Blue Peace, llvl

We have to take the signs where we get them when the temp is hovering in the teens. The weather will turn. It’s March.

Everyone is stir-crazy. We’ve been inside too long. Spoke to my friend who owns a cafe the other day. Business is ‘way off. For a while she worried, is it me? One of her suppliers came by and said everyone’s business is off. It’s too cold to go out. We’re all spending a lot more than we’d planned on heat. And we’re huddled against the cold.

The river freezes and thaws. And so do we.

But yesterday the sky was so blue. It wasn’t a winter blue; it was the blue of spring. Deep, beautiful blue. A promise in the midst of very cold weather. We’ll take that, and we’ll remember… Spring is coming. And with spring, a different sort of Peace-making, a sweet growing Peace… Ah, beauty!

C’mon sun! (and hey, it’s Pi Day, Pie Day… how bad can it be?)

Home, Peace, LLVL

In the last year, I’ve had to pinch myself several times… I can’t quite believe my good fortune. I am living in a place that every part of me considers home. I love the landscape, I love the seasons. I love the communities. I love the opportunities. I love the Music and Art that get made here. I love that I get to be part of all of it.

In addition I am doing the work of my heart. All the pieces of it. I have good colleagues and fellow travelers on this Peace Road. Wonderful People keep walking into my life and We keep making connections.

I have to credit my husband with some of this drive toward joy and fulfillment. Until I met Steve a little more than years ago, I don’t know that I’d ever gotten to know anyone well who was as involved as he is in his Work and his Art. I’ve always been driven, but I don’t know that I’ve always reveled in the achievement of dreams… But here, it’s possible… Or, here I’ve figured out how to make it possible.

It feels like magic sometimes that I can love my life so much. But then I remember that magic (and life and love) are very hard work. and so is Peace. But… let’s do them anyway!

Spring Peace Cusp, LLVL

I wrote today’s musing knowing that I was starting on the Spring side of the Cusp and would soon be reverting to the Winter Side. Now that we’re back, it’s hard to remember yesterday.

But that’s what life’s like on the cusp… and it’s what it’s like when you’re being present to you local reality. La vida is what it is. Tomorrow doesn’t really matter, although it can be prepared for. Yesterday is a blessing to be counted and a lesson to be learned from. Today is where life is happening. Live into the possibilities! Make Peace with Now.

Yesterday life was open and expansive. Today it’s inward and focused. And we have to be where we are. That’s life. That’s Peace. Right here right now, in la vida local. And aren’t we lucky. (even if a touch cold! Where did I put those wrist warmers?)

Peace Right Here! LLVL

Why was it so shocking? I’ve known about GunPowder Joe for a long time. I’ve been learning more about him since I moved back… I’ve used him as illustration many a time. But there was something in the way they told the story that made me think. Wait there was this major thinker. A wild and wonderful Heretic and he lived right here in this River Valley.

We had one Heretic. We can have more. We can be more. If you’ve studied heresy at all… having gone to seminary, you can’t avoid it, but there were a lot of times you sat and thought, pretty sure that’s what I think… (ok, there were some pretty goofy ones, too.) Most of what I found to be great heresies were those that included thinking, giving back, co-creating. Such heresies are dangerous to top-down religions. They put responsibility in the hands of the hoi-polloi…

But to be a heretic. To be a Heretic for Love, for Peace. It is in us and we are needed.

Peace and la Vida Local

To be intentional. To be deliberate. To live here. To root here. To bloom here. To flourish here.

That’s the assignment and the art of living locally. To deliberately plant my roots and care how my living makes the locale better at the same time it makes my life better.

This becomes the Peace I can make. This becomes the Peace I can live in — because I know it. Or maybe those sentences should be reversed. I can begin to understand what Peace this Valley needs when I pay close attention to it.

And when I go away from it, as much as I love to travel, I long to know what’s happening back here at home. And extrovert that I am… home often means community. Not always but often.

A friend posited when I was younger, that I could always travel because I had such a good and healthy center in my family. Now, many of the people who formed that center are gone. Now I that I’m building my own healthy center, it’s harder to leave and sweeter to return. Sweet Wonder. Sweet Peace. Sweet Home.

Sabbath Peace, Local Possibilities

It seems appropriate to me, to be back here in my life in time for the Sabbath. I spent so many years outside the church, so to realize that I define not only who I am but how I live by it seems odd to me. I like it. But it’s not how I envisioned spending my life. Yet here I am, living richly. (It’s good to remind myself, because having been shorted on sleep yesterday to catch the plane, I’m going to take a moment to catch up… Losing sleep does not make for a cheery, healthy Ann. au contraire!)

