Parties for Peace

We had a wonderful party last night for Steve’s birthday. 75-80 people showed up and everyone had a good time.

Including the Birthday Boy.

I’m so lucky to have found Love in my 50s and to have him be more and more healthy. Every day is a day for giving thanks.

It was a blast.

But the best, best, best? By the end of the evening we’d collected over $1000 for Lover Flows the LOVE project (Let Our Valley Eat). More kids will eat… and that’s a blessing.

I will never again have a party without a donate box for charity. Now it’s true that I have no kids, so this is easy to say, but no one I know needs gifts. And lots of people need what we can give. So, hurrah.

Peace, my sweetheart. Peace, my friends. Peace, my Valley. May we become The Valley with No Hungry Children.d

Electronic Detente

I know I strive for Peace. But sometimes with electronics, you celebrate detente.

I have a wonderful new computer. I am so lucky. But as often happens with electronic equipment, that which should be so easy is complicated. Even when you purchase for not complicated.

And better than anything, I have a wonderful friend who does great untangling. for a living. and knows the way my mind works and the ways it doesn’t.

so, I can hand it over and he doesn’t even think less of me.

It’s a wonderful thing. And within a week, it’ll all be computer Peace at my house. And that will be swell…

If only I can figure out how to do the next three things I need to do!

But, they’ll get done… and whoever thought Peace was going to be a quick fix? Not with people… and not with my learning curve.

But hurrah for detanglers and their mad computer licks. And hurrah for my job which offered me the opportunity to have this beautiful machine. I am a grateful woman.

Tiny House, Big Problem

Dear Bartender and Priestess,

I think I am in over my head and I am not sure what to do. I have been married for 8 years and have two children, ages 6 and 2. My husband and I have always been environmentally and socially conscious, and recently decided to try “simple living”. Against the cautions of some of our family members, we decided to downsize from a 2500 sq ft suburban home to a 650 sq ft “tiny house” that we had custom built for our family. Continue reading →

Community Dancing Peace

It’s really sort of a Thursday miracle. About 40 of us gather to listen to jazz in a friendly little downtown restaurant.

People like each other, and are really happy for a night out. Food’s good. BYOB, so folk are drinking what they want.

I know I brag, but my husband is really an extraordinary drummer. And his group is quite wonderful. There’s always a beat you can catch, because making people dance is Steve’s happiest thing.

It’s part of the group’s happiest thing as well!. Dancers throng the floor and just delight in the pleasure. Many of them are 70+. One of them is 90+. Some are not well, and still they dance away. And have so much fun.

Sweet Thursday Dancing Peace spills easily into Friday as we all enjoy the memory. Get out there and dance, my friends.

A Voice, A Foreign Life, Peace

My world could not be more different from the world of the Inuit on the Hudson Bay of almost a century ago.

So going to 100 year old what passed for a documentary then and expecting to do much more than observe from a distance is usually unrealistic.

But Tanya Tagaq and her musicians totally changed that. Tagaq is Inuit. She has studied the music and has lived in the climate. She has both in her ears and her body and her soul. And last night, she opened them to us.

It was inspiring and transformative. It moved past the film maker’s insistence that the Inuit are charming and hapless. It made everything that happened in the film beautiful and infused it with wonder.

She sees her voice as a whole body instrument. She sees all of life as one. She was the wind. She was the dying seal. She was Nanook and his family.

And we were invited to see the Peace of that very hard and beautiful life.

What a blessing.

Forgiveness on behalf of Peace

I am a lousy student of history. There is so much I haven’t studied. It’s embarrassing to admit but i have only the most superficial understanding of Gandhi and his non-violence and peacemaking. So much for Peacemaking!

So last night was revelatory for me.

