Marya Mann : Blog : Day 7 | The Gift Of Children Of War Becoming Children Of Peace

Day 7 | The Gift of Children of War Becoming Children of Peace

Aloha Kakou! (Love to us all)

“This may be the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” said Kate, pushing back her burgundy hair with wet fingers. Green, blue, and gold paints now smudged her ear in colors matching the silk Peace Flag in front of her.

At 11, she had just painted her first Peace Flag for her family, and she was ecstatic, ready to make another flag as a gift for “children of war.”

We dabbed the paint off her ear as I thought about the children in Ukraine who need candles, power packs and batteries. Why does making Peace Flags matter when so many already suffer from the cruelties of war and need food, shelter, and more?

If we don’t start now to raise the creativity quotient that can prevent future conflicts and battles, when do we start? After another war breaks out? After another dispute escalates into yet another school shooting?

“Unfortunately, this year — this fall in particular — there’s been a shooting pretty much every single school day,” said David Riedman, founder of the K-12 School Shooting Database. “I haven’t seen anything like this fall. School shootings have increased 163% since 2020 and 1,900% since 2010.”

But here in the ArtWavEs Peace Flag painting workshop, peace is escalating. I hear another student say, “This is the happiest day of my life.” And later, a boy says, “I want to feel like this every day!” and “Can we do this again tomorrow?” And the best, “I love you!”

Encouraging goodness, joy, and creativity in children, helping them to recover from a pandemic, wars, school shootings, and conflicts in our public spaces, we have to feed them well and feed their souls with creativity. Happy creators do not make war or bring guns to schools.

To live in a peaceful world, to prevent another Ukraine or Uvalde, we can begin with the children. We create peaceful spaces so children can do what they do best and are supposed to do — play, share mindfully, move, sing, sing, work, and express the harmonies of color, sound, and emotional intelligence through meaningful art. We feed their bellies as well as their dreams and ask them what peace and happiness mean to them. This fires and wires new neurons leading to peaceful behaviors in the child.

Feeling first, then sketching and articulating, their young brains and hearts are entrained with a sense of fulfillment, gratitude, forgiveness, and wholesome well-being.

Forgiving, generous, creative children do not act out violently.

This counts for a lot as we nurture the children back from a pandemic, wars, and violence in the media. We help them to self-regulate their emotions and regain a natural state of safety and self-esteem. Making something beautiful from their visions of happiness and sharing it with family and the larger circle of life encourages a peaceful child to stay healthy, grow a peaceful family, and share in a new world peace.

As another child of war, Pakistani female education activist Malala Yousafzai says, “Let us remember: One book, one pen, one child and one teacher can change the world.” Awarded the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize, she is the world’s youngest laureate.

That’s why we’re asking you to make a date with a new history of peace, a splendid new Golden Age. We invite you to join us in giving peace-making tools and world peace foods (read Will Tuttle’s World Peace Diet to find out more about this!) to children and their families so that the next generation is not grieving from random violence and asking for candles and batteries to make it through the winter.

At ArtWavEs, we’ve designed and tested a process of child nourishment that solves many problems that begin in the human heart. AWE has proven to help children:

- Recover from the trauma of violence, poverty, and isolation.
- Restore their self-esteem
- Develop emotional intelligence
- Ignite a sense of harmony and celebrate empathy and kindness
- Explore alternatives to bullying and name-calling
- Use the expressive arts as pathways to peace

Essential qualities and skills that we nurture in children are making extraordinary contributions to their future and the future of our beautiful Earth.

Education is at the heart of change. If that education includes kindness, that is the “light that dissolves all walls between souls, families, and nations,” says Paramahansa Yogananda.

As 2022 comes to a close, we send you heartfelt gratitude and best wishes for a new year full of joy and renewed hope for a more peaceful world. Please join the AWEsome movement that is rippling through the world, replacing our love of consumption with the love of creativity. Help heal children of war and help them to live in a world that nourishes their natural selves as children of peace.

As always, we would love to find a way to get you involved at PDC and/or hear your ideas. Contact us at any time HERE — CONTACT ARTWAVES

May this little gift bring you joy. If you are in a place where you can support ArtWavEs (AWE), please contribute to our organization, Pacific ArtWavEs. A gift of any size is deeply appreciated.

PLEASE DONATE TO PACIFIC ARTWAVES HER E

The ArtWavEs Purpose is to teach and inspire a world that works for everyone, for education is at the heart of our planet’s transformation.

FIND OUR ARTWAVES VIDEO HERE

Please spread the good word about ArtWavEs work of sharing Peace Flags and our unique Peace Painting process by sending this brief video to friends!

This is AWE’s Gift #7 in our Holiday Season Gifting Campaign. If you missed Gift #6, please go here to find the Gift of Books, a tribute to and summaries of the best books that help us understand the world we live in.

READ GIFT # 6 HERE

The Gift of Books is especially beloved because I was able to praise so many brilliant authors who have gifted me with knowledge, heart-to-heart! The heart shifts we experience in deep reading are so often neglected when we are surrounded by quick posts and tweets. But these heart shifts in the hands of great authors can be awe-inducing and positively life-shifting.

ArtWavEs is a purposeful effort to give children a greater understanding of their inner lives and to express wholesome well-being by discovering the joys of creativity and kindness.

Many Big Blessings,
Marya for ArtWavEs