Four Weeks to Black Hills

[box] “What we would like you to do is to pray. Come and pray with the Lakota. Come and pray with us, for the Lakota, for ourselves, for us, and for this earth.” – Lakota Elder and Bearing Witness Retreat Spirit Holder In this rare event the Lakota Elders have invited all those who wish […]

Be My Witnesses in Jerusalem: Bosnia, May 2015

By Roshi Eve Myonen Marko When I think of our time in Srebrenica, it’s not the gravestones I remember, rows and rows of white obelisks dotting long grassy mounds climbing halfway up the surrounding hills, nor the slanting walls of names that glittered even under gray skies. Nor is it the gorgeous forested mountains, the […]

Everything and Nothing

Living a Life that Matters #2: Everything and Nothing By Roshis Bernie Glassman and Eve Myonen Marko Given on March 6th, 2015 at Sivananda Yoga Retreat at Nassau, Bahamas Transcribed by Scott Harris Bernie: A long time ago, in a far away place, there was nothing. And that nothing included everything. And all of a sudden, […]

A Vision of Peace and a Bearing Witness Retreat in the Holy Land by Eve Marko

Fr. Bob Maat is an American Jesuit and trained physician’s assistant who went to Cambodia upon finishing seminary, thinking to serve there for 3 months and then return. He never left Cambodia. He learned the Khmer language and proceeded to make that country his home, working for years with refugees and survivors of landmines, living […]

Translating Kaddish by Peter Levitt

KADDISH (Recited at Auschwitz/Birkenau Bearing Witness Retreat in various languages.)   May the Great Name whose Desire gave birth to the universe Resound through the Creation Now. May this Great Presence rule your life and your day and all lives of our World. And say, Yes. Amen.   Throughout all Space, Bless, Bless this Great […]

Two Months to Black Hills

First nations around the world have lost their lands, languages, and ways of life at the hands of American and European colonialists pursuing an agenda of domination, genocide, theft, and the elimination of indigenous cultures and identities. Entire nations have vanished. This catastrophe is not just theirs; it belongs to all humans, and to the […]

"America's Native Prisoners of War" by Aaron Huey

Aaron Huey’s effort to photograph poverty in America led him to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, where the struggle of the native Lakota people — appalling, and largely ignored — compelled him to refocus. Five years of work later, his haunting photos intertwine with a shocking history lesson in this bold, courageous talk. (Filmed at […]

Centennial Memorial of the Armenian Genocide

(photo: The Armenian Genocide memorial complex on the hill of Tsitsernakaberd in Yerevan, Armenia)   Dear extended Zen PeaceMaker family, On Friday, April 24th, 2015 we mark the Official Centennial Memorial of The Armenian Genocide where 1,500,000 Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians, Syrians and Chaldeans perished on the command of the Ottoman Young Turk regime. We recognize the wound […]

Lakota tribe struggles to stop surge in teen suicides (from Rapid City Journal)

This article has been reproduced from the Rapid City Journal, first published by them on April 13, 2015.   The people of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation are no strangers to hardship or to the risk of lives being cut short. But a string of seven suicides by adolescents in recent months has shaken this impoverished […]

Holy Week in the Streets by Bernie Glassman

Since Holy Week 2015 has just happened, I wish to talk about going on the streets during Holy Week, the week of Easter, the week of Passover, one of the saddest and most joyous times of the year. I go on the streets at other times of the year, too, and each occasion is special in […]