There is talk of a ceasefire, humanitarian pause, resolutions, and emergency joint summits. But Peace? Where is the Peace?
I have been searching for peace for a long time. Both inside and out. Longing for peace, I sometimes to go to Assisi, also known as the City of Peace (near my home), just to ring the Peace Bell.
Not far from the Basilica of San Francesco, the Peace Bell is outside of the old walls of the city in the nearby woods. The bell is held aloft by four granite columns, each representing a different religion: Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism. Designed by German artist Gerhard Kadletz, the bell is named Regina Pacis (Queen of Peace) and it unites the four religions to announce peace with one voice.
Inaugurated in 2007, the Peace Bell’s official song is “Numquam. Renascantum. Uis. Bellum. Terror.” (Never again violence. Never again war. Never again terror.) This declaration is inscribed on the lower edge of the bell along with the signatures of four religious leaders: Cardinal Ratzinger who later became Pope Benedict XVI; His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama; Ali Gomaa, the Gran Mufti of Egypt; and Chief Rabbi of Israel, Jona Metzger.
The Author rings the bell with artist Gerhard Kadletz and Brother Thomas.
When rung, the sweet message of the Peace Bell resounds across the town and out into the world.
This Peace Bell should be ringing 24/7!
Unbind our Hearts to Ring Out Peace
Gerhard Kadletz, the artist who created the Peace Bell, recently completed another work, entitled Wo ist der Frieden? (Where is the Peace?).
Mr. Kadletz’s new bell is an exact replica of the Peace Bell in Assisi. However, he has deliberately silenced his new bell. This bell is tightly wound with barbed wire from the Ganacker concentration camp in Germany. The bell itself precariously hangs on a 10,000-year-old bog oak that is partially charred. And the clapper is tightly tied with rope so the bell can not be rung.
May this work of art remind us of our responsibility to radiate and be disciples of peace. Peace doesn’t just happen. It requires us to engage with it, to be in relationship with it. Just as we have to pull the cord to ring the Peace Bell, so must we pull the cords of our broken heartstrings and work towards peace within. We must unwrap the barbed wire entwined around the our inner Peace Bell and unbind the rope that holds fast our clapper from connecting with the bell.
Angels are Waiting to Help Us
We can call on the multitude of angels around to help us. They are often hanging about, just waiting for us to ask for their assistance. In a Umbrian sanctuary near my home is a beautiful 15th-century fresco of the Archangel Saint Michael. He is the only angel mentioned by name in the Torah (Judaism), Bible (Christianity), and Qur’an (Islam). In all of three faiths, believers consider Michael an angel who fights evil with the power of good. Hence he is often depicted with a sword. During the time this sanctuary was built, the Archangel Saint Michael would have been seen as a protector of soldiers, as the angel that accompanies their souls to heaven, and as a healer. In fact, the sanctuary is built near a spring and its waters are said to have therapeutic properties.
In this fresco, we see the Archangel Saint Michael with his wings over two armed soldiers. The Archangel unites them in a gentle embrace, as they, in turn, embrace and kiss each other in reconciliation. It is said that centuries ago, one day a year, nearby warring factions would come to this sanctuary to reconcile their differences.
Let us Arrive at a Fruitful, Dynamic and Constructive Peace
Two Islamic angels write in the Book of Life, suggesting angels’ ongoing and attentive interest in human affairs (1280 A.D., Iraq)
“The Angel of Peace wraps the whole world in its big white wings…
“Some people may be helped along by the image of a big Angel, with white wings, which emanates streams of peace, spreading waves of Peace throughout ourselves, our country, the whole Earth, the human race.
“Real Peace is a peak to climb, an ideal to conquer, a point of arrival.
“True Peace has to remain steadfast before evil, in times of pain, during emotional reactions, in the midst of any kind of assault, in the face of any loss, defeat or separation.
“True Peace coexists with inner personal suffering. It is not a mood of joyfulness and delight; it produces a double life inside ourselves, till the moment when our personality appears completely regenerated, so that the inner Peace will become incarnated and the whole being permeated through PEACE, transformed into PEACE.”
Yoko Ono displayed her message “Imagine Peace” in London, Berlin, Los Angeles, Melbourne, Milan, New York and Seoul (2022).
Creating harmony in your inner life requires patience, prayer, and lifelong practice.
Today is Saint Rita’s feast day, and this afternoon I will be joining the local women in our Umbrian village in the small Marian chapel. Saint Rita is especially popular here since she was born and lived in the nearby town of Cascia, where you can still visit her incorrupt body at the Basilica of Saint Rita. All of the women this afternoon will be carrying a bouquet of roses – one of the saint’s iconic symbols – for the priest to bless with holy water.
Two years ago this article was published by Unity Magazine about my struggle to balance two conflicting subpersonalities – Annoyed Wife and Blessed Wife. Saint Rita came to my rescue and since then, I’m happy to say, these two subpersonalities have come into (more or less!) balance.
Contessa Gabriella Spalletti Rasponi, in the early 1900s
For this International Women’s Day, l’d like to introduce you to the first President of the Institute of Psychosynthesis in Rome, which in 1926 was initially called the Istituto di Cultura e di Terapia Psichica (Institute of Culture and Psychic Therapy). Yes, that’s right! She was a woman…the Contessa Gabriella Spalletti Rasponi (1853-1931), whom Assagioli greatly admired both as an international leader as well as a devoted grandmother and someone he felt “exhibited a happy combination of the gifts of the various ages.”
