Butterfly Friends of Tree Island

BULLETIN
from
Butterfly Friends of Tree Island

Bflyspirit@aol.com
Date: Fri, 25 Sep 1998 14:18:08 EDT
To: liberty@woodstocknation.org,
Subject: Urgent Please place on web site

FOR RELEASE: August 20, 1998
CONTACT: Alan Moore
Friends of Tree Island
510-528-7730
treeisland@aol.com
www.treeisland.com

© Marv Lyons,
GaiaLINK

RAINBOWS AND BUTTERFLIES FILL SKIES AT
FIRST GLOBAL GATHERING OF MILLENNIUM ORGANIZERS

A sky filled with rainbows and butterflies was a visual treat for the Klamath
Falls community, conference attendees, and international media at the Tree
Island Millennium Gathering held at the Oregon Institute of Technology at the
end of the conference's second day. Alan Moore, the "Butterfly Man," and the
children of Klamath Falls will released monarch butterflies as artist Fred
Stern, the "Rainbow Man," created a magnificent rainbow backdrop in the sky.
The event was scheduled to commemorate Day 500, August 19th and occurred at
5:00 PM.

The rainbow and butterfly release will symbolize the peace and unity that we
all would like to bring to the New Millennium. Stern is an internationally
recognized conceptual artist who uses large scale pumps to generate natural
rainbows in the sky, some as large as 2000 feet across. He worked with the
local fire department to realize the rainbow which symbolizes the possibility
of peace and global unity for the new millennium. He has placed rainbows over
the Earth Summit in Rio and United Nations in New York. He has received five
major awards from the National Endowment for The Arts and grants from many
local and private agencies to support his work. He was the first artist to
receive an Art in Public Places Individual Artist Award from the National
Endowment for the Arts.

Moore, a resident of the San Francisco Bay Area and member of the Peace and
Justice Commission in Berkeley, has launched his fluttery friends at events
all over the country, including the World Peace Festival, Woodstock 97, four
Hiroshima-Nagasaki observances, and the United Nations Earth Summit +5 in New
York, where 600 painted ladies were set free. "Children attending the
spectacle will get to take home beautiful magic wands with rainbow streamers
and butterflies on top," says Moore. The rainbow and butterfly release were
offered as gifts to the conference and people of Klamath Falls by Stern and
Moore, respectively. On the last day conference participants went out into
the community and worked with local residents on hands-on projects. Moore did
landscape work at a local women's Crisis Center. Moore said, "We hope to
leave behind a lasting gift for the people of Klamath Falls. Some of these
will be a Peace Pole, a butterfly garden, a reading program, and the hope
that, by working together with mutual respect, love, and humility, we can help
make the world a better place."

As a result of the Gathering , Moore's Butterfly Gardeners Association and the
Tree Island group have been asked by the Global Initiative to take the
honourful task of presenting the World Peace Candle to Mr. Kofi Annan next
year at the United Nations on Saturday, 10th of July, 99. The Peace Candle
(presently in their office in Solothurn, Switzerland), will be given to the
Secretary General on the last day of the "People´s Walk for Peace." The Peace
Candle has not been lit yet. It has been waiting since the spring of 1995 with
the following purpose: It shall be lit as soon as the last nuclear weapon is
abolished, as a first step to total disarmament. They want this candle to be a
gift for the UN, and would like the UN to provide a room for it. There the
candle would wait until the moment for lighting has come. Private
organizations cannot donate anything to the UN, only governments. They plan to
ask Ireland or Sweden since they are leading countries for nuclear abolition.
They also hope the BGA will endorse the idea of the "People´s Walk for Peace."

The BGA is planning to bring together a coalition of environmental, peace,
faith, spiritual, and millennium groups to organize a Great Millennium Peace
Caravan for the summer of 1999. The theme will be "transformation through
forgiveness" and will focus on creating a sustainable and peaceful world
through personal and planetary transformation. The group will consist of
artists, musicians, educators, muralists, sculptors, story tellers, thespians,
gardeners, dancers, lecturers, activists, futurists, global visionaries, and
authors. We will celebrate the Earth's biological and cultural diversity as
we visit social justice, environmental and peace festivals across the country.
The 30th Woodstock Anniversary and Festival will be a major destination, as
well as the Hiroshima-Nagasaki Observance in Washington, DC and the World
Peace Festival in Armenia New York.