Just in time for Spring, our community is going to start gathering funds for feeding kids on the weekends. We want to lead the Valley toward a life where No Child Goes Hungry… wouldn’t that be amazing? so, it’s time for the seedlings to start poking their heads above the soil — along with the crocus!

So, as the world thaws and the waters start to flow… look out… Love will be Flowing as well… Check in, see how you can help.

The Possibility of Peace… and then the Realities… let’s go!

Outside, In-between Peace, llvl

At the end of a trip… I give thanks: for my home and my vida local and for the homes and vidas locals I was privileged to visit; for friends and family at home and for friends and family in their lives.

It’s exciting to visit new places and try things that are “foreign” to my life. And, as is the purpose with any vacation holiday, it’s exciting to get far away from your own life, so that when you come back, you’re rested and have fresh perspective. Once again, you’re aware of life’s incredible Abundance and Beauty.

So, counting blessings for what I have and what I am privileged to see, recognizing the rightness of my life, looking to find and keep the balance… and recommitting to my quest for Peace…

Peace, Balance & Fear, llvl

I hadn’t known until I sat outside how incredibly closed in I’d been feeling.

But when Emily and I sat outside reading on the lanai, it struck us both. There were no walls — either to keep us warm or to keep out the snow. The ceilings were very high because you wanted all the room you could get to circulate the air.

It was a slice of heaven. One day we sat looking at the ocean, and it is blue, blue, blue. Another day we were just sitting behind my cousin’s house. It started to rain. but it was so warm, and the space so deep that there didn’t seem to be any reason to wander in.

It may not be our vida local, but we were certainly working hard at appreciating and fitting into our hosts’ lives. We were looking to find the balance.

And then the tornado warnings started. It was quite a surprise. Although we’ve had a couple tornadoes in our area, it’s not something that you can expect your phone to suddenly start yelling about.

And we were lucky… everyone was, nothing really happened… but whoa… And yet… you do what is there, breathe in and breathe out. Peace and la vida local… wherever local is…

Staying Local for Peace and Life

You know it happens, so you shouldn’t be so surprised. But when the people on the shore behind you in Florida come from 6 miles away from your home in Pennsylvania… and you know someone in common… that’s a sweet coincidence. And ok, sorta weird.

And that’s life.

In addition to the wonderful weather, there’s wonderful family here. When you don’t see each other all the time, you work hard to create the family and then you reap the sweetness. And that’s life.

It’s hard to keep up with everyone you love. It’s hard to stay connected. It takes hard work.. But the effort makes all the difference. Then once in a while there are chance encounters that make you laugh out loud. Stay present to the moment. Count your blessings and just be overwhelmed with the sweetness. Make memories where and when you can. From such things Peace grows. And alongside it the realization that every bit of life is local. It’s all about your showing up!

Fear and Peace

Yesterday I climbed a lighthouse. It was one of those metal circular staircases.

Although I didn’t run all the way to the top, I made it. I was so glad I’d made the effort when I got there. And then I remembered. I have to go back down. Aside from the fact that I’m out of shape, steps frighten me.

Some of that is structural. Apparently I carry more weight on one side of my body than the other, I have a small scoliosis. I have anxiety; such steps are white-knucklers for me.

I so wanted to look out. And it’s a glorious view of two rivers and the intercoastal meeting the Atlantic. Our guides were filled with information about the First Nation Peoples who had lived there from incredibly ancient times until today. They didn’t spare the ugliness of that history either. The lives white settlers carved out were not glamorous; while it was beautiful yesterday, it gets scorching hot and water required some ingenuity to keep constantly available. And the lighthouse itself was a marvel. It was built before the War Between the States, by George Meade, who became the commander at Gettysburg. The South hid the works for 5 years and then it was re-established. They started carrying huge vats of melted lard up the steps to fuel the lighthouse… it’s now solar. (really? huge vats of melted lard? eek.) Several times a night the lighthouse-keeper would make that trek up the steps to fill the reservoir.

But I walked up. I looked around. And then hand in hand with my fear, my friend in front of me, I walked down. It’s not the first time I’ve faced this fear. If I want to do some things, it won’t be the last. It’s not a one and done fear. Every step i take I feel as if I will catapult into space. I know I won’t and keep telling myself. But wherever it is in my body that fear lives “knows” I will fall. So one step at a time; an ongoing requirement of being present to what is real. Fear. Peace. Fear. Peace.

Beauty at the top. Cool relaxation under the banyan tree at the bottom. Fear in-between. But the two destinations were worth the journey. Peace is worth the journey. No matter how big the fear.

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

The Priestess Is In