To this day, Rasponi remains little known even in Italy. She was born in Ravenna into an aristocratic family (her grandmother was Napoleon’s sister Carolina) and was privately educated. Married at the age of 17 to Count Venceslao Spalletti Trivelli, she had five children, two of whom died in infancy. In 1874, the couple moved to Rome where her husband became a Senator to the Kingdom. Rasponi was widowed in 1899 when she was 46 years old.
Working for Women’s Social, Political and Labor Rights
In addition to her fundamental role in the history of psychosynthesis, in 1903, Rasponi became the Founder and President of the National Council of Italian Women (Consiglio Nazionale Donne Italiane; CNDI), an organization that promoted women’s labor equality and justice in terms of legal, social, familial rights and occupational safety. They also believed in women’s suffrage.
The CNDI organized its first congress on the theme of family education in Rome in 1908. The second was held in 1920 and entitled “La donna per l’Italia nuova” (“The woman for the new Italy”). The third congress on family education took place in Rome from 3-8 May 1923. Rasponi was the CNDI President until 1931, and the organization is still active in Rome today (in Italian, see https://www.cndi.it/).
George Davis Herron, an American clergyman, lecturer, and writer from Indiana, visited Italy in 1922 and wrote the following about Rasponi and her work in his book The Revival of Italy:
Gabriela Spalletti Rasponi is indeed a superior woman, who combines genuine religious fervor with clear intellectual insight and practical efficiency and adaptability. Under her wise leadership, the Italian feminist movements have avoided the excesses of militant feminism of other countries; and this while working vigorously for all the rights of women as citizens and for their education and preparation for public activity and position.
Turning Her Villa into a Women’s Cooperative
Villa Conti Spelletti where Rasponi started teaching the local women to crochet.
Prior to founding the CNDI, while on holiday at their villa in Tuscany, Rasponi was deeply moved by the poverty she saw around her. Consequently, she decided to open a school where women could learn the traditional art of embroidery and crochet. In 1887, she began teaching five women in her villa and by 1904, 400 women had formed a cooperative, were supporting their families through these artesian crafts, and receiving international awards for their work. The CNDI was soon afterwards created to help promote and organize similar successful campaigns throughout the nation.
Assuntina Pretelli, one of the students at the Contessa’s Scuola di Modano in Lucciano, Quarrata, Italy
During the 1908 earthquake in Messina and Reggio Calabria, through the CNDI, Rasponi was able to organize and support many of the victims, especially its orphans. Her tireless work received recognition from Italy’s Queen Elena who, by Royal Decree, granted Rasponi the title of “the first woman to be invested as a protector of children.”
The ‘Rebel’ President
Assagioli described Rasponi as a woman who “with youthful enthusiasm, pursued every new current of thought with regard to education, culture, and spirituality. The Institute of Psychosynthesis … is particularly indebted to her moral and material support of its Constitution.” The theme of the first conference she held for the newly founded Institute was “How to Educate the Will.” During her lifetime, she acknowledged her own strong will, even calling herself “a Rebel”.
Invitation to the Istituto di Cultura e di Terapia Psichica inaugural address by Assagioli signed by the President Gabriela Spalletti Rasponi.
At her private villa in Rome (now a 5-star hotel), Rasponi often hosted and promoted many new thinkers. Every Thursday afternoon, influential political and cultural figures frequented the villa’s drawing rooms – from Émile Coué (1857-1926), the French psychologist, to Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), the 1913 Nobel Prize winner in Literature and Hermann von Keyserling (1880-1946), whom Assagioli described as “a brilliant thinker, a fine architect of the word, and a fervid man of action.”
In 1937, Jiddu Krishnamurti visited Rome for three months and held his conferences at Rasponi’s villa. Despite the fact that Krishnamurti was under surveillance by the the fascist regime’s political police, he was allowed to give his philosophical talks in part because of Rasponi’s high standing and her assurance that his discourses were “absolutely and only philosophical.”
As a Devoted Grandmother
With regard to Rasponi’s devotion as a grandmother, Assagioli wrote:
“The Contessa’s house resembled a government ministry, but that did not prevent her, while in her 70s and in ill health, from being such a conscientious grandmother that she resumed the study of Latin and Greek in order to help her young grandson further develop himself.”
Her Revolutionary Initiatives
Rasponi throughout her lifetime founded, organized and implemented revolutionary initiatives – including the vision of psychosynthesis. She established travelling libraries for teachers, secretariats for the protection of women and orphaned children, and maternity help for needy mothers. She always promoted women’s education as an integration of practical activity and intellectual stimulation.
References
Assagioli, Roberto, (1973). “The Conflict between Generations and Psychosynthesis of the Ages”, Psychosynthesis Research Foundation, Issue No. 31.
Assagioli, Roberto. (2008). Il mondo interiore, W. Esposito (Ed.). Vicenza, Italy: Edizioni Teosofiche Italiane, pp. 183-191.
Assagioli, Roberto (1971). Psicosintesi: Armonia della vita. Roma: Edizioni Mediterranee, pp. 69-70.
Love and Will 