Hillel Schwartz of the Millennium Institute, Moore of the Butterfly Gardeners
Association, Steve Diamond of One Day in Peace January 1, 2000, and Grover,
author of Tree Island and cofounder of Friends of Tree Island, have been
coordinating the Gathering. They have been joined by Tom Esakin of Millennium
Vancouver 2000. Tree Island, a novel about four people who make a bet that
they can change the world on $10,000, and ends with the world united in global
celebration at the dawn of the new Millennium. The book attracted a world wide
audience, resulting in the creation of Friends of Tree Island. "We are now
all here in Southern Oregon trying to make that dream come true, said Moore.
"We welcome representatives of any group using the year 2000 as a prompt for
positive action," said Grover, who is also director of the 22nd Century Group
(Making Sure We Get There).

Owen Laster, vice president of the William Morris Agency, said "I am so proud
of my client, Linda Grover, and her wonderful endeavors at the Tree Island
Millennium Gathering. She is following the path of her fictional characters
in her novel."

While others worry about the Millennium computer bug, organizers from as far
away as Kazakstan and Korea assembled August 18-20th at the Oregon Institute
of Technology to share plans for the turn of the Millennium, coordinate
schedules and invent new ways of celebrating.

The three day event attracted increasing attention, and had been scheduled to
coincide with the 500-day mark (August 19th) before the year 2000. "Other
gatherings may take place on days 400, 300, 200 and 100," said Schwartz. "We
are looking to secure the foundations for a series of millennium projects
leading toward a more sustainable future."

"The celebration of the year 2000 will be the most important event in human
history," observed former United Nations Assistant Secretary-general Robert
Muller when he heard of the Gathering. "I fully support the Tree Island effort
to coordinate this on a global scale, and would love to be there on Day 500 to
increase the worldwide wave. It might bring about a turning point in human
affairs. It is incredible what we can do in the one year and five months we
have left before 2000."

Among the 40 or more groups that were presented at the Gathering are: First
Night International (195 cities), the UN Millenium People's Assembly Network,
the Butterfly Gardeners Association of Berkeley, The Earth Rainbow Network of
Montreal, Action Coalition for Global Change in San Francisco, Millennium
Korea, WAM2000 Barcelona, the Catalyst Youth Network, Milenio Costa Rica,
Pole-to-Pole 2000, and the World Wide Forum for Millennium Results and
Prospects, Kazakstan.

To get more information contact Friends of Tree Island at 541-882-9760, Fax
541-883-3136, email treeisland@aol.com, or on the web at
http://www.treeisland.com/Day500/registration.html .

* *
*
Update: 8/11/98

ROCKEFELLER STATEMENT CAPTURES SPIRIT OF MILLENNIUM CELEBRATION

"At a time of profound change throughout the world, the Tree Island Millennium
Gathering will celebrate and advance those ecological, social, and spiritual
values that are fundamental to a secure future. May the spirit of this
Gathering spread and be shared by more and more people, young and old, as we
approach the Millennium!" Steven C. Rockefeller, Chair, Earth Charter
Drafting Committee, Middlebury College, Emeritus.

On August 18th through 20th the only known celebration of Day 500 before the
year 2000 in the hemisphere will take place in Klamath Falls, Oregon. Leading
millennium minds, futurists and event planners from as far away as Kazakstan
and Korea will meet at the Oregon Institute of Technology to share their
plans, coordinate their schedules and to discover new universal ways of
celebrating. Highlights of the three day event will include unique 99, 66,
and 33 second statements by participating groups, children's improvisational
theater, spontaneous thematic celebrations of various kinds, with media and
local community participating, a natural rainbow in the sky, a butterfly
release, and a work project on behalf of the community's children and the
Klamath Tribe.

*
* *

Organizers of the event include the 22nd Century Group, Klamath Falls; the
Millennium Institute, Washington, DC; One Day in Peace January 1, 2000, Santa
Barbara, and Millennium Vancouver 2000, British Columbia, and the Butterfly
Gardeners Association.

