Sliding down my stairwell steps, casting rainbows on the wall. Twice a year, the sun celebrates its vacation at the equator and throws its light around at my house. Whether he hollers, “See you later!” or “I’m on my way!” the beauty makes me grin.
We have to celebrate these brief shining moments, wake up to them and be present to their glory.
There are a lot of things that are hard, but sometimes Peace is as molten as sunshine and as sweet as a dancing rainbow. Drink at the well of Peace!
I sometimes wonder if the Universe doesn’t find little ways to amuse itself. Now maybe whoever built this house in 1860 carefully calculated how to capture the sun on the equinoxes and at no other time of the year.
Or maybe the Sun, on one of it’s endless rotations noticed this dark hallway and thought, huh, I can do this. Wonder if anyone will notice.
Did all the other inhabitants of the notice? I can ask one of them. There’s a guy in town whom I’ve been following from rental to rental… I’ve told him the next move is into his house. Small towns. everything has provenance and you can figure it out.
Or did it take this Earth-centered witch to hang the crystal and notice both the molten gold and the rainbow. When you work at home, you practice being present to all sorts of things! Whatever. It causes me to rejoice. I start checking about a week before, hope for sun on the days I’m looking on those late afternoons and wait for the magic to happen on this very dark stairwell. Ah! there it is!
Tiny little Blessings show up lots of places and give you Peace. Let’s pay attention! Let’s hear it for Peace.
Who knows what metaphors are going to catch you… But the notion of being an upright person, upright citizen of my vida local, caught my heart.
I could see myself standing comfortably, balancing in an easy Tai Chi Position (casting no shadow), and being prepared for movement in whatever direction I was called to move. Pivot. Move forward. Step backward. I want my goals and plans and dreams for Peace to be written on my face, so that those who see me there, know that I will always try to step toward Peace.
I want to be stalwart and reliable for those who need a place to lean. If I am counted as present, then I can be helpful to those who need support. I want to be a building block for Peace.
An upright for Peace. Reminding myself of this two days a year may help me remember at other times what my work is…
We don’t live at the equator, so the sun casts a shadow every day. I’m so caught by the notion of standing still occupying only my place in the world.
Maybe on this day, we could consider choosing the kind of shadow we choose to cast.
I’m happy to offer shade. I admit I can giggle helplessly when my shadow does silly things like crawl across a floor only to crawl up a wall. I’m not one of those people, but I’m entranced by people who can make their fingers fly in the lamplight, telling a story of faces or animals.
But in the face of the climate change march, it was easy to think about shadow as a stain… as something we leave behind with our passing, something we do without noticing. It was interesting to consider that…
I want to cast a shadow of Peace. As much as I can, I want to be conscious of, to be present to, the trail I leave. Peace. Doing it. Being it. Casting it across the world.
My Sister- and Brother-in-law are getting on a train and setting out to see the Country. Oh, my goodness, it will be so fun!
I’ve driven back and forth a couple times. It’s so vast. The landscapes are so different. Oh, the taste of hunger on my tongue to see this Beauty. But plenty fun enough to live vicariously.
They’ve plotted and planned for this trip for years. I went to see them yesterday, they were so excited.
Plotting and planning for what you want. Now that’s a good thing. See the Beauty the world has to offer. Also good. Meeting people long the way. Pretty fun, too.
They’re people collectors these two, so they’ll have a whole bunch of stories to tell along the way and when they get home. They have a knack for being present.
Where do you Hunger to go? What do you Hunger for? And how are your plans coming along. Plotting and planning for Adventure. Plotting and Planning for Peace. Let’s do what we need to enjoy this life!
I watched a joyful reunion yesterday, and the message was: you only have the time you have and you’d better make it good time.
Obviously, it’s a message that resonates for me. We did great family weekend stuff growing up. But I watch myself not spending enough time with the people I love. (This working weekend thing does interfere. But at least Steve and I both work weekends.)
It’s so easy to be busy, to shoot off in our own directions, but time spent getting to know each other and enjoy one another’s company is crucial, i believe, to our development and sense of self-worth. So grab those folks and hang out. Creating family: sweet, sweet, sweet (and occasionally crazy!).
