Dear Bartender & Priestess,
I’m a 20-something woman with a lot of interests. I hike, I’ve got some art projects going on, and I’m happy in my chosen career. When I look at myself on paper, I know I look good. So why do I believe that no man will love me Continue reading
The picture said too much. Fear. Dissatisfaction.
The words said more. No one who’s different. Not in my backyard.
We’re better than this. I don’t really know that I’ve got much more to say than that. We’re better than this and there are ways to fix some of the problems that people other than us encounter, if we weren’t so damned afraid… of what, we’re not sure.
But I’m pretty sure the “people no one wants” are the symptom; not the problem. Our closed hearts are also part of the problem…
We don’t want to be the people in that picture. We want to be Peace. Let’s do the work. It’s a beautiful day out there under the Berry Moon, really, let’s do the work.
Overcast or not it was a lovely June day in the Berry Moon. Perfect for fêting two wonderful people who had done so much for the community.
Doug and Margie Sturm were extraordinary, but they were also very ordinary folk. They were both teachers, she taught countless high school kids to love literature; he taught religion and poli sci… and hurrah for that combo! Depression kids, they knew the value of hard work and had the knack of finding ways to get things done.
They believed strongly in the value of community, starting an organization entitled Community Alliance for Respect and Equality. They were warm and witty and engaging and people participated, sometimes just to hang out with them… and why not?
It was so fitting that the day in their honor was a day for soliciting volunteers fueled by fun music. The community gathered and a good time was had by all…
Peace is Possible… but you have to step up to do the work. Doug and Margie stood up and stepped up to the task. They loved broadly and boldly. And oh, they had great kids and left a trail of disciples behind them. Let us give thanks… and go and do likewise. Peace. Your community needs you!
Some of us, and I think it’s more of a what is thing than a good or bad thing, have what I think of as patchwork souls. We have walked many paths, sat in many kitchens drinking tea or beer or whatever the local brew is, talked in many languages, whether they were of a nation or a clan…
And there is for us, particularly as we begin to understand it, a great joy.
However, it also means that there are paths and kitchens and languages that are lost or abandoned. And then there are pockets of remembered joy, sealed perhaps with some scar tissue of grief. Because there are some places, for so many reasons, to which you can never return.
I do think it helps us, as we come to the Peace-making process, to understand how many different hearts with their own languages of Love need to be engaged and how much space needs to be made for different approaches… May we be Peace and Possibility.
Is a Peace volcano a metaphor completely in conflict with itself? But if all those languages, all those Peace words have gone underground, don’t they need to find a way to surface?
What would that mean?
All of which is a lot of thought for a sweet early summer Sabbath morning in the Berry Moon. Mother Earth is at her beautiful, abundant best this morning.
This is a day packed full of community and beauty. It’s already started with my morning walk. Both Sarajane and I were moving slowly, so we wound up sitting on some neighbor’s chairs down by the river. There were ducks and eagles and herons and fish… and a beautiful deer at the water’s edge across the river. And silence. there was a lot of silence. Ah….
And today there is a Good Neighbor gathering in a local park in celebration of two wonderful community leaders. This is the first ever celebration as Doug and Margie Sturm died last year. There will be food and music and lots of laughter.
What could be sweeter?
and as for the volcano… i don’t think the world will go on as it has… and maybe reclaiming language and difference can oddly be a thing which draws us together. We’ll keep thinking about Peace, shall we? and the notion however silly or mystical that there’s a huge bunch of molten Peace at the center of the Earth? Peace be with you on this sweet Sabbath morning. Enjoy your day…
The grief and hunger for a lost language are so much bigger than I thought when I first began to explore this. (and, man, reading stuff like this makes me wish that I’d had a much better adviser in college.) I feel as if I’ve stumbled into something much bigger and truer than I suspected… something has profound implications for Peace and something that helps me understand how much more complex Peace is even when it’s also simple.
The article I read by Joshua Fishman “What Do You Lose When You Lose Your Language?” takes an anthropological view. Now I wonder about the psycho-spiritual views.
I was a language major in college. I majored in language because I learned languages easy, not because I was interested in literature. (Not that I’m sorry I read (past tense) well! There’s so much more reading I should do!) But anthro or religion and linguistics might have been a much better fit. If only they taught those things where I was — or I’d have known they existed!
We’ve all read about “civilizing” invaders who eradicate language and custom in the native born. Most of us live in a country where we’ve seen it. It’s happening today all over the world. And the results are hugely disabling. I’m not talking about language that evolves, although things are lost for what’s gained in them as well, I’m talking about the erasure of Native languages by conquerors.
So we come back to hard questions… What is it in humans that creates such fear that we feel a need to stamp out another’s world view completely, to eradicate culture? We’re certainly seeing that in some of the political campaigning. And then how do we create Peace out of all those forsaken Peace words? How do we help people find them again and help ourselves come closer to Peace… I wish I knew. But I suspect there are many seeds to Peace in that which has been lost — especially violently… What are the possibilities? What is the work? Where is that Peace?
I’d write about the Berry Moon, but she’s on vacation. left us with the gloom and headed off somewhere beautiful. so it is with celestial bodies…
And I’m somewhat captivated by the notion of these lost languages… or lost threads…
Where do the words go? Where does the laughter from shared jokes find an outlet? Are we forever a bit expatriated without that language of Love?
I’m sure some PhD has written on this topic. But it’s a layer of missing people i hadn’t thought about before…
And then i started to think… what about tribes whose languages are lost. How are they ever who they were born to be… does that change from generation to generation or is there always a piece of their soul missing?
Civilization and power over… stealing people’s souls for years. Oh, Peace we need you, we must make you… Laughter and personhood is hidden in you. Peace, you are there to be reclaimed…
The Question: Recently, I decided to host an afternoon open house for my whole family; siblings, spouses, nieces, nephews. Open the door at noon, say final goodbyes by 4, eat something from the buffet table. No one was leaving my house hungry, I can promise you that. This is something I almost never do, maybe once every four or five years. We don’t see each other often, not as a large group, anyway. There are issues among us, and one of them is alcohol.
It plagues my family, deep. Continue reading
Every family has their own language of Love. At the Evans household, one of the threads in Love’s language was fabric. weird, eh?
But Mom started art school in fashion design. Dad was a color chemist in a carpet factory. We loved fabric. The house was filled with beautiful color. Mom sewed. (Deb and I were less capable! and disciplined… although i have ideas, I have usually fairly haphazard executions!)
But oh, we’re admirers of a well-cut anything. Or a beautiful pattern. Or a fabric that falls just so.
So when I saw those beautiful dresses, so well suited to those beautiful young women, all I could think was where are they? So often if I had a wedding in Bloomsburg, I went home to Deb’s house. This must be the first wedding I’ve had since there was no Deb’s house.
And we would have sat and I could have told all my fabric stories and then shown her pics later. But that was yesterday. And here I am, fluent in a language that is now more or less extinct. It’s sort of a weird thing… It’s a scramble to figure out Peace when no one speaks your language of Love. Adaptation… ah, it’s a slow segue… and Peace is sometimes a dance with memories.
Oh, it’s an amazing time of year. Or rather it’s the start to an amazing time of year.
So much fresh food at the peak of freshness and nutrition.
It’s a wonderful balance of good for you and just plain good.
And it’s the kind of bounty you can over indulge with few side effects!
I remember sitting at dinner at my Swedish Mama’s house with my parents. Mama came out with a big, big bowl of strawberries and an equally gigantic one of whipped cream.
Indulgence in Summer! Indulgence in Bounty! and sharing it out among the friends. There is no greater delight. Sweet Peace in the Berry Moon to you, my dears!
