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Flame from Hiroshima comes to Ashland today The walk down Siskiyou is part of an effort to encourage peace By TONY BOOM ASHLAND - A flame that ignited with the 1945 atomic bomb blast in Hiroshima will be in Ashland today. The flame is part of a peace walk that began in Seattle Jan. 15 and will end May 12 at the United Nations in New York. Walkers with the flame visit sites related to the development of the bomb. They will walk on Siskiyou Boulevard in the late afternoon if they arrive from Eugene in time. They travel to some areas by vehicle. "It's about the urging and necessity of people to be working for peace right now, and the money that's going toward the military," said visit organizer Jonnie Dale Liberman. Embers from the Hiroshima bombing, collected by Tatsuo Yamamoto, started the flame that his grandmother burned in a family Buddhist altar in memory of her son, who died in the blast. She tended the flame for 12 years. Although Yamamoto first felt the flame represented anger, he later saw it as a symbol of love and preserved it until it was established in a peace monument in 1968 at Hoshino, Japan. A vehicle that travels beside the walkers carries the flame, which is housed in a hurricane lamp. "The lantern itself is pretty fragile," said Jeff Allison, 31, of Salem, one of two Oregonians who plans to complete the entire walk. "A couple smaller flames in little hand-warmers are carried while we walk." Walkers faced rain and snow and Washington. A heavy storm hit them between Corvallis and Monroe Thursday. Public response cheers the group, said Allison. "There's lots of horn honking. The Yakima Nation put us up in a long house and feasted us with salmon." Nun Jun Yasuda of the Japanese Buddhist order Nipponzan Myohoji, and American Indian activist Tom Dostou created the walk. A peace walk he did in Japan inspired Dostou. Yasuda's order has sponsored peace walks in a number of nations. Walkers from states and communities along the route join the 16 full-time walkers. The entourage covers up to 18 miles per day. They will travel at 4:30 p.m. today from Southern Oregon University's Visual Arts Center to the First Congregational Church. Prayers and blessings will be offered at 7 p.m. at the church. "Trinity and Beyond," a documentary of the history of nuclear weapons and testing, will be shown at 8 p.m. Liberman walked with the Buddhist order's great peace march across the country in 1986. She covered 2,000 of the routes 3,000 miles. In 1989, she participated in a walk in Nicaragua. "My life for several years was walking and being an activist," said Liberman. "They were just going to go on through. We said, 'No, wait, stop here. We are glad to house you.' " Elizabeth Hallett of Ashland will have an opportunity to reunite with Yasuda during the stop. In 1992 she participated with the nun in a fast for peace on the steps of the capitol building in Washington, D.C. "She's an inspiration and a very strong spirit," said Hallett. The walkers will leave Sunday for San Francisco. Reach Ashland bureau reporter Tony Boom at 482-4651, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.