Marie’s Prayer
Please visualize peace not only here but throughout the world. Please take some time to send love and all your blessings to the people who have lost loved ones. Please send prayers of light and strength to all those who are working around the clock to find survivors and to treat those who made it out alive but were injured. Send them healing energy. And here’s a tough one, please send blessings even and especially to those people and countries that have done this. One of the greatest gifts we can give to our world right now is to send love into the hearts of people who harbor hatred. They clearly need it and we have the power to give it. Please find it in your heart to do so.
 If healing is to come, it will come through the consciousness of oneness. I am one with the hearts of all the people affected by these events. I am one with the people who lost their mates, the children whose fathers and mothers didn’t come home. And I am one with the tortured hearts of those who took these actions. We are all in this together.
Marie
18 September, 2001
 

Elaine Statement
The first thing I thought after my friend woke me up to tell me that two planes had crashed into the World Trade Center was that it was certain we would go to war.  All my memories of that morning are tinted with an overwhelming feeling of shock as I dialed and redialed home only to hear a message that said that the circuits were overloaded.
 

A letter by Lisa
I'm obviously very sad by this whole thing and a little scared, not only about what sorts of attacks could follow, but also about what this country could do. I'm afraid that the actions our country takes are only going to perpetuate the problem of terror and violence and blind nationalism. I'm afraid that what happened on tuesday is only going to strengthen the US's resolve to remain the superpower of the world, the dominant power of the world whose actions, no matter how violent or similar to those of the terrorists we admonish, are always justified in the name of democracy and freedom. I'm afraid that more innocent people will die at our hands and that this will only fuel more hatred for us and the cycle will continue. These are the things that I fear. And I found myself praying the other night, the first time in years, because I didn't know what else to do. I wasn't even sure who or what I was praying to. And I guess there are more tangible things that can be done, like writing to our representativesand to the media, holding peaceful vigils, and organizing informational forums. But I wonder if those making the decisions really hear the calls of normal people who just want to live normal lives. While there's been so much ugliness on the news this week there's been an equal amount of beauty: people lighting candles, holding vigils, singing, donating their time and resources and energy and love. Do the few who control this world, either as government officials through policy making, or as outsiders, fringe radicals, through stratigically directed rage, do these few really care about such beauty, care about maintaining life? Sometimes I'm not so sure. And its not fair that the US lives in comfort and complacence while the rest of the world suffers. But its not fair that this all happened either, that innocent people here died. Maybe this is what we needed to wake us from our slumber of consumerism and entertainment, but are we getting the message? Are we really awake or do we just want life to go back to the careless way it was before? Do we just want revenge or do we want peace, not just here but everywhere? I guess thats basically how I feel about this whole mess. I haven't really been focusing on academicas or even on art in the past week, I've had a hard time focusing. All of it just seems so irrelevent right now.  
 

It’s the end of the world
My roomate Carolyn began screaming that morning, saying that a plane had just hit the World Trade Center. I was schocked and thinking “what a horrible accident, how could that happen?” As we watched a second plane hit the second tower; that’s when it occurred to me that this was much bigger than I had originally thought. As we continued wathcing the unfolding coverage the Pentagon was hit, we didn’t know it at the time, but it was another plane. As I sat there watching the Pentagon and the two World Trade Centers burn, all I could think was “Jesus it’s the end of the world.”
 

Feelings of sadness and violation
The moment I found out about the terrorist attack, I was caught in a state of disbelief.  The horror just didnt sink in, I couldn’t register it.  I walked to the library in my school and watched the television footage of the towers collapsing with at least a few hundred other students.  Then reality hit me when I looked around and watched countless numbers of students breaking into tears.  I began to think about the many students in my school who have parents that work in the trade center.  I began to roam the halls of my school with two of my friends and tried to comprehend what had just taken place. The attacks triggered feelings of sadness and violation.  I felt extraordinarily vulnerable, knowing that I was only 21 miles away from the attack, and could see the devastation from a hill at the top of town.  I wasn’t searching for answers, I knew why we were attacked.  What I was really perplexed about was, how are we going to deal with this?  Are more innocent people going to lose their lives?  Am I in any real danger?  Well, I guess one could say that my generation has had it easy up until now.  And it was only time until we were faced with a dose of reality.

Everything has changed ...
Surreal is the only word I can use to describe how I felt as I watched the tragedy unfold. One just hoped that this was another "disaster" movie, and it would end, or we would wake up and the towers would still be standing. As the weeks have progressed I now have moved from surreal to feeling terribly vulnerable.
As a young child, a teenager, and as an adult, I have spent a lot of time in New York City, for shopping, socializing and even working one summer. New York City is just the best city in the world,and although I may have been on alert in the subway, cautious at night, etc. , I never felt vulnerable. Now everything is different
Thursday night [after the attacks] I drove home from my class and as I headed north on the Westside Highway I could see the George Washington Bridge. It was so beautiful, all lit up and the America flag was flying , blowing in the night wind. I looked at that majestic beauty and thought, "Oh my God, how vulnerable and delicate the bridge is...one well placed airplane and it's gone !!". I have yet to drive through the Lincoln Tunnel, a strategic suicide car bomb and forget it… it's a huge suffocating flood.
I did go to Manhattan yesterday by ferry and it felt peaceful and safe, but the signs of change were all around. Parking was now expanded everywhere possible, that crummy waterfront property no one had wanted 15 years ago was now a gold mine. More ferries had been added, as well as more shuttle buses. I found myself wondering how profitable had the tragedy been for the ferry owner, and how would he manage if the time came when he had to cut back. Instead of just enjoying the ride, I was pondering the economics.
Everything has changed, nothing will ever again be as it was