Peace Walk (Part IX): The End of a Nuclear Era

Slowly the landscape changed. From the English countryside—a run of wild horses and the dance of the summer’s breeze—everything around us transformed. The smells went from farmland to diesel and rubbish. The sounds went from the fresh streams of air to the movement of a city. But tastes became sweeter. Along the way, berries and plums became full in their ripeness and apples fell to the ground at our weary feet. London came and soon London would go. Hiroshima Day was approaching.

Southall was a warm welcome. Throughout the English land we received the English hospitality; nothing shy of generosity and heaps of food. But the boroughs of London were unique, and Southall was the one among them.

As though we immediately flew far from the west, a new lifestyle emerged within a city’s block. Our banners and flags were still in our hands, their colors strong in the warming summer, but the Peace Walk appeared elsewhere. No longer in England, yet nearest to London thus far, the East and its’ cultures beckoned. Southall is the community of India and an Arab lifestyle. The streets are lined with stalls, markets out in the open during the day and packed up at night. Everything from fake Zippos to combs to Henna art and honey mangos. Sari shops with frozen manikins acted like a wardrobe for a movie set and Bollywood posters of India’s hottest stars pasted the walls. And yes, the smells. Overpowered were the diesel engines and the city waste, for scents of curries and cardamom and cumin and various spices lured us indoors. But we moved on, weaving through the market streets, between overcrowded bus stops and shoppers at the outdoor produce stands. A lunch in the park with a bursting bag of greasy samosas. No, we couldn’t resist.

Aliens in London

And then it was London: a massive city with all the movements and elements of a city. August 6th arrived with gusto. Eighty-six days gone by; from Dublin to Belfast, across to Scotland and up to Glasgow. From there, it was south through the land and with the people toward London.

When this day came to be, we walked with few numbers, but we walked strong. Honestly, I expected more persons to show up in support; to appear out of the blue from the ocean to the sky, and garlanded with an array of banners and more flags. But no. Our numbers were approximately twenty, and as we headed from Battersea Park to Tavistock Square, I came to understand just why we were so few.

The city is the city, and from what I spoke of with the locals, London is a fine definition of a city. Besides being the most expensive metropolis in the world (surpassing its’ rivaled Tokyo), a Londoner walks with purpose. On the phone or with numbers and business running through the head, there is little else outside that person’s mindset.

“Hello, sir.”

No response.

A smile and eye contact.

The return: something of a shy, squeamish appeal for another smile and then eyes diverted.

As we walked through Parliament Square and passed Downing Street, it was as though we were a traffic diversion. They swerved around us and tucked their chins to the chest with deliverance. No, they would not pay attention. No, they were not interested in the future of their reality, their children’s, or their children’s children. Few saw beyond their own nose.

Albeit, we did receive positive response from the outside world of London. Aleta persistently offered flyers to all persons, completely depleting the group’s stack with wonder. “Here’s something to talk about,” she would say, approaching a business couple.

At a table outside a coffee shop a man denied the information. “No, he said, I’m not concerned.”

“Well you should be,” Aleta responded. “Because your life is in danger.”

With his drink before him and a flyer now in his hands, Tavistock neared with influence.

The climax of the walk was not its’ end point. The climax was the walk. It was the actual act of walking day to day, sleeping on floors night by night, and meeting the people and their movements for peace and nuclear disarmament. This was the climax, stamped upon our souls with a deeper desire to continue our work for world peace. And now their stories remain as fuel, from the western shores of the Irish Sea, to Faslane, Sellafield, Menwith Hill and Aldermaston.

Our walk completed at Tavistock Square where National CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) held its’ annual ceremony on August 6th—Hiroshima Day. On this year’s date, the first nuclear weapon was dropped sixty-two years ago, killing 100,000 civilians instantly. Speeches held, songs sung, and the moments of silence as the walkers began to digest these past three months. With a refreshed strength, the square’s Katsura cherry tree became festooned with one thousand peace cranes folded by our fellow walker Yu-chan. This was our walk, and here it officially came to an end.

Farewells to the Past to Honor the Future

On the bus, the speed felt strange. Out of London on the National Express transport, London fell behind as the engines continued to fill my ears. A few walkers and I caught the bus out of the city and headed back up to the Nippozan Myohoji Peace Pagoda in Milton Keynes. The speed at which we traveled was strange indeed—relaxing, but extraordinarily fast despite the traffic. The driver jerked the gears. He was heavy on the brakes and fast on the gas. He had a schedule to fill. The man had time on his hands and in his mind.

An hour and a half later, we were at the monks’ temple. London was far from here, and the walk slowly dissolved into our bodies. But the business of work continued as the annual lantern ceremony and its preparations were underway.

Every year the monks and nuns of Milton Keynes hold a traditional lantern ceremony on the lake of Willen Park. It was a moving experience, beginning at eight in the evening and lasting past dusk. This year, crowds were full in number around the Peace Pagoda and the prayers were for those who suffered and continue to do so upon the planet. As the sun disappeared below a horizon, the lanterns were lit and like a swarm of locusts, they were in the hands of the many. Persons from the temple and the community, from Milton Keynes and abroad, carried the honorary lights down to the lake and one-by-one they were set sail. The black waters became speckled with constellations directed by a current and streams of color came to our vision. Then, with the flashes of cameras, the people dispersed as the lake created its’ own map of the stars, and somewhere, up in the clear night sky, a sorcerer read the waters’ message:

Keep walking, keep working for Peace. Your joy will be soon realized. You Love will be soon lived. Keep

Brain Haw and Reality

walking, keep working for Peace, for it is already here in the hearts of all.

I give my deepest thanks to the two masterly organizers, Marcus and KA. You have completed an amazing project and I thank you from my heart for your inspiration and the depth of your strength. And thank you to all the walkers for your campanionship and support, and all those who supported us along the way. It could not have been done without you. Thank you, and keep walking!

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