Gandhi’s Gift

Did you ever stop to wonder how New Horizons came to call its main project the Small “Zones of Peace” Project?  Or what that name means to me/us"

Here’s the back story.

When I was blind (and recovering from being blind, 1998 –2006) I had left behind a mess of papers.

Imagine waking up one morning and not being able to see; all of a sudden!

Imagine that event, also, being in the midst of having a book publishing deadline that you had been working on for ten very long years!

(Writing three books, not just one under the demands of one book contract – and – one contract monetary advance.)

You, too, might have had thousands – and I mean thousands – of pages strewn all over your living room as I did at the time!

Well – from seeing, living relatively normally and writing books under deadline you, too, might have had a mess that day as did I! And, of course, it couldn’t all organize and file itself.

Nonetheless, over the next years (1998 – 2006) I had a picture in my mind of a framed quote by Gandhi that was hanging or lying somewhere in my house. And, I had, thus, an image of the words on it that kept playing in my mind. 

Those words meant a lot to me, especially after 9/11.

When, at last, after seven eye surgeries I had regained my eyesight and was making headway healing from the emotional trauma of the experience, I started unpacking and sorting and filing those papers that had, in the interim, piled up on top of one another, again and again.

And, somehow, as a sighted life began to take root in me I wanted to find those framed words of Gandhi’s. Which I did by which time I had gotten around to thinking about what I wanted to do with my new life -- Gandhi’swords were “IT!”

I wanted to be a builder of small “zones of peace.” 

Of course by this time I had gotten to know and “see” a whole advanced way of doing that. Thanks to the guidance and teachings of Murat Yagan! This is how New Horizons came to call the work I/we would do next -- the New Horizons Small “Zones of Peace” Project. 

That’s the story!

So now you keep watching and “see” what we/New Horizons is going to do next – and next – and next some more as that vision I/we held when I could not see, physically, grows with these words of Gandhi to inspire us.

We do best to begin by carving out territories or zones of peace in our personal relations where violence and deceit won’t be used. Mahatma Gandhi

Also, perhaps in 2015 you will “see” how you can some ways in which to join us on our mission to build –

Small “Zones of Peace”

Happy New Year, 2015!

From Anastasia and the New Horizons Board of Directors and Volunteer Team

A "zone of peace" can be
anywhere!