I write to you in anticipation of the Solstice, the monthly letter delayed because of my body's aches and pains. After two cups of coffee each morning I've planned this letter, but daily the body has balked. Yes, it started with the terrible fall after mass on Good Friday and has continued in a variety of ways.

On the first Sunday of Easter, my dear friend, Marion Johnson, and I pulled the cord to call the ambulance. The A-Fib (atrial fibrillation) was acting up again. Nine days in the hospital for all the tests. Then Rehab for five days. Now a skilled and loving physical therapist comes to see me twice a week. Her fingers and ultrasound therapy "speak" to my neck, now knotted. Enough!

My grandson Lucas typed this online, daughter Gail edited it and Jeff Patton placed it on the website.

And now to the threads I have been holding (clutching?) to share with you.

If you are new to this website I encourage you to read the March '03 Letter with its pain about a preemptive strike. The April Letter listed representative friends around the Earth as I encouraged them -and you - to begin to create a piece of Tangible Hope.

One encouragement was directed to Suzanne in Canada. It referred to one of her sons's belief that dissent doesn't change anything. She wrote to me that despite his feelings, she was ready to begin her piece of Tangible Hope. Her next column told us of that son's decision to volunteer for the Canadian military service.

Ninety-two year old Joe Miller Jr. was not on the list but he "heard "me and completed a Ribbon piece with his daughter Mary's help as they relived their trip to Washington D.C. for the August 4 event in 1985. His friend and caregiver, Gail Sandford has written up the introduction to Tangible Hope she presented to the Friends Meeting. LINK

Another Piece of the new ribbon can be found on the Tangible hope link, Virginia Yankoskie.

Winnie Hardy wrote of Good Friday that CWU was encouraging its members to create new Ribbons. Michelle Peppers and her friends of the Ribbon International in the NYC area, continue to remember 9/11 again this year. LINK

"Blossoms" has been completed, framed, and waits to be presented to Doernbecker Hospital's pediatric oncology ward as a THANK-YOU to that skilled and dedicated staff for seeing Marcus Baxter through three years of chemotherapy. LINK Last Sunday there was a splendid celebration in the family's beautiful backyard to honor three years of healing and healers. Many of you offered up good thoughts, good prayers and lullabies over those three years. On The Rocks ("OTR"), a brilliant group of nine young men, music students at the University of Oregon, sang at this celebration. One of their songs was "Lullaby." You can imagine my heart as grandchildren and children listened to the Lullaby. If we can work this out I would promise one can listen to OTR sing Lullaby as they access the Blossoms embroidery LINK. LINK

In the May 19 issue of New Yorker's Talk of the Town, "Bush and the protesters" written by William Finnegan included these statements:

"According to a recent TIMES/CBS poll a majority of Americans still oppose preemptive military strikes. The vast street protests we saw before the war were expressing, it must be remembered, the fears and concerns of many more Americans (ten of millions, apparently) than ever got out and marched.

This is not to say that Secretary Rumsfield is living in fear of the Peace Movement. But the minuet being danced by the Bush administration and its many antagonists over Iraq has been exceedingly intricate, and it is likely to become more so in the months ahead, when sharing the costs of reconstruction will become increasingly urgent and the Pentagon will seek to replace our soldiers with troops from countries where people remain strongly opposed to American policy. The peace marchers are quiet of now, in London and Berlin as well as in New York and Washington, but they are still there."

Surely reaching out to create a panel of cloth 18"X36"is reaching out to Hope for those "millions" who did not protest before the war.

My own new Ribbon will be created with others. I call it Sewing Seeds because each patch of this new Ribbon will be of seeds. Margaret Way and I together are embroidering a half of a Pomegranate, each seed a prayer for Peace.

With Love,

Justine