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A pilgrim for peace

By Marleen Shepherd, For the Southern

Saturday, September 15, 2007 12:17 AM CDT

CARBONDALE - Some people protest for peace. Some lobby for environmental sustainability. Gregory-Dean Smith, who calls himself Brother North Star, simply walks.

He started leisure walking as a way to find inner peace, but walking would become his life. He met and befriended Buddhist peace pilgrims while earning his bachelor's degree in African-American history and the history of African-American music and theater in 1990 at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. After three years of working as a stage actor, he joined the Nippon Myohoji Buddhist order in a trek for peace around the world.

"I walked through 15 countries with them. Their mission on this planet is to abolish nuclear weapons. It's an order that comes out of Japan, so you can imagine why that's their mission."

After a decade of walking to prayer vigils outside what he called "Star Wars facilities," Smith returned to the United States. For his most recent American tour, he chose to follow a map of five energy vortexes in the United States he discovered while surfing the Internet. Based on the I Am America Earth Change Prophecy map at Iamamerica.com, Carbondale is near the southern door of such a vortex that stretches up to Interstate 55, east into Indiana and west into Missouri.

"It's an experiment," admitted Smith, who said he doesn't know if he believes in these vortexes, where spiritual dimensions are thought to overlap with the physical. Nevertheless, he follows, hoping to reach people with his message: one people, one earth. His mission is to get people thinking about peace, the unity of the human family, and a new way of living that isn't harmful to the environment or oppressive to people.

"I walk through a world of minutia, thick with fear," Smith said. "The walk itself is a vigil for self-healing, the healing of our nation and the healing of our world: To heal the condition of violence and aggression in my nation and in myself; to heal the condition of mindless consumerism, consumption and obesity in my nation and myself; to heal the conditions of puritanical judgments, condemnation, zero faith in redemption, and the xenophobia in my nation and myself."

While he claims no religious affiliation, Smith likens his "spiritual peace movement" to that of Jesus of Nazareth, who left work, temple and family for a different way of being outside of social institutions. He encourages people to "create their own ark" by getting "off the grid, out of the system and into self-sustainable intentional communities."

As for his own journey, Smith doesn't solicit rides, money, food or shelter. He walks, camps and fasts until offered accommodations. He has stayed in major cities and small towns, luxurious homes and homeless camps. His lodging in Carbondale is the Good Samaritan House homeless shelter. By living this way, he has learned to trust in a higher power to provide. It also attracts attention that allows him to share his message.

"People are getting the message, not through me standing on a soapbox. I don't have to say anything. I just have to be, and that's it," he said. "It's about changing, about making a shift in our lives now." zion.road@gmail.com / 521-3541