The Spirit of Peace

I heard about a monument that essentially was honoring the orizuru (the traditional paper crane). I followed the vague directions and found a place called Lyndale Park and more specifically, the Peace Garden. There I discovered quite a bit of garden, all quite beautiful.

Then off to the left I noticed a statue surrounded by fourteen stones. The statue is a column of stages in the folding process, starting with the Preliminary Base, to the Bird Base to the completed crane. There are six stages, one on top of the other.

Each stone has a plaque embedded in it. There are diagrams with instructions guiding the folder as they circle the statue.

The whole piece is titled The Spirit of Peace and was designed by Caprice Glaser. It is a part of the worldwide effort to honor peace and remember the horrors of the atomic bomb. It was the story of Sadako Sasaki that brought such a union between origami and peace together, and the monument is to honor her as well.

I recommend that you visit Lyndale Park. If you do, they have origami paper in something like a mailbox so that you can fold your own crane!

[These pictures are my own, taken of The Spirit of Peace designed by Caprice Glaser and owned by the city of Minneapolis]

First Project!

There is a popular belief that if you fold 1000 paper cranes, you may have one wish granted, much like finding a magic lamp. If you know of this, it is likely because of the children's book Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes by Eleanor Coerr, which follows Sadako Sasaki, a young Japanese girl who became ill with the "atom bomb sickness" (leukemia) after the United States nuked Hiroshima. She folded cranes while in the hospital, hoping to fold 1000. According to the book, she reached 644 before passing away. Her friends and classmates completed the other 356 so that she could be buried with all 1000.

In many ways, this is such an important aspect of origami in the world. This story is what has solidified the paper crane as the peace crane. It is one of the reasons people even are introduced to origami in the first place. And so I have decided that I will fold 1000 paper cranes to pay respects to the tradition.

I have no idea how many cranes I have folded thus far in my life, so for this project I will begin at 0001 and work my way up. I have been known to abandon origami in public places, and therefore cannot expect to possess all 1000 cranes at the end. Instead, I will write which crane it is, and then leave it so that someone may find it. Sometimes my origami comes back to me, so I guess I will see if that happens again!