"A Thousand Cranes for Peace"  Top panel - 16" x 20"  Detail Middle panel - 16" x 50"   Detail Bottom panel - 30" x 8"  Detail oil on canvas   by John WorldPeace November 1, 2002 A Thousand Cranes for Peace A partial interpretation from the artist's transient perspective This painting is made up of three canvases.  The top canvas is a 16" x 20" oval.  The middle canvas is a 16" x 50" rectangle.  The bottom canvas is a 30" x 8" rectangle. The bottom canvas has a black background which represents the core of the Infinite Potential from which all things manifest.  There is a yin-yang symbol which symbolizes the ever changing churning of the universe.  The paper cranes arise out of this void (God, Infinite Potential). The middle canvas has grey bars in the background which represents the ashes of war.  The straight lines represent the buildings of human society as opposed to the curving lines of nature.  It is the structures of man that are destroyed in war. From the ashes arise the one thousand cranes (or one thousand phoenixes) The top canvas has a white background with paper cranes forming an eternal circle. This represents the aspirations of human society to attain WorldPeace.  There is a golden spiral which is a sacred symbol meaning the every expanding and contracting underlying nature of this reality.  John WorldPeace October 20, 2002 7:41 am Sadako Sasaki Sadako wrote of her cranes:          ' I will write Peace on your wings          and you will fly all over the world.'      A Thousand Cranes for Peace When Hiroshima was bombed on August 6th, 1945, the Sasaki family was spared. Or so it seemed. Sadako Sasaki was only two at the time, and until she was twelve, she grew strong and healthy. She was the fastest runner on her school relay team. One day at school Sadako felt strange and dizzy, a feeling she would keep secret until weeks later, while running, everything seemed to whirl about her and she sank to the ground. Sadako had leukemia, "the atom bomb disease". While she was in the hospital, her closest friend reminded her of the old Japanese legend that if she folded a thousand paper cranes, the gods might grant her wish to be well again. With courage and faith, Sadako began folding. Though she was only able to fold 644 cranes before she died, Sadako had a profound impact on her friends and classmates. They completed her thousand cranes and raised money from school children all over Japan to build a statue to honor Sadako and all the children affected by the bomb.     Today, in Hiroshima's Peace Park, there is a statue of Sadako standing on top of a granite pedestal holding a golden crane in her outstretched arms. At its base a plaque reads: This is our cry. This is our prayer. Peace in the world. Every year, children from around the world fold cranes and send them to Hiroshima where they are placed around the statue. Because of Sadako, the paper crane has become an international symbol of peace.   Thousand Cranes for Peace Network Home Page