One Family's Journey into One Love

In 2000, Julia and Robert Roskind, then in their early 50s, decided it was time to devote all of their available time, energy and money to giving back to the world. This simple decision has led on a rather amazing journey.

"I ONCE HEARD AN INTERVIEW with Lillian Carter, President Carter's mother," Robert, an author and businessman, remembers. "She was asked why she was joining the Peace Corps in her seventies. She replied, 'A thrid of your life to learn, a third to earn and a third to serve.' That stuck with me and before I knew it, we had reached the last third. When we thought about what we might do to help the planet at this time, we both felt that our what would help the most was to encourage love and remind people that is why we are here."

Though at the time they did not know the exact nature of their service, it was soon revealed to them. Robert had previously written two books, In the Spirit of Marriage and In the Spirit of Business, both dealing with expressing unconditional love in those areas of our lives. On a family vacation to Jamaica with their two grown daughters, Alicia and Julie, the met some elder Rastafarians who were also devoting their lives to bring forward a message of unconditional love - One Love - as they called it. They decided then to write books of messages of love from indigenous elders.

"Our books Rasta Heart and The Gathering of the Healers take place in Jamaica and reveal the message of One Love - unconditional love for all - from the elder Rastas, Bob Marley and conscious reggae music," says Robert. "Our book The Beauty Path: A Native American Journey into One Love is on the same message but from the viewpoint of the Native American elders. It features Hopi elder Radford Quamahongnewa, who is the ears, eyes and tongue of the Hopi spiritual leaders of Shungopavi, their mother village. Our latest book is 2012: The Transformation from the Love of Power to the Power of Love and features Tata Pedro Cruz. And I guess my book Memoirs of an Ex-Hippie speaks for itself."

After writing Rasta Heart, they decided to release it in Jamaica at a press conference on Bob Marley's 57th birthday on February 6, 2002 and ask everyone on the island to teach love, as Bob and the elder Rastas had. Held at Bob's home in Kingston, the event also featured many Jamaica teachers of love including conscious recording artists, authors and talk show hosts. To give back to the Jamaican people, over the next two years, the Roskinds hosted over 50 free One Love Concerts on the island, including many in rural and ghetto schools. Their One Love Leadership Event in Kingston was attended by over 150 Jamaican leaders. All were invited to join with others in teaching to their people love. Their largest event, produced in a partnership with the Jamaican government, was on Bob Marley's 60th birthday and was held in downtown Kingston in front of a live crowd of tens of thousands and over two million Jamaicans watching on TV or listening on radio. They have also done One Love Concerts on the Hopi and Havasupai Indian reservations, and at universities and public venues in the U.S. Making these a family effort, their 20-year old daughter, Alicia, also speaks at the events.

The Roskinds also visit several prison groups near their home in the North Carolina Blue Ridge Mountains and they have hosted several prison-wide One Love Concerts featuring Laura Reed, a conscious recording artist from Asheville, North Carolina and her band, Deep Pocket.

"Our goal was to remind our incarcerated brothers that if you learn and teach love even behind prison walls, you are free," says Robert, "maybe freer than you were on the outside, perhaps freer than many people on the outside. I would remind them that when you teach and learn love - for yourself and others - you are heading Home, no matter what you did in your past or what was done to you. So that they would understand that their lives were not wasted, I reminded them that it is the Creator's will for every piece of the planet to be healed and that healing their piece 'behind the fence' is as important as healing any other. Since many in the audience are lifers, I talked about how if they get up each day and love and forgive as much as they can, their life will be a mystical experience - even if they never leave prison. Julia speaks to them about going within and finding peace and joy through meditation, a peace that is available to anyone, anywhere - even behind prison walls. She encourages the inmates to see their 'cell' as their 'chapel.' Then Laura, with her conscious lyrics and electrifying stage presence, would take them directly to Zion. By the end of her first set, the audience would be on their feet. The response in the meetings and the concerts has been incredible - open-hearted, enthusiastic and healing. Following these concerts, our Rasta groups confirmed that things had truly changed in the yard for the better. It is a testament to the power of love in action."

