New Hope Gazette
October 23, 1986

The late Carl Sandburg once wrote: "Nothing happens unless first the dream."

Master wood-working artist George Nakashima, of Aquetong Road, had a dream as far back as 15 years or so ago, a dream which he was able to articulate in a letter to a few selected friends in the summer of 1983.

Today, the dream has come true...the dream is a reality.

On the last day of this eventful year in the history of mankind, the embodiment of George Nakashima's dream will become a part of the magnificent Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, the largest Gothic cathedral in the world, there for all to see beginning the first of the new year and henceforth. George Nakashima's long-dreamed-of Altar for Peace has been completed, finished except for the application of six or eight coatings of a preservative oil. The altar, described by Nakashima as "made of two great slabs of walnut—bookmatched and finished at approximately three-inches thick...about 12 feet long by 12 feet wide and weighing about three-quarters of a ton," will be placed at the front of the nave in the great Episcopal Cathedral and dedicated New Year's Eve at the Cathedral's annual Concert for Peace.

The guest conductor will be Leonard Bernstein, and Violinist Isaac Stern will be the guest soloist. An announcement by the Cathedral says:

"The guest of honor will be George Nakashima"

Nakashima realized that his dream was possible of fulfillment in 1970 or 1971 when he learned that a logger named Frank Koziowski had spotted a 125-foot-tall walnut tree, between 200 and 300 years old, on a Long Island, New York estate. Koziowski contacted the owner of the tree and asked if he could buy it. The sale and purchase were negotiated. Hearing about the tree almost immediately, Nakashima was able to buy the trunk of the tree, about 12 feet in length and ranging in width from five to seven feet. He then wrote to his friends, including this reporter, saying, in part:

There has appeared an extraordinary natural phenomenon, something that occurs only once in lifetime or perhaps only once in the history of a nation or in all time. It is a great walnut tree. It is a tree that should be a symbiosis of nature and man in the deepest spiritual sense. It is now on hand.

"The ultimate creative concept of this presence becomes a prime decision. Too often great trees are chopped into knife handles or pistol grips. The only full destiny of a noble tree, favored to grow as none of its peers were able to do, is to use it in its full length and width.

Most Expressive piece
"The possibilities are many but ultimately narrows down to a unique concept. It should be used with the fullest width possible and about four inches thick, two slabs at the widest to be machined to make a rough heart shaped triangle about fourteen feet wide and twelve feet long. The possibilities are to make the most expressive piece of furniture ever made.

"To surmise: possibly the finest grain character and figuring within its extraordinary profile.

"To surmise again: An Altar to Peace! Each step would be an adventure, as such a piece has never been made with this type of wood and proportions. There will be many chances of failure, possibly complete, but it should succeed.

"Perhaps this is all a dream, but peace is a dream, a dream dreamt by an overwhelming mass of millions upon millions of people. It cannot be had within the halls of power as ego begets ego until we have our final Armageddon.

"The betes noires in this quest for peace are the super powers, so called. But with their colossal egos and their insecurity have failed miserably to produce a viable society. Perhaps they would be interested in each taking a plot a hundred miles square, a thousand miles apart, assemble their most sophisticated engines of destruction, a million men each and prove once and for all which system is the strongest. This could be in the northern most part of Siberia. Some sort of decision might be realized and the rest of the world left alone.

"Peace should be born as a genuine expression of nature and an act of beauty. There can be at least one small spot on earth to be dedicated to Peace in a tangible form instead of an abstract idea and an absence of war. It can be a positive creative force of its own carrying its own momentum.

Special saw built
The trunk was trucked to a North Carolina sawmill, but there was no saw on the East Coast that could cut the trunk into slabs. Nakashima then went to Chico, Ca, to talk with a sawyer who specializes in walnut, a man named Scot Wineland. Wineland didn't have a saw capable of doing the job either, but he had one made at a cost of $3,000.

Nakashima decided to have the log moved to the Thompson Mahogany Company yard at 7400 Edmund Street in Northeast Philadelphia. The sawing began Jan. 16, 1984, was completed Jan. 29. The slabs remained in Philadelphia, for drying, for more than two years. Two and half years after the cutting, the slabs were trucked to Nakashima's workshop, where the trimming and assembling began.