The speaker was great. He’s retired, but still involved and an exciting speaker. He had tons of information, much of which I’d never heard, made me know I should know more, but spoke so movingly and convincingly about the ways forgiveness contributes to Peace…

The way it softens hearts…

And how it’s only softened hearts that allows us to move forward. Gandhi thought of himself as a failure because in the end, Peace was not perfected. But Peace is ongoing work. It is the best of us that moves toward forgiveness. It is the best of us that demands Peace. So it will always be a struggle… and yet…

Forgiveness. Peace. Oh, there is work to be done. And there are possibilities to be discerned.

Sky, Love, Peace

I am, and always have been, a concrete priestess. I’m not terribly comfortable with many things present in the out-of-doors… like bugs and slithering things.

But when you finally get me out there I have a great time. Because hey! Mother Earth. Nature.

And when Nature is at her most glorious, you have to just go with it, right?

I’m so glad i worked as hard as i did to get there on Sunday. And that I pried my beloved out his… oh, I’ll just stay home. Because this was the finest symphony of skies.

We live on this earth. we should be paying closer attention. I should be paying closer attention. It’s the explosive beauty of these moments that helps us grasp the importance of caring for creation.

This is the world we have and it’s wondrous. Why wouldn’t we take care of it? Why wouldn’t we spend a lot of our lives, pointing and gasping and saying, well, will you look at that? We should spend less time saying, well, would you look at that, gimme it its’ mine or oh, ho hum. another beautiful day, mountain, lake…

Peace. We need to be about the business of peace. Because a world this beautiful deserves nothing less.

The Peace of an Eclipse with Friends

I beg forbearance. I may be burbling about this for a long time. The eclipse was gorgeous.

Hanging out by the fire with friends, lovely. Hanging out by the fire with my beloved? oh we don’t do that often enough!

And the sky was unbelievable.

Everywhere else people were complaining about the sky’s being overcast, but in this little circle of field surrounded by trees, the clouds — whispy ones at that — would dance in and dance back out. Leaving nothing but a heavy, heavy Milky Way and that beautiful orb that looked nothing like the Moon (nothing!) hanging in the sky like some foreign celestial body.

I could burble for a long time about this. I probably will. Forewarned is forearmed… have topics ready to talk about if you run into me and don’t want to hear about the Moon, the Moon, the Moon!

Why I wonder, when I do something like last night, plopped in a field around a fire, don’t i do that more often. Steve and I both love it so much — although I’m sure he missed a drum in his hands. It was lovely and filled with Peace. it was a perfect moment in my life.

Perfect and filled with Peace. I wish us all many such moments. They give us fuel to walk the Peace Path.

The Peace of a Sabbath Lunar Eclipse

The weather gods may relent. There may be glimpses of this lunar event.

It’s a perfect Sabbath endeavor, now that I think about it. Nothing to do but be present. And watch the fire crackle while you wait. It’s late, because, hey it’s the moon, but it’s a great way to spend time with the family…

And in that time I’ll think great thoughts of Peace. I hope you will too. We’ll watch the Earth cover the moon, and go home to dream sweet dreams of Peace. And in the morning, let us get up and see what we can do about all that needs to be done.

I hope you get to bask in the wonder of tonight’s eclipse. It’s not that often that it happens… What a galaxy we live in!

Peace be with us all.

The Peace of the Red Moon

If this isn’t true, don’t tell me. Because it’s too wonderful! It makes me so happy.

To imagine the Moon catching all the sunsets and sunrises of the Earth and reflecting it back.

To imagine it capturing all that Beauty and casting it back to inspire us.

We, like the Moon, can reflect. We have a little more choice than the Moon. But hey. Let’s reflect Peace. Today. Tomorrow. Every day.

Because Peace is what the world needs. And we’re here able to do the work.

And you have a choice. There are (actually!!!) people walking around saying the Red Moon is a sign of the end times. Really, is that what you think? Well you go right ahead. I’m now seeing sunrises and sunsets. Thank you, scientist!

Peace. What if there were a Peace Eclipse. What if we allowed the world to see what it might look like if we were People at Peace? (and I guess I have tomorrow’s musing, don’t I?

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

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