This summer, the Roskind family, is hosting their next One Love Event from August 4-10 in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina. Called The Gathering of the Peacemakers:Getting Ready for the Changes, it is presented as "seven days of conscious instruction and six nights of conscious music." During the day, workshops will be offered in much-needed life skills and each night there will be life-positive live music. The instruction includes workshops in many areas of appropriate technology such as solar and wind energy, bio-diesel fuels, living off-the-grid, waste recycling, and organic and bio-dynamic gardening. Other workshops will include alternative and holistic healing modalities, co-housing and intentional communities, wilderness tracking and survival, yoga, building your own home, handling your money wisely, conscious parenting, creating and sustaining loving unions, and finding your mission in life.

The "Elder-in-Residence" will be Mayan Elder Tata Pedro Cruz from the highlands of Guatemala. Tata Pedro, a respected member of the Mayan Council of Elders, will be offering ceremonies and speaking on the Mayan calendar and prophecies.

Each evening there would be live performances by some of the Southeast best-known conscious recording artists including Corey Harris, Dub Conscious, Laura Reed and Deep Pocket Band, Afromotive, Ras Alan and Chalwa. The nightly concerts are followed by drumming circles, inspiring movies and acoustic music. The gathering will be held at the 152-acre Holston Camp - complete with a dining hall, a lodge, cabins, camping areas, two meditation tipis, fire circles, a swimming lake, a coffee shop, and a climbing wall.

"After organizing over 70 concerts, we felt guided to offer a fuller experience," says Robert. "Removing everyone from our fast-paced commercial system for seven days will be very healing for all of us. For a week you will not need to stick your hand in your pocket - except maybe to get a cup of coffee or tea in our Bob Marley Coffee Shop. Also, the gathering will be very small, only a few hundred people. We want everyone to feel like an extended family and it's hard to get that kind of vibe going at a large event with thousands of people and lots of vendors. The gathering will move at a relaxed pace. Tata Pedro will offer his ceremonies at the lake early in the morning. After breakfast, everyone will gather in the dining hall for one of our essential workshops that we believe most all of us need, like making relationships work, handling your money and finding your mission in life. After lunch, there are other workshops followed by the concerts and drumming circles each night."

"This will be the perfect balance of wilderness and shelter," explains Julia. "The 80 degree days and cool nights creates a perfect environment for relearning the way of harmony and grace - a true livity of peace. As the Maya continually say, 'This current Universal Cycle is set up to support love, pure and simple.'"

Regional experts in herbal remedies, holistic health, co-housing and sustainable gardening will also offer workshops. Several instructors from the Appalachian State University Appropriate Technology and Building Science departments will be teaching the workshops in those areas.

"For many of us here in a college teaching environment, this will be an opportunity to offer real hands-on information to people about how to create a more sustainable - and affordable - lifestyle," says Lee Ball, an instructor and energy research analyst at the Appalachian State Department of Building Science and one of the workshop teachers. "There is much we have been learning and teaching on the campus that can be of great value to the individual homeowner."

"This is not just another outdoor festival," says Asheville-based recording artist Laura Reed. "This is a spiritual experience. All the music at the gathering will be 'musical medicine.' All the musicians Julia and Robert have invited carry a message of love and forgiveness. There will be no discordant notes. I'm spending the whole week there with my band. It will be our spiritual recharge. Several days I'll be offering song-writing workshops."

"For years, Julia and I have been going to music festivals with our booth and speaking at many," says Roskind, who ran summer housebuilding camps in Nevada City, California in the 1980s for his school, the Berkeley-based Owner Builder Center. "To us, and most of the people attending, these festivals are a much-needed break from our over-commercialized, near-frantic society. I think these festivals are very important. They have served to realign people back on their path of love and unity and remind us we can have a great time with just good friends, nature and upful music. Our summer program will take this a step farther by actually preparing people - physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually - for the coming decades of intense change. And we do this with a sense of clarity and celebration."

For more information on The Gathering Of the Healers,
visit www.onelovepress.com or email Roskind@boone.net.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Robert Roskind is the author of eleven books including In the Spirit of Marriage and In the Spirit of Business. He is he creator of a record-breaking PBS series and the organizer of One Love events here and abroad. He lives with his wife, Julia, and their daughter, Alicia, in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina.