MAKING THE DREAM A REALITY
The first of these Altars was consecrated and installed at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City in 1986 during a New Year's Eve celebration for the continent of North America.
The second, a Sacred Peace Table, was marked "for Russia" by Nakashima. Built to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the United Nations in 1995 at an event at The Cathedral, it travelled to the Hague Appeal for Peace in 1999. It was finally installed at the Russian Academy of Art in Moscow in 2001 to help inspire peace in the new millennium for the continent of Europe.
In 1996, a Sacred Peace Table, was sent to Auroville, India. The "City of Peace" is an international offshoot of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram where George was once a disciple. This third one resides in the Unity Pavilion and serves as a unifying force for the continent of Asia.
It is our hope that the next Sacred Peace Table will soon find a home in the Desmond Tutu Peace Centre in Cape Town, South Africa, as a monument to the end of apartheid and a inspiration for peace in all dimensions for the entire continent of Africa.
We believe that through the gifting of concrete symbols of Altars and Sacred Peace Tables - formed by nature aspiring to the Divine, worked by human hands and consecrated to peace - universal peace may some day permeate the entire earth.
Overview
In 1984, George Nakashima, the internationally acclaimed Japanese-American woodworker from New Hope, Pennsylvania, encountered an extraordinary walnut log and dreamed that it should become Altars for Peace. He dreamed that there should be one for each continent of the world, a monumental "symbol, a token of man's aspirations for a creative and beautiful peace, free of political overtones; an expression of love for his fellow man."
