Celebrate Avon’s Birthday: Join Us in the PeaceWave!

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Our Pathways To Peace (PTP) President and Co-Founder, Avon Mattison, passed from this earth last October. Her Birthday is this Sunday, April 10^th. While we miss being with her on her Birthday, we know she is with us in Spirit. We have experienced her love and guidance from beyond, continuing the important work for Peace that was the hallmark of her life. She invites each of us to recognize that we are a pathway to Peace and encourages us to continue building a Culture of Peace.

Avon, along with other Peace leaders, inaugurated the UN International Day of Peace forty years ago. As important as that global annual Peace Day was and is, Avon knew that daily practice was a way to make “Peace Day Every Day.” So, in response to that call, she and others established A Minute of Silence/Moment of Peace: The PeaceWave. Today, people around our world pause to hold a vision of Peace, at noon in their respective time zones. Only one minute, one brief pause for Peace, causes a wave of Peace that encircles our planet. 

In honor of Avon’s Birthday on April 10^th, please join us in a Minute of Silence/Moment of Peace, our PeaceWave. Sheva Carr and Robert Browning, Pathways To Peace Co-Vice-Presidents, share a PeaceWave Meditation here:

Join us for the PeaceWave (Click for video)

Tezikiah Gabriel, Executive Director of Pathways To Peace introduces the PeaceWave, and Marilyn King shares the PTP’s Vision for Peace. (The Peace Card.) You can find the PeaceWave and the Peace Card at www.pathwaystopeace.org.

Representing our PTP Council of Directors, other Council Leaders share reflections and memories for Avon’s Birthday, “Remembering Avon" (Click for video)

In the late 1970s, two women met through the San Francisco marketing community and gradually became dear friends and “star” sisters.  Avon Mattison and Joanie Ciardelli co-founded a global Peacebuilding organization based on Avon’s lifelong vision, Pathways To Peace. Their rich and vast story includes myriad Peacebuilders and organizations, with vignettes and photos from those decades of work – and play.  This is a compact book that includes a compelling history of work with the United Nations, the Soviet Peace Committee, the World Peace Prayer Society and so much more! At the core is a deep and lasting friendship between Avon and Joanie until Avon’s recent passing. Avon has been internationally recognized for the peacebuilding pioneer that she was, and Pathways To Peace is celebrated for its ongoing contribution to this and future generations of Peacebuilders.

Printed copies of the book can be ordered at https://pathwaystopeace.org/a-tale-of-two-star-sisters/. And, if you prefer reading on your computer or kindle, you can find it on Amazon. Most of the proceeds from book sales go to support the important work of Pathways To Peace (learn about it at pathwaystopeace.org.)

In closing, thank you for joining us in celebration of Avon’s Birthday by pausing for a Minute of Silence/Moment of Peace: The PeaceWave. We hope you’ll choose to take that pause for Peace every day, by joining others around our world at noon in your time zone. Let’s make Peace Day Every Day!

In Grace and Gratitude,

Your Pathways To Peace Team

Pathways To Peace works to raise awareness and advocate for nuclear disarmament and the adoption of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) globally and within Albania. It has been working for over 40 years locally and globally, intergenerationally and multi-culturally, to support Peacebuilding, Peacebuilders, and on initiatives to co-create a global culture of peace. PTP is an U.N.-designated Peace Messenger Organization and has Consultative Status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and United Nations Department of Global Communications (DGC).