Honor Day members Silversong and Gene Tagaban, Raven Dancer performing for the Dalai Lama in Seattle. “Photo shared by permission of Silversong Belcourt, founder of Honor Day.”

We humans are amazing when we work together! The Art of Reconciliation is about finding ways to redeem the mistakes our society has made when we haven’t been able to work together. The challenge is to use our gifts of creativity to bring healing to our self-inflicted wounds. The world is full of examples of people working to seek reconciliation. We want to share stories about others who are also working toward these ends. We hope to establish an honor day for this reconciliation project, as modeled after the original Honor Day, founded by Silversong Belcourt and held each August 20. The Art of Reconciliation and Honor Day have similar goals and we were touched to receive kind words about our project from Silversong herself. Please visit the Honor Day site at www.honorday.org.

We all are visiting this planet temporarily, here on guest status.  Our host is the earth. We all have been invited to participate in this grand party called life. My invitation to you is to embrace your guest status; look around and become acquainted with all of the other wonderful guests who are part of this party. Let us embrace the great diversity of cultures and races sharing this world.

The Art of Reconciliation wants to give recognition to people and groups that are working for this kind of celebratory reconciliation.   We are calling you to consider how you might contribute to finding reconciliation in your life and in your passion.

Here are a few of The Art of Reconciliation’s dreams:

• We dream of artists painting and drawing images that provide release and insight for us. 
• We dream of sculptors manipulating their chosen medium to produce forms that move our souls toward healing. 
• We dream of writers who bring us plays, stories and poems that speak to our hearts and give us understanding for how to live our lives in different ways.
• We dream of music that sings with healing for our bruised spirits.
• We dream of teachers who inspire students to tap into their creativity.
• We dream of ways to lift up the stories of every culture and give homage to all those who have gone before us.

Our invitation is to come and dream with us. Please tell us about your own work that moves people toward reconciliation and how it is enhancing the celebration of life.

Read the story of a vision that changed the work of sculptor LeRoy Goertz and led to his work with The Art of Reconciliation