3/21 Denver Peace Vigil

[DenverDem]

500 Denver activists participated in the Denver Peace Vigil at the lake in Washington Park. Microphones and a PA were set up at the boat house and participants lined up to read the names of American and Iraqi victims of the unpleasantness. Luminarias were set up completely circling the lake and as the participants finished reading names they walked around the lake carrying candles. After 90 minutes of reading, the luminarias were lit as the reading of names continued. After two and a half hours of name reading, of course, the list was hardly started, but the luminarias symbolized the thousands of victims still unacknowledged, and we extinguished the luminarias one by one to symbolize the waste of all these lives, and observed two minutes of silence.

A simple symbolic gesture, but one that was intended to try to change the vibration of hate that has enslaved our country. The vision of the candles and luminarias ringing the circular lake was beautiful and haunting, given the symbology.

I read these names: Ala Ali Salh, Nebez Aziz, Said Miheded Qoritani, all of Iraq. I felt like I was guilty of killing them myself.