🕊 BE PEACE wherever you are - A silent minute at noon every day - My personal experiences 🕊
written by Britta Schmitz
“I invite you to join many of us in the community here, in holding a minute of silence at 12 noon every day. The only task for one whole minute is to BE PEACE. Not to pray for it. Not to wish for it. Not to send it somewhere it may be needed. Simply BE PEACE.”
When I first heard from Judy McAllister that she was planning to bring the silent minute back into our daily lives, I got very excited and wanted to support her in launching this initiative asap.
Swiftly we got everything into place and published her BE PEACE blog article at Spring Equinox (20 March 2026), so that everyone could share this sacred space: A silent minute of simply being peace at noon every day wherever we are on the planet. It felt quite special to send this impulse out on the wings of the equinox energies, when day and night are of equal length, a point of peaceful balance all around the world.
Since then many people have joined our minute of peace at noon every day, creating a wave of peace traveling around the earth.
Now as I am standing at the threshold of sharing my experiences with you, I also notice how excited I’d be to hear about your experiences too. If you would like to share, please write to connect@findhorn.org and tell us your story.
The BE PEACE gong
After hearing from Judy about this initiative, I realised that some in our team had already set their alarm for 12 noon each day and were practising the silent minute. I thought how lovely it would be if all of us around the world would have the same sound as our reminder at noon. I remembered that we once recorded the sound of a beautiful singing bowl in the barrel houses for the start of our daily online meditations. Alex set it up on our website so that everyone can download the sound of the gong and set it as an alarm on their phones or laptops for 12 noon. It will sound once at noon and then again after one minute to indicate the end of the silent minute.
I really enjoy being able to easily slip in and out of the silent minute and then switch off the alarm. (It is especially handy when I am in bigger groups as I just pretend nothing is happening, enjoy my inner peace moment and then secretly turn off the alarm about 30 seconds after the second alarm. You won’t believe how often nobody even bats an eyelid, possibly thinking one of the phones in the room is receiving a message. Well, true, but nobody knows what kind of message... Yes, that’s me receiving a message from the universe to hold the vision of ‘world peace’ :)
How I experienced the silent minute over the last months
At the Ecovillage Findhorn Community
The first time my gong came on in a public space was when I attended a team meeting at Ecovillage Findhorn. As we started at 10am I realised what was likely to happen at noon… Luckily it was a group where I felt able to share about the silent minute and invited everyone to join in once the gong came on. It was such a lovely experience that all of us held this minute of peace together. The memory still moves me deeply. 💗
After this I had many different experiences with my silent minute gong at Findhorn. Often it came on while I was working on my laptop, sometimes in 1:1 meetings, as I went shopping, on dog walks etc. all in the Ecovillage Findhorn Community context, which felt easy and natural. Everybody joined me in the silent minute and many said afterwards how much they’ve enjoyed it.
Just the other week we had an ‘away day’ with our FF3 team and when the first alarm went off at one minute to twelve we all knew what to expect. One alarm went off after the other, gongs all over the place and together we held the peace minute with much laughter to start with.
BEING PEACE on my travels
When I started a two month journey that led me to Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and France, I was curious what my ‘Be Peace’ minutes would look and feel like outside of my usual routines and outside a field that is familiar with random acts of spiritual practice popping up here and there… I loved it! So exciting! I never knew where I'd be when it happened…
My peace minutes showed up on a toilet in Paris (twice!), at Chartres Cathedral (several times), in the middle of a talk (pretended nothing happened), visiting a Dutch Castle, during work, as I was peeling potatoes with my sister, in the car, at the doctors… 😊
On a Zoom call with Mathijs while I was in Germany.
But my very favourite peace minute was when I was in the car with three of my little nieces (9,10 and 11 years). The gong came on, I parked at the side of the road and asked them if they’d like to join my minute of peace. And they did! All four of us sitting in the car holding the vision of peace all over the world. How beautiful! There was an initial moment of giggling in the back seat to be fair, but only very briefly… I am still so touched by all of them joining me. 💖
After our minute of peace with my nieces on a car ride in Germany.
Whenever the situation allowed, I took a picture as I love to look back on this little ritual which is part of every day for me now and I am happy to share them with you.
It made me especially happy that after spending some time in my sister's house - not talking much about my daily silent minute - she asked me where to download the sound so she could also join this practice. Yay!!!
If you would like to download it too, you can do so below:
How we can strengthen the Network of Light together wherever we are
For me BE PEACE is one of the many initiatives we offer to hold the connection to each other and strengthen the Global Network of Light. I love how many spaces there are for us to come together, hold the vision of bringing more love, light and peace into the world on a regular basis, no matter where we are on the planet.
Would you like to join our global initiatives?
🕊️ Be Peace - 1 minute at noon every day
🕯️ Daily online Meditations - Mon - Fri 9am UK time
💖 Facebook - stories and pictures anytime
💌 Weekly Inspiration emails - each Friday directly into your inbox
✨Seeds of Light - community calls twice a month on Zoom
