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Chapter 1 - The End of a Delusion.They call it the endless horizon, who have traveled Siberia, the far North of Russia and experienced its vastness. For a brief period another place deserved the same description, a place in the South where endless horizons came into view for four weeks in a city called Caracas. In this city a peace conference was convened. That was 'my' peace conference. It was the realization of Olive's gift to me. It was her gift to us all, the first peace conference after an interval of many years. It was also scheduled to be the longest peace conference in history. Dear Olive, she had made the impossible come true. Well almost, it did. It had only one catch. It was designed to bring peace to the financial world by reinstating the legal rights of property over human rights, which the nations, out of the necessity for their physical survival, had declared null and void. This little catch, however, was something that we felt confident we would be able to deal with. That's what I had promised Olive we would do. I had promised her that we would turn the whole thing upside down. Now the time had come to deliver on the promise. What was so easily promised suddenly seemed rather scary. I had heard a lot about Siberia as a wide open land, and considering the nature of the upcoming conference, the way Olive and I had talked about it when we spoke about it at the very summit of the Wild Kaiser mountains, I couldn't help draw the comparison between what lay before us and Siberia's endless horizons. The comparison actually had come to mind much earlier, on my return trip from Austria during those precious weeks of daydreaming. A tremendous hope had unfolded during our great brainstorming session there. Now we were given a chance to turn those daydreams of scientific progress in human relations into tangible reality. Olive's gift for us, to get us moving again; to get the whole world moving again; was unfolding before me almost as if it were another dream. But it wasn't that. As I read the copy of the invitation that Fred had brought with him personally, I sensed a growing realization of humanity's infinite potential for self-development. I felt a certain light in my soul, born by the unfolding potential that we might indeed make a difference this time, or once again as in the days of Venice when we changed the world just a bit decades ago. But how could we meet this larger challeneg? I was encouraged that the conference was to be in Caracas. I had been in Caracas before. The people appear to be more beautiful in Caracas, which seemed to reflect a deep-lying respect for one-another, the kind that could no longer be found in the USA, except on rare occasions. I remembered Steve's comment, that people who love are beautiful. The Caracas Conference became an experiment for us, although not by the intent of the organizers. We had turned it into an experiment, in response to my dream about 'The Thing.' We felt we had a real chance to change the tragic pattern of the world around us. We remembered the principles that we had recognized as fundamental when we had discussed my dream, which had happened in the middle of the greatest financial crisis. We counted ourselves fortunate in those days of crisis to be livening isolated in a remote area by the sea. Now we were about to be thrust into the middle of the agitated hubbub, with the commitment to create a New World. The isolation had ended. The focal point that we had cherished then had remained and become stronger. It became a force that soon shaped the flow of the conference, perhaps even its outcome. I felt proud of our little group and proud to be a part of it. Sadly, I wasn't allowed to mention to anyone that it was Olive's initiative that had brought the conference about, out of her deep, deep, love that had 'moved mountains' in the past and had done so once again, so it seemd. When I called Olive in Vienna to thank her for the conference and give her my love, she was adamant: "Don't mention my name! This will spoil everything. You mustn't even think about me while the conference is on. The task is too important." || - page index - || - chapter index - || - Exit - ||
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