PARTICIPATING GROUPS TO DATE;

21st Century Countdown Calendar, Canadian Lung Association, Catalyst Youth
Network, Center for Millennial Czech/Antarctic Arts Group, Earth Rainbow
Network/Millennium Gathering, Earth Day 2000, Eco-Communications, Intl.,
Electronics Project, Expos of the Americas, First Night International (195
Cities), Foundation for the Future of Youth, Friends of Tree Island, Fundacion
Dessarrollo Nuevo Pensamiento, Fund for Global Awakening, Global Media
Productions, Great Millennium Campaign, Great Millennium Celebration,
Guatemala Project-Michael Linden, Harmonic Ascendance Project, Invocation
Project, Klamath Millennium Council, Klamath Tribes, Lifebridge Foundation,
Lightshift 2000, Magical Child Foundation, Millennium Eve Vigil, Millennium
Korea, Millennium Institute, Millennium Vancouver 2000, New Civilization
Network, One Day in Peace, January 1, 2000!, One Day Foundation, Pathways to
Peace, Peaceday 2000, People For Peace, Pole to Pole 2000, SCAN/Gaialink San
Diego, Shine a Light for Peace, Snapshot Millennium, Holomorph Teamwork2000,
The Butterfly Gardeners Association(Alan Moore), The Rainbow Man (Artist Fred
Stern), UN People's Millennium Assembly, Unitarian Universalist Association,
WAM 2000 Barcelona, Weave A Dream, Whidbey Institute, World Peace Center

Millennium gathering to stress peace, spirituality for the year 2000

Butterfly release planned during gathering

Herald and News
August 16, 1998
By Lee Beach
H&N Staff Writer

Color, light and new life--children of Klamath Falls are invited to be a
part of this image in a celebration of releasing butterflies against a
backdrop of rainbows--freeing monarchs and painted ladies during an event
sponsored by Tree Island Millennium Gathering during its three-day conference
Aug. 18-20.

The gathering is scheduled for 5 p.m. Wednesday at Purvine Field, the end
of Dan O'Brian Street, at the Oregon Institute of Technology. Butterfly event
organizer Alan Moore of the Butterfly Gardeners Association hopes the occasion
will raise the consciousness of children and adults to the interconnectedness
of all life.

"The butterfly is an environmental indicator, a sensitive species which
reacts to changes in the environment such as global warming or destruction of
the rainforest," explained Moore. "More than that however, it is a symbol of
transformation greater than the biological metaphor. It is a healing and
life-affirming symbol."

The date of the release coincides with the 500th day before the turn of the
millennium. The Tree Island Millennium Gathering is in Klamath Falls planning
events and programs in anticipation of the turn of the century with hopes for
global peace and unity.

There will be 150 butterflies for individual children to release against a
backdrop of rainbows created by conceptual artist Fred Stern using water spray
from fire department pumper trucks, according to organizers. It is suggested
that children arrive about 4:30 p.m. to watch the preparations, wear bathing
suits, and come with a wish to make when they set their butterfly free.

Butterflies were donated, with 50 painted ladies from Carolina Biological
and 50 monarchs from Magical Beginnings, and 50 more painted ladies from
Moore. Each of the painted ladies will be in separate cups and the monarchs
will be in origami pyramids. Children will also receive a wand with a rainbow
and butterfly on it or a butterfly pin.

While this particular gathering is focusing on issues of peace, Moore makes
the point that "Butterfly Gardeners association prefers to remain neutral, not
endorsing or taking stands. We see a universality in the symbol of the
butterfly, and we are encouraging people to find their own groups with their
own issues."

Nevertheless, because of his current work with this group, Moore has been
invited by the Global Initiative, a world peace organization based in
Solothum, to help present a World Peace candle to Mr. Kofi Annan, the U.N.
Secretary General, on Saturday, July 20, 1999, at the United Nations.

Moore was a landscape gardener in Allentown, Pennsylvania who knew little
about butterflies until August of 1993. A friend had invited him to see his
butterfly garden. "I'd never seen a place like that. I was totally
fascinated. I started thinking there should be places like this for kids, and
all sorts of people." By that evening, he had written a set of goals for his
new organization and shortly thereafter began devoting all his time to
butterfly-related projects.

His Butterfly Gardeners distributed butterfly growing kits to dozens of
classrooms, planted butterfly gardens in schoolyards and other public places,
and set up events where children could release butterflies they had raised
from caterpillars.

"The number one hobby in this country is gardening. It's such an easy
transition--you add the butterfly and you have a wonderful therapeutic
environment," Moore said.

The BGA has also promoted butterfly gardens in nursing homes and prisons and
Moore gives accounts of how learning to handle the delicate creatures has
touched abused children and hardened criminals.

He is seeking sponsors in the area for a program of breaking the pattern of
abuse by teaching children through the careful handling of this creature. He
can be contacted at the butterfly release event. Anyone with questions or who
is interested in helping sponsor the butterfly release can contact more at
510-528-7730.

