Help us reach 500,000 kids with our Peace Pals Global Exchange! Your generosity helps create a ripple of peace across the globe!
I liked doing the Peace Pals postcard project because I got to let out my inner self and just do what I'm best at - art work. It was also a great opportunity to show off my art. Peace to everyone!
Kendal S.
Age 11, 4th grade
Grass Valley, California
I love your Peace Pals idea and would think kids would love to participate--I know sharing this project with my grandchildren was an honor!! They may actually grow up owning the possibility of peace, and projects like this can only further that possibility.
Lynn K. Artist, Grandmother, volunteer
Shaker Hts, Ohio
About Us
We at the Create Peace Project believe that creative self-expression is one of the greatest tools for fostering self-awareness, and through self-awareness we can learn about ourselves and the world around us. Self-awareness = self-love. A world filled with self-love will be a place where people practice acceptance, kindness, and compassion towards each other and thus live in peace.
It is our understanding that a powerful practice of learning about ones self; i.e. the way we think, act, and behave, occurs when we open up to share the thoughts, feelings, and emotions of our experience through creative self-expression.
The Create Peace Project is about facilitating the practices of creative exploration and collaboration as a means of furthering our ability to open, share, love, and be with each other in harmonious coexistence. In this place, where art is the expression of our inner experience, we access a deep and powerful place of learning, growth, and observation of ourselves, and our relationship to the world around us.
The Story Begins:
In December of 2002, following a year in India, while living in Los Angeles, CA, I, Ross Holzman, experienced a profound awakening during a six-day juice fast. It was during this shift in consciousness, that I went to the center of the universe, saw myself, and realized that this life we’ve each been given is the greatest blessing ever granted. It was then that I discovered that to live it fully, by opening to creating and being exactly who you want to be at all times, that one has the power to experience love, find connection, and be peace. It’s a matter of choice. And so I chose myself and made a commitment to fully being the person I knew myself in order to be of service and support of this type of transformative experience for as many people as I can. That was the beginning of this new chapter in my life.
In March of 2003, still hot from the fires of that profound awakening, the United States initiated war with Iraq and my purpose became ultra-clear: this promotion of war and perpetuation of violence can no longer continue. This social experiment in capitalistic consumerism and mass marketing has to end. Creating peace on this planet by strengthening our ability to lovingly accept each other, cultivate forgiveness, and live in harmonious connection with all beings, and the Earth, is the absolutely essential next step. And I was simply being motivated to take action.
The action to take was profound and yet quite simple: teaching people about each other through the collaborative creative process of making art together. In a place of divine surrender to the way my life was all unfolding, I found my voice and my vision for creating peaceful positive change.
I believe that each person on this planet deserves to live in peace. And in that place, I believe it is possible for each and everyone of us to experience the profound awareness of our interrelated connectivity, enable the understanding of life as a magical gift, and know that this divine experience of being human is a precious and priceless thing to be cherished and enjoyed. Until that day, humanity will feel the ripple of our continued violent behaviors and therefore suffer.
Taking Action:
The announcement of this war induced an investigation and on-going study into the role of the mass media and entertainment industries to promote and further the inundation of violence and negativity. Everywhere I look there is an advertisement, commercial, or billboard selling something, some television show, movie, or news broadcasting some violence or war. Everywhere I turn there is some negativity, some comparison, something telling us that we’re not enough, not ok, and certainly not safe. I can’t stand it any more and so I take action.
Where were the up-lifting and positive messages of the human triumph? Where was the encouragement and inspiration? Where were the self-empowering messages of hope and possibility? I couldn’t find them, so I started to paint them on giant canvases. The project is called Banners for Peace and it’s goal is to have messages of peace, hope, and possibility created by ‘we the people’ on billboards around the world.
This project continues and in the last few years I’ve created a number of other projects focused on ways and means for people to break through the barriers of our resistance, express feelings and thoughts with art, and share their truth with each other in a safe and supportive environment. It’s this craft of opening to seeing others, the world around us, sharing ourselves, and believing in the power of making a difference that love exists and in this place we Create Peace.
It is the aim of the Create Peace Project to use art and the power of self-expression as the means of furthering the practice of self-awareness in service of cultivating love, spreading peace, and living in harmony with all other beings on this planet. Welcome and thank you for joining us.
Sponsors:
The Salesforce Foundation corporate philanthropy program supports nonprofits worldwide through volunteerism, grant giving, and CRM license donations. Salesforce CRM helps nonprofit organizations and businesses with contact management, sales force automation, call center software, and custom application development. That way nonprofits can focus on fulfilling their mission.