Peace Harvest Sabbath

I’ve been driving myself crrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaazy, trying to sort this and fix that. Throw this out. recycle this. find a new home for that. share. toss. Or as a friend suggested packing, purging and placing… liking the three ps!

I have deadlines and I have impetus. Swedish sisters arrive. it would be great if the house didn’t look like a storm tossed packing box. And I’m tired of the chaos. And then there’s the I have a job thing, which means I have to be able to find things. And yet, a day of rest and respite are important to our well-being, particularly when our lives are filled with whirlwinds.

So, today, on this Harvest Sabbath, the only work I will do is in decluttering the surfaces around me so that I get to sit in pretty space, and let the infrastructure lie fallow a bit, because you know what? It’ll be there tomorrow. But the Sabbath pause button will have been overlooked. So maybe a little opera. A little sitting by the river well-wrapped against the cold. A lot of laughter with friends. and home again, home again to sit in pretty space with a candle and a cuppa. Happy Sabbath… and then Monday, back to sorting.

You know, Hallowmas is coming up. Your assignment, should you choose to accept it is reflection. You’re going to have to clean off your mirrors! but not today. today, why not sit!

Hunter Moon Peace

Once again I stood with a friend at a sorting table heaped high with the gleanings from several life-times.

In the morning, we sorted clothes into piles: Yes, no, maybes. The yeses were put back into the closet. Today they’ll be sorted into summer, all season, winter (the table — my bed — wasn’t big enough for all the piles.) The nos were then sorted into tops, bottoms, pjs, winter, and then the really big pile: “nobody will ever want to wear that throw it out!” Laughing at the memories, counting my blessings, giving thanks, remembering, releasing…

An hour later, there was room in my closet! After such support, at the end of today there will be summer clothes disappeared and winter clothes appeared, which is a good thing given that the Hunter Moon has drawn all the heat from the land. Ah, seasons change.

Out to lunch and we did the same things with paper. Six feet of paper became six inches and two bags: shred and recycle and 3 items to throw away.

It was age-old work with a new theme. We were certainly readying the house for the long cold winter. (and speaking of which I think I should turn the heat on, it’s cold in here). We did it side by side making it a community transaction. I’ve done it for her. She’s done it for me. We’ve done it for someone else. It’s not the last time it will happen.

Maybe it was clearing out the emotional and physical underbrush yesterday that allowed me to stop worrying about what I might trip and actually look up to see the moon. It certainly eased some of the anxiety that is my constant companion these days. Lovely to move from my little world to the grandeur of Nature. I had a wonderful night out with friends that included food and theater, and that was lovely. And there we were, riding back home along the river after a productive, enjoyable day, looking at the Moon and enjoying the evening.

Finding the Peace

— Even in the missteps. At some point you need to let those things go. Ah, but the stories? They remain…

I’m still polishing my way, silver spoon by silver salver to Peace in the china cupboard and in my home. I suppose I could just let all this go, or continue to let the air have its way with the silver. But the beginning to recall stories is the beginning of the healing. Perhaps I’m not yet ready to remember the wonderful trip to Alaska… oh, the pain… I can’t yet unpack the suitcase of Deb’s clothes that I took, but even though six of the original nine of us in this three story family are gone, I can, through the help of these things, begin, at least, to recall the folks on the ground floor…

So there are things and the removing of the tarnish unveils the stories. And I am restored even as the house is. And in the beautifying and putting away, I am calmed and soothed as ragged memories are no longer assaulting me from piles all over the floor, impeding my progress from room to room. I’m not sure if I’m making memories by doing this, or simply making room for memories.

I can’t imagine how thoroughly nettled my grandmother must have been. I wonder, had it been me — playing either roll, Gram or Sam — if I’d have been able to refrain from resilvering. Probably not, because I know, even as a child, when that urn sat in sullen condemnation in our cellar closet, i longed to restore it.

Hey! I’m an extrovert. I LIKE bright shiny things. And stories. I do love the stories. And many’s the day I sat with Grandma Helen, taking things out and putting things back into the china closet, to touch, revere, tell the stories of their family provenance, and then at the end, to set the table with. Even though I never cook, I still love setting a fine table. (maybe I need a great delivery service! oh and a million bucks — after all, the food should fit the plate, no?

But there was Sammy full of bright ideas… that ultimately weren’t. I’ve been there. It’s nice to know I inherited the oopsie gene. And all the hard work in the world doesn’t put the silver back on the urn. Ah well, silver to polish, blessings to count… a beautiful day in the neighborhood.

Reflecting Peace

I’m polishing things at my house for two reasons. I just inherited a whole bunch of lovely family and putting them out and putting them away, it seemed better to put them away well shined and well loved. And then after a long time away at deb’s and a long time not living in my space, I’m trying to reclaim where I live. To make it mine again. (thankfully the human version of peeing on things is cleaning them!) And OK, three and four… I love silver, especially silver that’s been used for generations of MY family AND I have very few jobs that end, so I take great satisfaction in taking a mound of tarnished pieces and turning it into beauty. Take that!

So, when I can’t do anything else right now, I polish. Even though there’s still plenty of chaos on the surface, it’s slowly diminishing underneath. Things are being put away. An entire stack of books, stuck beside my fireplace for YEARS — vanished into a bookcase of all unlikely places.

And the silver and the wood and the glassware are slowly returning to their intended state as heirlooms mingle with my own chosen things. As I apply a little elbow grease to things I’ve been catching little glimpses of myself in the newly shining surfaces. It has reminded me that October and the coming celebration of Hallowmas is about that. About the quick glances that reveal deep truths. Catching my father’s profile in my grandmother’s silver pitcher. A glazed, teary-eyed look into the reflection on a dish that held candy on my Nana’s table. Who am I? Where do I come from? Where am I going? Moments of self-reflection. Moments of blessing counting. Moments of beauty.

