's Hollow Bone Dance
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Work is Worship
“Work is Worship”
Work/activity is one very clear way to celebrate our selves as part of the community by which we are being fed spiritually. And it is always a lot of fun. Time seems to alter into a process rather than a taskmaster and friendships are born and nurtured by our community participation.
Bring gloves, appropriate clothing, water and an open willing attitude. If you have any special skills, please let us know so we can best use your talents. Of course, we will first take care of the pressing needs, but there is a lot of work to be done and all your talents are valuable.
We provide lunch. (So kitchen help is also appreciated.)
Contact:
Perry 865-428-3070 or
Steve 865-300-4424
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Chanting in the Chamber
The Peace Sound Chamber is available for chanting, vision quests and ceremonies of many different types.
You are encouraged to come to the chamber and chant, drum, meditate or simply sit (the chamber Spirits love it); please check first that there is not something already scheduled.
Please call at least two weeks in advance to reserve our facilities as usage requires council approval.
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Council Meeting
This is the gathering of the board of directors to discuss new ideas, future projects, and events. Feel free to come with suggestions and comments.
July 11, 1 pm - A special meeting of the Council
followed at 4pm by the
Monthly Council meeting- visitors welcome
August 29, 4 pm
Monthly Council meeting- visitors welcome
For more information, call the Center at (865) 428-3070.
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Directions to the Center
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Directions
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Council Members
The Center for Peace is a non-profit religious corporation in the State of Tennessee. Donations to the Center for Peace can be claimed as deductions from income for income tax purposes.
Active Council Members of the Center for Peace:
Candy Barbee
Knoxville
865-933-9327
Tamy Brown
Seymour
865-453-0447
Nan Citty
Knoxville
865-405-6809
Steve Citty
Knoxville
865-300-4424
Margarita DiVita
Jefferson City
865-475-3799
Al Fletcher
Norris
865-494-9950
Katy Koontz
Knoxville
865-693-9845
Dona Polero
Sevierville
865-805-8372
Jim Phillips
Knoxville
Jeanne Robinson
Seymour
865-428-3070
Perry Robinson
Seymour
865-428-3070
Marcus Weseman
Clinton
865-463-1002
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