Stillness and Peace

We live in a frenzied world. Some of that chaos is imposed by our fast-track society. Some of it we buy into or even foster in ourselves. We’re over-tired and under-nourished — at least spiritually.

You’ll have noticed from the title in my poems that I believe Peace is not just important, but imperative. I believe it’s what we were born to do and create. You don’t get to Peace, however, without some reflection about who you are and what you want. You need time to notice what’s wrong, so you can pull a string and start winding that particular tangle into order.

I’m working, and eager to help you work, on my own Peace of Mind, Heart and Soul. But I don’t believe you need that Peace in place before you start working on Peace of World. Perhaps we’re to put ourselves onto the Infinity Path and walk the loop between the two, as they lead out of and into one another.

But mostly? It’s time to stop and proceed slowly. Time will hurry up as the year moves on, but at the moment, reflect, consider, weigh… Get to know yourself and your desires. Consider carefully the dream you wish to build and realize this year. Take this time, my friends… The world isn’t going to leave you alone forever. And the stillness? it’s your time to fill up.

Peace of a January Kitchen Table

Growing up, meals were as much food for the soul as they were for the body. Incidents and encounters were related and exclaimed over. When I was an exchange student, I discovered that my Swedish Mama ran her tables the same way. We sat and we talked. I loved it.

I have learned more about people and their families seated around a kitchen (and ok, even a dining room table) than any place I can think of. Even now, when called to a hospital bed, the sweetest and most potent stories still seem to come over food.

I ate three meals a day with my family until I started 10th grade. Today, many families tell me they don’t manage a meal a week, let alone a day together. I mourn what they miss. I watch couples and families at dinner, all involved in their technology, and pity them the loss of story. They don’t know the rhythm of the give and take, the hesitancy before the heart opens to reveal a closely held dream. Who else but friends and family will, when the dream of becoming a hockey player is recounted, will respond first with an eye roll and a “well, you’d better learn to skate, then,” followed quickly by constructive questions and suggestions about how you might overcome your lack of balance and coordination.

Friends and families make us better people. We do the same for them. For me, much of that growth happens around a table, when someone who loves us well, sits back to listen or leans forward to question. Add good food, and you’ve got a moment well-worth cherishing for the rest of your life. I have laughed the hardest… and probably sobbed the most openly. I’ve bragged and confessed. I’ve listened and welcomed. I’ve been less than lovely and my very best self. I’ve concocted or ingested the worst food and they’ve been the sweetest feasts. Friends. who else would you trust with your dreams?

Peace of the Frozen Countryside

Flying across the country, the ground is a patchwork of beautiful white fields. In summer, you can tell how this country nurtures itself. Right now, all you can see is the bones of the fields the evidence that at one time, this land was worked.

But for now, it rests. it rests even as we rest. Filling up, rejuvenating, getting ready for the next season by remaining completely within this one. If there’s anything this landscape would tell us, it’s this: Don’t rush it. Be present to the moment. More will come. For now, this is enough.

Peace of a January River

While driving down the river yesterday morning, the river was enshrouded in fog. When you have days like we’ve had recently, where the afternoon mercury climbs and nights are frigid, the river puts off a lot of fog. It was a beautiful ride.

It was only as I writing later, that I realized what a great metaphor for January dreaming this particular river view was. Isolated small islands would appear out of the fog and then fade from view. There was never a complete vista, simply small glimpses. As we’re building our dreams, it’s important to begin to identify the important building blocks. Too many of us start to build before we have all the pieces laid out. This foggy river was a reminder that there may be something important hiding in the mist… We might as well let things emerge as they will for a while, so that we can create a good plan rather than having to try to incorporate crucial elements at a later date…

Peace of a Winter Morning

The Ann-Keeler-Evans start to the day, although often quiet, is usually brisk. I like getting things done. makes me happy. check, check, check! But yesterday, that didn’t work. I was up. I was even out. I got one check done. And then another. And then, there was a space in which no connections were being made.

Maybe it’s just because i was procrastinating, getting ready for my trip tomorrow, but I just wasn’t all that interested in zooming around. And for once, Ms I-tell-everyone-to-pay-attention-to-what-their-bodies-are-telling-them actually decided to pay attention. And so I sat and pondered. I consciously made no decisions. I just looked at things, turning them over in my head and my heart, admired their beauty, noted some rough spots, and put them down.

Choosing one dream for the year and dedicating yourself to bringing it into the world is worth taking some over. It’s worth deliberating about. I always find it interesting when I begin to discern a process and it demands I pay attention. And so, I’ll wonder just a little bit longer at the wonderful possibilities I’m exploring. And see how they might all fit together. For me, that’s a tall order. Sitting down helps. I wish that you might give yourself a half hour’s peace one morning before the sun demands a bit more action of you and me.

