Not at Home for the Holidays

'NOT AT HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS'

PLEASE COME AND PLEASE DISTRIBUTE WIDELY!!

'Not at Home for the Holidays'
A Vigil and Action for Peace Now!
Saturday, December 16th, from Noon to 2PM
in front of the Military Recruitment Center
2121 41st Avenue, Capitola

dear Friends of Peace

As we enter into this holiday season, let us remember that:

there are over 140,000 American families who will face this season with an ever present fear and anxiety for the safety of their loved ones living in harm's way in Iraq or Afghanistan, loved ones who will not be 'home for the holidays',

there are over 2900 American families caught in the terrible, pervasive grief of the loss of a loved one who will never again be 'home for the holidays', and

there are over 14,000 families of American soldiers who will be spending this season helping their loved ones, who have made it home, deal with the lifelong effects of devastating wounds and trauma suffered in a war that seems to have no end.

Let us also remember that there are hundreds of thousands of families in Afghanistan and Iraq who live with these same daily realities.


Whatever our spiritual tradition, whether we are trimming the tree for Christmas, preparing the menorrah for Hannukah, gathering sage for the Winter Solstice, dancing the Universal Dances of Peace, or....... there are those among us who face a very difficult and aching reality this year.

In the beginning and in the end, it is "we the people" who have and will create the tide that will bring war, occupation, and imperialism to an end, and usher in an Everlasting Peace.

Please express your concern and your caring at this very special time of the year,
and take an hour or two out to join us for:

'Not at Home for the Holidays'
A Vigil and Action for Peace Now!
Saturday December 16th, from Noon to 2PM
in front of the Military Recruitment Center
2121 41st Avenue, Capitola

the Recruiting Center is just two blocks from the main entrance to the Capitola Mall, and so this is a VERY VISIBLE location - it would be wonderful to have enough people there to line both sides of 41st Avenue!!!

to get there, take the 41st Avenue exit off Highway 1, go toward the mall, and the Recruiting Center is on the east side of the street, across from Master Car Wash and next to (would you believe it?), Burger King - there is a large parking lot behind it, accessed from Clares Street

we WILL have extra signs, banners, flags, etc.
but please consider taking the time to make your own as well

co-hosted by (a growing list): the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom of SC, the GI Rights Hotline and Draft Alternatives Program of the RCNV, the Resource Center for Nonviolence, the Santa Cruz Peace Coalition, Code Pink Santa Cruz, Families Against War of SC, Peace and Freedom Party SC, Women in Black of SC, Western Workers Labor Heritage Festival, Central Coast Workers Against the War, .....


"We have it in our power to begin the world over again."
Thomas Paine

"Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of
stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely.

It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good. What is needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts, adding, adding to, adding more, continuing. We know that it does not take "everyone on Earth" to bring justice and peace, but only a small, determined group who will not give up during the first,
second, or hundredth gale.

One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the
lantern of the soul in shadowy times like these - to be fierce and to show mercy toward others, both, are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity.

Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it. If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do".
Clarissa Pinkola Estes
(author of Women who Run with the Wolves)