A Wider Valentine
Valentine's day is rumored to have begun when a doomed priest married soldiers who were forbidden to marry. It was about secret love. It was about love surviving against the odds - no matter what.
The Valentine Peace Project invites citizens of the world to peer into their heart. To take an opportunity to celebrate all the faces of love: Friendship, community, global connection - love's greatest potential and the promise of Peace.
Poet Pablo Neruda said that poetry is an act of peace. Poetry explores the hidden knowledge and spiritual dimensions of life - "a little world built to convey something of the larger" (from The Poetic Imagination). It's an opportunity to listen to that small voice inside. In times of a suffering planet and a breakdown of old systems we can still the voices in our head to take notice of our deeper selves.
One peace educator stated that studying peace is a move toward the realization of each individual's talents and gifts. It is a movement to promote an interconnected view of the world - teaching us to look for solutions in a radical way- radical in the Greek sense of getting to the root.
The world will look completely different in ten or fifteen years- we can feel the ground moving underneath us. When do we take time to 'smell the flowers'? to reach out to a neighbor? to break through a tough exterior we might find we're wearing?
Peace is appreciated on three levels - inner, community and global.
Inner knowledge and presence, community participation and appreciation, and a greater awareness of the global whole.
This Global Valentine has been designed to celebrate and connect all three.
Share a submitted poem by email or scroll, write your own poem or statement. Share from your inner garden or from the one behind your house! Give flowers to someone you know would never think to treat themselves. Take a message to the street.
Learn also about international Fair Trade and where your purchases come from (chocolate, flowers) and how. Visit our partners and our links page and support the myriad of local and global community peace organizations, campaigns and initiatives. Under Downloads are discussion ideas and lesson plans as well as a poem template to paste poems into- to give out and share.
John Lennon said Imagine . . let's be imaginative, and bring a gift to a stranger on the street, a patient in a hospital, a friend we haven't spoken to in years, or individuals waiting at a station . . . blossom into citizens of the 21st century - learning how easy and how difficult it can be to . . Love.
Happy Valentine's every day!
Federico Hewson, Founder
The Valentine Peace Project
Federico Hewson is a US and EU citizen. He was a performance artist for many years in Chicago and Los Angeles and a volunteer with the US Peace Alliance. He started this Project in 2006 and currently lives in Amsterdam in the Netherlands. Feel free to contact him at
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.