The Slow Start of Peace

When the sun peeks in my window, I wake up, and move fairly quickly from 0-60 mph. Those who receive my daily musings can attest to receiving them in the early morning for most of the year. But not right now. An early night doesn’t necessarily correspond to an early morning. The quick move from asleep to awake means that my dreams are left behind as I engage with the day. During this time, Nature has laid hold of my schedule and claimed it. As I sleep later and awaken more slowly, dream fragments stay with me and the day starts more softly. The warming cup of tea adds reflection to its normal heating and jolting work.

My friend Lenore read something and passed it along about an Arctic animal — maybe a squirrel? — that hibernates. (He apparently hibernates for 7-8 months a year. What a life!) Every two to three weeks, he uses a huge percentage of the energy stored up for the winter to rouse into a dream state. Then, dreaming completed, he drops back down into his stasis and waits for the cycle to continue until the thaw happens.

Since squirrels are probably not dreaming about Peace, what is so important about dreaming? What do they, what do we gain from lingering and snuggling? I don’t have a psycho-spiritual- physiological answer for that! I can only suggest that we try lingering and see if it makes a difference in our lives. And then, during the rest of the year, if we can find a way to allow that difference to grow and guide our lives. Fulfilling our dreams moves the world forward… but we can’t fulfill them if we don’t stop and dream them first. “Slow down, you move too fast.” Have a groovy day!

The Peace of Winter Trees

I was delighted when I studied Chinese Five Element Theory and discovered that it includes a Fifth Element, Wood, one of whose functions is flexibility. In our busy urban lives it is an element to which we pay too little attention. Tree hugging — actual rather than philosophicall! — is really quite balancing for our health. It improves our spiritual and mental flexibility. Most of us can use that! (as for whether tree-hugging, philosophical, is virtuous, I invite you to discuss amongst yourselves… but I would, no great surprise to any of you, come down on the side of the trees.)

One of the joys of learning the five element theory was the need to suspend disbelief and learn something completely new. I compare it to learning the alphabet. If you spend your life trying to figure out why the would designate this symbol A as the letter A, you’ll miss the astonishing things that can happen when you break the code of reading. Here’s to learning new things and believing six impossible things before breakfast!

And of course here’s to trees and all the wonderful things they teach us, of which flexibility is only one!

Sunset Peace

My mother Betty was a landscape artist. Thanks to her, we spent a lot of time captivated by what was going on outside. I now know that she taught me first to look and then to see. One of the things we saw was sunsets. In her quest to teach us about beauty, she had two helpers with sunsets.

First, on the days that Mom had the car (remember those days when families had one car!) we went down to pick Daddy up from the carpet mill where he was a dye chemist at 4:30. We drove directly West. For some parts of the year the sun and clouds would be inescapable.

Second, our dining room faced west. Mom taught me a lot about stopping whatever you were doing to look at the sunset. This served me well when I lived in the Oakland hills and would watch the sun travel its path between South San Francisco to Mt. Tam and back, offering a different sunset delight every day. The Gods of the Bay Area must love sunset, because it was often the clearest part of the day.

Deb wound up with both Mom’s sunset paintings. We all visit them when we visit her. The painting above is Mom’s view out our diningroom window. So it won’t surprise you that I find a joyful Peace in sunset… or that I stop and gulp to gawk at the beauty.

Peace in the Streams

I hadn’t realized until today’s poem that I had created the first three poems of a four-element series. (I guess that means fire tomorrow! Or maybe I’ll think about the Chinese elements and make it a group of five!) But the notion of the stream’s pushing to move forward, even when we can’t see it, was a powerful image for me.

Most dreams don’t start full blown, they coalesce. And much of that work is done when we’re not paying attention. A little here, a little there. It mounts up until eventually, there’s enough mass to spill over.

What that means to us, however, I think, is that we need the quiet time for dreams to build. I find I need slow time when I’m paying no attention at all to anything important in my life to unfocus a bit and a give a dream a chance to build. And then, slowly regain that focus through the year. I’ll be trying to let my life and my commitment to Peace build with year. And of course as I consider the elements, my commitment to the Earth will have to build, won’t it. It would be a bit precious to burble about the changing months and not consider the need to stand for the sacredness of Nature.

Peace on a Sled

I am not a particularly athletic person. Neither am I particularly competitive — at least in an athletic sense. So there are a lot of sports I don’t do. Perhaps it’s just because I’m lazy… I love to sit and write and have to push myself to the pool… where I am competent.But it struck me as I was getting ready to send out this list that many of the simple pleasures of life get pushed aside for the competitive ones. Mindlessly sliding down a hill close to the ground, “through the frosty air,” is fun. Snowmen and women… fun too. There are not a lot of edges to test yourself against… just a lot of laughing shrieks.

When we’d have the first particularly good snow at my college (Wilson College that is!!!!), the President would walk into the dining room at lunch, commandeer the lunch trays and start handing them out. “I’ll meet you on the hill,” he’d say, and he would. it was a pitiful hill, but it was a wonderful afternoon. You slid next to young woman you hadn’t known at the top of the hill and laughed, holding one another upright as you walked back up. Sweet simple Peace. I know that lots of people don’t have the climate for this, so I’ll say this instead: May you find such an uncomplicated Joy this month — and indulge!

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

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