Fund-raising was undertaken, but it turned out that most of the expenses for quite a while were borne by Nakashima himself. Nakashima, whose reputation as an architect-craftsman-artist-humanitarian-inspired dreamer was even greater in other parts of the world than it is in his native United States, began hearing from friends abroad - from Japan, Indian and other lands - as well as wealthy business leaders, intellectuals and other in the United States who champion the cause of peace.

Rockefeller helps
One of the leading supporters of the Altar for Peace project was Steven C. Rockefeller, dean of students at Middlebury (Vt.) College. Nakashima had come to know the Rockefellers before and when he refurnished the residence of Steven's father, former New York Governor Vice President Nelson Rockefeller. Rockefeller contributed money to the project and he accepted the position of "Honorary Chairman Nakashima Altar for Peace," Rockefeller then contacted the Right Reverend James Morton, Dean of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, and Dean Morton readily agreed that his cathedral, which is located between 110th and 113th Streets on the West Side of upper Manhattan, was a proper site for the altar.

Steven Rockefeller wrote this about Nakashima and his altar:

"The art of George Nakashima is a unique celebration of both the beauty of trees and unspoiled nature and of the creativity of the human spirit. The furniture which he has designed and built for over fifty years blends in a memorable fashion Japanese and American values. It is original in conception, marvelously functional and aesthetically of the highest quality. There is a simplicity and grace of line and detail in his art of which only a person of unusual spiritual accomplishment and great technical skill is capable. It is a delight to the touch of the hand as well as to the eye.

Gift to the world
More than that, Mr. Nakashima's art has the power to provide the spirit an intimation of that world of timeless beauty and truth where there is the peace which passes understanding and inspiration for creative action. How fitting it is that this master has now turned his hand to the creation of a great Altar for Peace. What a gift to the world this will be!"

Nakashima himself wrote about his Altar:

"It was a dream—An Altar for Peace? "It will be a symbol—A Token of man's aspiration for a creative and beautiful peace—free of political overtones—an expression of love of man for his fellow man...

"As peace the world over is uppermost in our consciousness, it must be a joyous peace—not a fear or absence of war! It is a question of surrender to the Divine Consciousness, to end in a most beautiful aura of love."

George Nakashima, who was 81 years old last May 24, is still dreaming.

"I have enough wood to make two, maybe three, more altars," he told Anna Mae and me last week.

"There is a hibakusha (survivor) in New York City, her name is Ryoko Takagi—who was in Nagasaki, when it was atombombed. She wants me to make an altar for Nagasaki, and she's willing to help promote the project. "Hiroshima, the first city to be atom-bombed, has received the most world attention, of course, and there no longer is any room in Hiroshima for another major shrine. But Ryoko Takagi points out that there is 'a perfect place' in Nagasaki, which also suffered terribly from the bombing. And Nagasaki was the greatest Christian center in Japan...still is."

And the dream goes on
But Nakashima dreamt on:

"I'd like to make one also for the Soviet Union. Leaders of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation, headquartered in the Netherlands, have been in touch with me about an altar for the Soviet Union, and they think they can bring it about"

When he first wrote about his dream, Nakashima said:

"From the caves in the Himalayas the sadhus can come with nothing but their bugging bowls, from the Zen mountain monasteries and their waterfalls come. The monks chanting their sutras, from Mount Athos and Saint Catherine on the Sinai are monks saying their offices, all can come, the poor in spirit who believe in the ultimate truth.

"They can come without shoes to place their offering, a lotus or a rose, (dried is satisfactory) on the altar. The room ringing with songs of praise each in his own tongue.

"My sadhu friends Yogananda and Purnananda can come, both having spent much of their lives in the Himalayas, at one time saved by a voice calling 'Yogananda Yogananda' to slip into a cave and escape death from a rockslide. Monks and sadhus from around the world. Logistics are easy as a grass mat serves as a bed.

"There should be some place in the world, a shrine, owned by no one but dedicated to the Divine and Peace. A shrine just for people, mostly poor as the world is so constituted, people of high status or position are not invited.

Come next December 31, an altar conceived and created by a Buddhist monk who also is a communicant of St. Martin's Roman Catholic Church in New Hope (Nakashima), will become part of a great Protestant Episcopal Cathedral noted for its nondenominational services attended by Jews who sometimes makeup 40 percent of the congregation, at ceremonies presided over by a peace activist Episcopal priest (Dean Morton) with two Jews (Bernstein and Stern) as the chief performers.

That, in itself is "such stuff as dreams are made on."