Mira Nakashima and her husband, Jonathan Yarnall, were featured speakers at Pennswood Village in Newtown for the recent dedication of Pennswood’s new Peace Pole.
The new Pennswood Village Peace Pole is a six-sided cedar pole with plaques of “May Peace Prevail On Earth” in 12 languages: French, Chinese, Russian, Japanese, Spanish, German, Ukrainian, Italian, Hindi, Arabic, Hebrew, and English. It replaces the older Peace Pole of three languages first dedicated at Pennswood Village in 2001.
The idea of the Peace Pole began in Japan in 1955 where the first Peace Pole was constructed in 1983. The Peace Pole symbolizes the wish “for peace in the world for all children everywhere,” that there will never again be a Nagasaki or a Hiroshima or a Pearl Harbor.
There is now a vast network of more than 230,000 peace poles that have been dedicated in over 200 countries. The Peace Poles are made of wood, limestone, copper, plastic, and stainless steel. There are Peace Poles at the north magnetic pole, the Hiroshima Peace Memorial, the Egyptian Pyramids in Giza, and the Aika Shrine in Iwama, Japan. One of the world’s largest peace poles, at 52 feet, is in Janesville, Wisc., and a former grain elevator in Minneapolis is painted as a gigantic peace pole.
In her remarks at the Pennswood Village Peace Pole dedication, Nakashima shared her wish that these world-wide Peace Poles will soon be joined by four more Nakashima Altars of Peace on the remaining four continents.
The Pennswood program also included music by the Pennswood Chorale, the Pennswood Singers and remarks by Dan Murray, executive director of Pennswood Village, Kay Marik, and Bob Anderson. In closing, everyone present said in unison: We rededicate ourselves to peace in the world for all children everywhere.
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