For the 1st Anniversary of September 11, I flew Flags of Life.

I wanted to offer something from our house other than Red, White, & Blue -- for me increasingly a symbol of ethno-centric militancy.

I looked around our house, I looked in our dining room at the corner where I keep our Flags of Life, our Flags of Life furled on long bamboo poles, our Flags of Life I made for the dramas I help create for Sugarloaf Mountain's Seasonal Celebrations. I looked at them standing there, and I said, "Yes."

"Yes," I declared, carrying them out to our front porch, where I lovingly unfurled them, and arranged them against the railing:

- The Flags of the Seasons, light green for Spring, deep green for Summer, rust for Autumn, white for Winter....

- The Flags of Elements of Nature: pearlescent cellophane for Space, clear cellophane for Air, red for Fire, turquoise for Water, brown for Earth....

- The Flag of our Planet Earth that I had painted, feeling as I was painting that I was helping create the flows of blue rivers, the richness of soils, the strength of hard mountains, the swelling of seas....

- The Flag of our Solar System, with our Sun and its swirling planets....

- The Flag of our Universe -- deep blue, with stars and galaxies strewn in swaths over its expanse


"I Believe in Life," I said. And stood back and looked at our Flags of Life.

"We Believe in Life," they said back to me. "We will be your messengers. We will be our own messengers. We will send the message out to the world, to the worlds. 'We Are Life. Life is all there is. All Life is precious. Love Life. Love Life well.' "

Our Flags of Life flew all day -- proudly, bravely, serenely. . . sending their message.