Join us for music, reflection and poetry on August 6th, 2010 at 6pm at the Sadako Peace Garden, La Casa de Maria, 800 El Bosque Road, Montecito, CA.
The hour-long program will feature music from Janice Freeman-Bell and the haunting evocative sounds of the shakuhachi, or Japanese flute, played by Bob Sedivy.
The event is free and open to the public.
The Story:
Many people know the story of the brave, athletic Japanese girl named Sadako. She was only 12 years old when she was diagnosed with leukemia caused by exposure to radiation from the Hiroshima bomb at the age of 2.
She started folding origami paper cranes after a friend reminded her of a legend: if a person folds a thousand cranes, he or she will live to be very old. As Sadako folded the cranes, she would say: "I will write peace on your wings and you will fly all over the world."
Sadako had intimate knowledge of the costs of war and nuclear attack. Her health was waning, yet her wish was to spread peace. She set out to fold 1,000 paper cranes. There are differing accounts as to how successful she was. One book says she folded 644 before her death. The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum says she folded 1,000 and began work on another set of 1,000. However many cranes Sadako folded, students in Japan were moved by her story and began to fold cranes, too.
The paper crane has become a global symbol of peace, and a statue of Sadako now stands in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park.
On August 6, 1995--the 50th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima--the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and La Casa de Maria dedicated the Sadako Peace Garden in Santa Barbara, CA.
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