Moore has since relocated to Berkeley, and the BGA is hoping to bring
together a coalition of environmental, peace, faith, spiritual, and millennium
groups to organize a Great Millennium Peace Caravan for the summer of 1999.
The theme will be transformation through forgiveness.

The 30th Anniversary and Festival of Woodstock will be a major destination,
as well as the Hiroshima-Nagasaki Observance in Washington, DC and the World
Peace Festival in Armenia, New York.

Linda Grover -Author of Tree Island

The daughter of an inventor and a poet, born in New England and raised in the
military, Linda Grover graduated from Las Vegas High School and worked as a
secretary for several years.

Linda Grover's interest in changing the world began with an early stint as
Clerk of The House Indian Affairs Subcommittee in the U.S. Congress. She later
worked with The National Committee for An Effective Congress and the
International Rescue Committee. Her books and lectures have all reflected
social themes. Her success led to an active role in reform politics.

The House Keepers, (Harper & Row) was a humorous account of a successful seven
year battle to save her Manhattan apartment building from an urban renewal
project. It was excerpted in McCalls, serialized in the New York Post,
optioned by CBS, featured in a New York Times editorial and became required
reading for city planning courses at several universities.

Her second nonfiction work, Looking Terrific: The Language of Clothing,
(Putnams and Ballantine) written with co-author Emily Cho, was a New York
Times national bestseller (#4 trade paperback), became a Literary Guild
selection and was translated into Hebrew and Spanish. It concerned women's
identity in the wake of the sexual revolution. Linda is also the author of
August Celebration, about the discovery of the wild-grown algae superfood in
Klamath Lake. It has sold a half million copies to d

She also created Aaron's World for CBS-EMI and has been a New York City taxi
driver, a cook at a retreat center, a water-ski instructor, a Manhattan
restaurant reviewer, and an actress in Kick the Habit" anticigarette
commercials.

Linda was commissioned in 1979 by CBS-EMI to create an alternative serial
drama, Aaron's World, about a children's hospital. The show was optioned,
developed, and scheduled, but not aired. She later became head writer of The
Doctors, NBC; Search for Tomorrow, CBS; and CO-head writer of General
Hospital, ABC.

Linda is also the author of August Celebration: A Molecule of Hope for a
Changing World, published in both paperback and audio. (Gilbert, Hoover &
Clarke.) It recounts the discovery of a wild-grown superfood in an Oregon
Cascades lake and examines the resulting network of socially conscious
consumers and distributors across North America. Nearly a half million copies
have been sold to date.

These days, Linda makes her home in Klamath Falls, Oregon with her golden
retriever/border collie, Shalise. She plans to spend the rest of her life
windsurfing, promoting global partnership, and celebrating.

Please visit Linda's site at <A HREF="http://www.treeisland.com/">
http://www.treeisland.com/</A> and see photos at <A HREF="www.gaialink.com">
www.gaialink.com</A>

Alan Moore

Moore is head of the Butterfly Gardeners' Association, a Berkeley-based
group that has sponsored such events throughout the United States and wants
butterflies and rainbows to become leading symbols for millennium activities
around the world. He has been invited to and released butterflies at the
United Nations Earth Summit +5, the World Peace Festival, Woodstock 97, the
Bioneers conference in San Francisco, and at numerous events and festivals
throughout the world. He has coordinated simultaneous butterfly releases for
Hiroshima-Nagaski Observances in cities such as Washington, DC on the Mall,
Baltimore at John Hopkin University, New York City at the Buddhist Temple, and
Allentown, his old home town, at Cedar Crest College.

The BGA events have been covered by many local, national and international
newspapers, magazines, and broadcast media in the United States, Great
Britain, Japan, Austria and Sweden. This includes the LA Times, CNN, NBC,
BBC, WTN(World Television Network), and Der Spiegel. Other members of his
organization have been covered in the New York Times, the San Francisco
Examiner, the New York Times, People Magazine, Time Magazine, and countless
others. Many of his board members are published writers whose books have made
the New York Times best seller list.

He has worked with numerous organizations to make butterfly gardening and
launching a part of their activities, and has worked his program into schools,
women's shelters, hospitals, hospices, and prisons. As a member of the Peace
& Justice Committee in Berkeley, he has worked on such issues as disarmament,
nuclear proliferation, poverty, homelessness, human rights, and social and
environmental justice.

