Remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki

This year BPF Portland was a co-sponsor of the event remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki here in Portland. I went to this for the first time. This was the 45th Annual Commemoration here, so it wasn't like I hadn't had plenty of opportunities. Somehow I didn't get to it other years.

NW Tibetan Cultural Association Chanters began the ceremony with chants for peace from HH The Dalai Lama. There were speakers. They weren't just speakers...they were people who've walked their talk for years. I think they said Carol Urner from WILPF was in her eighties. There were singers, the Aurora Chorus. There was ceremony. There was an interactive art piece. The first thing I did when I got there was create my peace prayer flag for the art project. There already were many flags that had been created at street fairs, school events, and other shindigs.

There were around 300 people there, I figured. My friends were there, mom and dad with twins. Tim gave me a sweet expansive hug. Sam was shy about giving a hug.

Many of my photos were too blurry due to low light. The dancing art piece called Harmos was an extra thing after the whole ceremony and speakers, so it was pretty dark by the end. I also thought it went on way too long, and tried to be meditative with spoken word. The creator took words from the peace prayer flags and wove them into a poem (of sorts) that she ponderously intoned while the child dancers made the lotus bloom. It could have been shorter and faster and much better, I thought. The visuals were still pretty cool, even if way too slow after an already full event. I finally got around to playing with the photos, so here you have my August 5th experience: