Center for Peace Through Culture (CPC) / Portals to Peace

Mark Murray plays Native American flute during early morning community gathering for prayer and meditation at the Monterey, MA town beach on International Day of Peace, September 21, 2009. The event was sponsored by the Center for Peace Through Culture. (Kathy Frome photo)

Whether they are cultural events, workshops, publications, conferences, or internet forums, aimed at an individual or a large group, our projects are designed to nurture a culture of peace.

Peace Conference and Festival

Hancock Shaker Village

Pathways to Peaceful Living: Tools and Explorations, co-sponsored with Hancock Shaker Village, will take place September 16, 17 and 18 2011 at Hancock Shaker Village, Pittsfield, Ma.

The goal of the Conference & Festival is to raise awareness and consciousness about diverse peaceful practices, from the past and the present, that inspire people to live more peaceful lives.

We hope that visitors will leave with a heightened belief in their ability to make a difference including some clear and perhaps simple ways to express peace in their lives and help spread a culture of peace out into the world.

Activities will include 20 interactive workshops, keynote speakers, games and activiies for the whole family, concerts Friday and Saturday evenings, lunch and dinner activities, and ceremonies and rituals.

The fundraiser is a great chance to have fun and pick up something wonderful.

Art & Artifacts Sale and Fundraiser

Art, textiles, jewelry, pottery and other quality goodies will be on sale August 20-21 at 40 Railroad Street, Great Barrington. Proceeds will benefit CPC projects. The sale starts Friday, August 20, from 5-8pm, including a presentation and party ($10 suggested donation). You can shop all day Saturday, August 21, from 9am to 5pm. Buy something fabulous and help a great cause!

Dialogues/Tool Box

What would happen if we brought artists, scientists and philosophers together to tackle an issue, if people with very different approaches brought their special insights to bear? The CPC Toolbox uses a creative set of tools to do just that. Our first project is working with the Hancock Shaker Village, a National Historic Landmark which was named "The City of Peace" by the Shakers, to plan a Peace Conference for the summer of 2011. The values of the Shaker Community and those of the CPC will be woven together to create an educational journey of peace awareness for children and adults alike.

The following people bring their talents to the CPC Toolbox:

Joan Ackerman: author, playwright, founder of Mixed Company; the first Theater in Great Barrington, screenplay for the Indie film "Off The Map."
Judy Bach, PhD: Psychosynthesis practitioner, trainer, author, workshop designer and presenter
Barbara Boughton: Executive Director of the CPC, workshop creator, interior designer, "Creating Home from the Inside Out," group facilitator and creator of "Dance-a-tonic." How can dance decrease violence and aggression?
David Crowe: Composer, conductor, interactive sound workshops with youth, arts educator
Ani Nadler Grosser, LICSW: relationship therapist, yoga teacher, presenter of "Communologue", a dialogue tool that promotes deep listening and understanding
Deb Koffman: Artist, graphic designer, interior designer, presenter of "In Words Out Words" and "Drawing As Mindfulness Practice" in her Housatonic Gallery
Dr. Susan Lord: personalized medicine using mind-body approaches, nutritional medicine, psychotherapy and lifestyle counseling.
Mary Beth Merritt: Four Winds, "Dialogue Practitioner", Whole child educator
Mark Seidler: Facilitator, trainer, organizational consultant, he presents communication workshops, facilitates conflict resolution, and designs professional conferences, staff retreats and strategic planning meetings.
Steven Small: Educator, reading specialist, children's advocate and educational consultant
Joann Spies: Songwriter, composer, performer, works with "Music For People"; improvisation gatherings, workshop presenter at Community Access To The Arts

For more information, email info@centerforpeacethroughculture.org .

Workshops

CPC can work with you and your group, community or school on with a variety of workshops. These include:

Believe it or Not: A Workshop on Beliefs that Separate People
Deep Listening
How to Play Nice Together: Building Community Locally and Globally
Personal Peace
Balancing the Inner Masculine and Feminine

For more information, email info@centerforpeacethroughculture.org .

Children from the Ngalla Primary School

Sister City

CPC has established a Sister City relationship between a small town in the western mountains of Massachusetts and a small African city. Monterey, MA and Ngalla, Cameroon, are working together to strengthen human and financial resources to fight the spread of Malaria and HIV/AIDS. The partnership helps people of both communities to share their history and experiences while promoting greater world prosperity and peace. Here's a report on the joyful opening event in Cameroon.

A drawing from the quilt

Vision of a World Without AIDS Quilt

The quilt, completed in the summer of 2008, includes images painted by AIDS orphans during an African Action on AIDS workshop where the children were encouraged to envision a world without AIDS. Dr. Ruth Engo, founder and president of African Action on AIDS, returned to Monterey, MA in the fall of 2008 and took most of the panels back with her to Cameroon. Several stayed in the United States to tour and eventually become a permanent exhibit. Here is an article (pdf format) on the celebration of the completion of the quilt.

GreenAgers

GreenAgers mobilizes and empowers young people to come together and work cooperatively to design and carry out environmental projects in their own their local communities.

Through this program, young people can not only make a real difference, they can also learn independence, creativity, leadership, responsibility and self-respect. As they develop their own interests and abilities, they are also promoting community and global health, and ultimately contributing to global peace.

More on GreenAgers

2010 Project Native/Greenagers Calendars

This summer, Greenagers offered a 3-day Nature Photography Workshop led by photographer Jamie Goldenberg. Workshop participants spent a day at Project Native, whose mission cultivating native plants and restoring our local landscapelearning and taking photos. This calendar is a culmination of their work. Proceeds from the purchase of this calendar will benefit Project Native and Greenagers.

Order the Calendar

How to Play Nice Together

How to Play Nice Together: Creating Community Locally and Globally is a story of seven people who are brought together to design a community. Not only are they strangers to each other, but they have absolutely nothing in common. They must learn to adjust to their diversity, to work out their interpersonal dynamics and to appreciate the collective power of their individual gifts.

The book focuses on the value in diversity. When people come together in any setting, be it in a workplace, an intentional community or an already existing community, they can purposely enrich their lives through conscious design. Includes a workbook on community design.

Order book

Create Your Future Now, 7 Keys To A Masterful Life

Maximillien de Lafayette wrote about Create Your Future Now, 7 Keys To A Masterful Life: "This extraordinary book will teach you how to live your life to the full, bringing together spiritual values and common sense. In a deceptively simple format of using seven keys to mastering life (with one very special eighth key as a bonus), every doubt and pain that is the fate of humanity to bear is addressed in a compassionate, loving, and highly intelligent manner. The author received much of the knowledge incorporated in this book from higher energies—but it also passes through her own highly accepting, understanding, and loving personality. Not to be missed by anyone who wishes to add beauty and wisdom to his or her life."

Order book

Online Workshops

There are currently two online workshops. One invites visitors to explore how their own beliefs affect their behavior - sometimes in unexpected ways. The other leads visitors through eight steps to become Peace Builders from the inside out.