Moore has found the butterfly to be a wonderful symbol for promoting world
peace and environmental sustainability. By making such things as butterflies
and rainbows symbols for the Millennium and global cooperation, every
butterfly that goes by or rainbow in the sky becomes a messenger of peace,
love, and humility. "I can't think of a more beautiful or effective way to
arouse global consciousness, " he says.

He has taught thousands of children to raise butterflies in the classroom
for releases at Earth Day and other festivals, the largest of which launched
2000 winged angels to the heavens. Festivals broke attendance records when
butterflies highlighted the closing ceremonies. He plans to launch at least
10,000 butterflies at just one Earth Day location next year, the Concord
Pavilion in the San Francisco Bay Area. The Earth Day Network has spread the
idea around the world.

The success of his "Butterfly Initiative'" is also helping to bring
together a coalition of environmental, peace, faith, spiritual, and civic
groups to organize a Great Millennium Peace Caravan for the summer of 1999.
The themes will be Transformation Through Forgiveness and Earth Day Every Day.
"We will focus on creating a sustainable and peaceful world through personal
and planetary transformation," says Moore. The caravan will consist of
artists, musicians, educators, muralists, sculptors, story tellers, thespians,
gardeners, dancers, lecturers, activists, futurists, global visionaries, and
authors. Protect All Life Forms will lend the world's largest sculpture, a
forty foot whale carved out of a salvaged redwood tree, to the entourage. We
will celebrate the Earth's biological and cultural diversity as we visit
social justice, environmental and peace festivals across the country. The
30th Woodstock Anniversary and Festival will be a major destination, as well
as the Hiroshima-Nagasaki Observance in Washington, DC and the World Peace
Festival in Armenia New York. He is also collaborating with other groups to
make the summer of 99 a "Global Affair."

Fred Stern / The Artist

Fred Stern is an acknowledged innovator in environmental art. He has served as
Associate Professor of Sculpture and Engineering at Pratt Institute, and as
Associate Professor of Visual Arts at New York University, the University of
Maryland and The Instituto De Allende in Mexico.

Stern has received five major awards from the National Endowment for The Arts
and grants from many local and private agencies to support his work. He was
the first artist to receive an Art in Public Places Individual Artist Award
from the National Endowment for the Arts, for his rainbow work.

He has created Natural Man Made Real Rainbows as large as 2000 feet across for
the cities of New York, Baltimore, Chicago, Miami, Austin, Salt Lake City, and
Santa Fe. In 1992 Stern created a series of rainbows at the Earth Summit in
Rio de Janeiro. In 1995 he presented his rainbow work, "Keshet Sheket," a
Holocaust Memorial, as the opening piece for the Eutopia Festival in Potsdam
Germany. On Flag Day, he created a rainbow for the town of Silver City, New
Mexico as a planetary flag standing above all other flags and symbolizing the
need for global unity.

This past summer he realized a two year dream through the creation of a
natural rainbow over the United Nations Building. In this piece the planets
flag was flown above the flags of the world's nations

An artificial rainfall is created by fire trucks or fire boats, pumping water
into the air. The water drops refract the sunlight and establish the rainbow.
A computer program determines the optimal time, position and spray parameters
for rainbow generation.

Although his rainbow work began as Conceptual Sculptural Pieces they have
moved into the arena of Public Art works as a symbol of peace and unity in
support of our planet. As an artist Stern combines a visual sensibility with
an ethical responsibility in the realization of his pieces. He has committed
to only present his work for organizations and events in support of the planet
and peace issues.

Stern has coordinated groups of artists in the presentation of environmental
works for The International Sculpture Conference in Washington, D.C. and The
Primer Gran Festival De Dos Culturas in Mexico. He served as an advisor and
participant to the New York Annual Avant Garde Festival for more than 10
years.

Please visit his site at <A HREF="http://www.zianet.com/rainbow/">
http://www.zianet.com/rainbow/</A>

Return-Path: <Bflyspirit@aol.com>
From: Bflyspirit@aol.com
Date: Fri, 25 Sep 1998 14:18:08 EDT
To: liberty@woodstocknation.org, prop1@prop1.org, shundahai@radix.net,
ien@igc.apc.org, Buddhust <bpf@bpf.org>, weiland@ashlandweb.com
Subject: Urgent Please place on web site
X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by catskill.net id SAA05930