Peace is a great thing to have at home.
It has been a long journey for the eagles to come back to life in my little Valley. Careful breeding programs and reinstitution into this area. The rivers had to be cleaned up so that the fish they ate were life giving. And now fracking is threatening those rivers again.
But yesterday, Lady Eagle wasn’t concerned about that. She sat regally in the sunshine, casually accepting the startled cries of passersby that acknowledged her beauty.
Sometimes Nature just grabs your attention. Yesterday was one of those days. This beautiful shallow river ran clear over stones, the beginnings of fall’s colors occasionally drifting by. The air was clear and there wasn’t a cloud. Thank you!
And Sunday is the largest Climate March ever. Because all the hard-fought gains are at risk… and so much more. Time for us to step up and speak out for our beloved Mother Earth. Peace must be one with the ground we live on. And we’re needed to respond.
There are so many distractions, and they’re noisy and brightly colored and many of them awful. And so we run from pillar to post, poking at this, poking at that… and it pulls us away — maybe it’s only me, but i doubt it — it pulls us away from what we can do.
We have to witness, yes. People need to know we hear and see them and their plight. And we have to keep making a difference where we can. We have to speak up, gently, firmly, insistently. And we have to keep making a difference where we can.
If Peace really is piecework, then I have to keep working my little bit of it, building up piles to be put into the pattern so that you can do your little piece of it and so that together it starts to be a blanket that covers us in Possibility, Hope and Comfort. And every once in a while we should feast and dance and rejoice because that does a heart and body good. (and a mind and a soul!)
Seeing the madness. Hearing the hatred. Insisting on Peace.
It could take a lot of ice cream with friends to fix what’s going on in our little world. I did have a magical moment out by the pumpkin patch with dear friends yesterday. No problems got solved but we breathed in beautiful air together and ate fresh peaches on top of our ice cream. Not a bad afternoon at all.
And when you look at the relentless ugliness going on in the world. My brother-in-law holds that it’s just that we’re looking at these things, and we have to hold that as a good thing. I’m not convinced.
Mostly I’m overwhelmed. My perky (shouldn’t that be spelled with an i with a heart over it) Pollyanna can do personality is having a whoa, sh•t moment. When you wake up, it’s hard to figure where the best place is to step up. Do gooders like me are feeling like we’re taking a class in some gym on life up down up down up down. switch feet. And while you’re doing that, speak out. Oh, no, step aerobics as prayer. (what is seen cannot be unseen.)
But, nonetheless, there is work to be done. Some fool on FB took Toni Morrison (Toni Morrison????) to task for worrying about racism and interrupting this woman’s feel good moment. She was confident that there was no racism and most people wanted to gently suggest… no, no gentle suggestions. respond. Now. The list is long, so we all have a lot of opportunities to say no to hatred and stupidity.
Eat some ice cream. You’ll need it. Because the journey is long and arduous. But we are exactly the right people to work for Peace, one little piece at a time. Together…
Anyone who lives in a River Valley knows you have to take storms seriously. You have to be prepared. Although not all storms have flood potential, you want to be watching. I have a sister- and brother-in-law who have the furniture movers on speed-dial, in case they need them to come and load their downstairs into a truck. They’ve done what they could to make their house fare better in the storms and be easier to clean up. (it’s totally ingenious and lovely.)
When storms happen, people start calling around letting others who have traditionally had water problems (why say flood when a euphemism will do?) and remind them that their second (third, fourth) bedroom is open. Others dash to the store in case they’re going to be cut off for a while.
But we live in open space. There are wide swaths of fields in these valleys and the storms often roll down alleys of least resistance. So we get to watch the beauty and power build before they let loose. And let loose they do. This is a part of the country where thunderclouds build and then explode into light and sound. Nature throws a beautiful tantrum.
And then the storm passes and all is still and clean and Beauty. The creeks are full and then the river. The land is plump and satisfied. The trees drip on unwary passersby as the birds start to sing once again. Peace visits the Valley. If it’s been a really big storm, the neighbors come out and start helping others dig out. But mostly, there’s Peace and Quiet, and it’s a lovely, lovely thing. (in Deb’s lovely photo, the storm is building.)