Because the glimpses are only snatches, it’s easier to begin to piece together (Peace together) a picture. I can examine those pieces with curiosity and remembrance. I can let the grace seep in before I have to face the whole. All in all, i think it’s a good way to begin the process of examining our souls, bit by bit… and scrubbing the tarnish off as we go. Peace. slow, subtle Peace. and ooh, look, bright shiny things. who doesn’t like that?

Hope/Fear Peace

In the Tarot spread I use the most, there is a position entitled hopes and fears. The question it asks is this: Will you accept your potential?

With this position, giving in to your fears means saying no to that possibility, clinging to your fears rather than opening to life. Saying yes to hope means making plans (right now!) to make things come true. It means accepting responsibility for your future.

I completely understand the Buddha’s look at hope and fear as the twin evils. I understand how easy it is to live out of what is true now. But I am a Westerner with a Judeo-Christian sense of the word Hope. I cherish those with the courage to live as if the world were different now.

I understand how seductive our fears are and that we can obsess about them. But I also know that fear is a healthy response to things that are dangerous. When we face those fears we can make good decisions about behaviors in which we might not want to engage or strategies that can make us better able to cope with what frightens us if in fact we must engage.

But what the Buddha was pushing at, I believe, is the notion that we live in the present. Some biblical sage said it this way: “Sufficient unto the day are the troubles thereof” or as people have rephrased that “Don’t borrow trouble.” We have to stay in our day’s chaos and work our way out toward tomorrow.

Because Peace is also here. If it is chaotic then tackle a tiny corner of it and smooth that out. And then the next corner. I’m preaching to myself here, slowly working on the “but firsts!”)

And here’s what else. Celebrate your progress, because that will encourage you to make more. Every step toward Peace is a step in Peace.

Softening Peace

We’re getting deeper and deeper into Autumn. Even though the temps are lolling around in September ranges, Mother Earth keeps changing and preparing for winter. The hours of daylight are lessening. Pretty soon, there’s going to be that unnatural jolt into darkness… wow, maybe the government won’t change to standard time if they’re out lolling about.

But change or not, there are still more hours of darkness… and a lot more slow dawn and twilight. And that’s the beauty of Fall.

I know. I’ve been whining a lot because I’m caught in that place in between. Everything requires two or three steps to be done before it. It’s very hard for me. I’m a charge ahead kinda woman and this is a slog through it time… outside and in… and by in let’s include both my heart and my house.

My house will be lovely. It’s unlovely now. My heart will be patched over. It’s still got draining wounds.

But this process of healing is not to be wished away. This is time too. This is what it takes to merge the stuff of generations. This is what it takes for a heart to hold love. That I can’t do what i’ve always done, think the way I’ve always thought, laugh the way I so often do, is what’s true. And in that truth is a wretched beauty.

This is the cost of having a sweet sister. This is the price of having familial history. You pay the price that the silver might shine and the wood might gleam and the glassware sparkle. All that shining, gleaming and sparkling is your past. hmmm… maybe there’s a poem in this, I should stop!

But living here, now, being present, is the only way to get to ‘way over yonder…. whether that’s ‘way, ‘way, ‘way over yonder or simply tomorrow. It’s also the only way of making memories to make our futures sweet. Peace is where we are, or it isn’t anywhere.

Catch and Release Peace

I didn’t set out to become a Midwife for Death. I can tell you that I ignored the signs a long time. And yet, it was work I did from my 20s. For some reason, I knew to be present, and wasn’t really frightened.

And there really isn’t a MfD 101 course anywhere. And guidance came in only the most sporadic ways. Someone offered a guided meditation, and talked about her early fears that she was jinx to her patients, only to understand later that her nursing supervisors sent her to work with those who were slipping away.

When I did take a course in Clinical Pastoral Education, I realized that oddly most of the clients I “caught” in the ER were dying and I sat with their families if they weren’t allowed to be there and talked with them afterwards. They trained me with their questions and their need to be heard.

And then there was AIDS and beautiful men dying gaunt and alone. Beautiful men learning how to care for one another. Oh, I learned a lot there.

What I learned is that it is as precious a moment to be there at the going out as it is at the coming in. That the labor to leave life is as extreme as the labor to come into it. That the ceremonies of “goodbye” can be as joyous and freeing as the ceremonies of “hello” or “I do.” That the invitation to be present to those passages is a privilege and not a weight. Your acceptance is an entering into prayer. This is hard work, but an unbelievable blessing.

The weight comes when there is so much death, one after another. Particularly now when I’m grieving my own loss. And yet, still the privilege of stepping up when people must be held. And perhaps there is healing in the notion that we all lose those we love. It is the payment on these astonishing lives we lead.

There is so much more I need to know. Perhaps there is a lot more for me to write since it seems so few are encouraged into walking this boundary with their loved ones, despite the fact that every loved one will cross sooner or later. More to learn about helping those who cross. More to learn about helping those who remain. I can read a lot and yet “book larnin'” isn’t necessarily the best teacher…

This is a deeply personal reflection for me, this struggle to catch the souls who are grieving and to release those who are leaving… I’m certain that many of you have parts of your life and your talents that you’re exploring… things about yourself you didn’t suspect… I wish us all Peace as we learn our trades.

Home, Peace, Sabbath

I heard Richard Blanco, the inaugural poet, read last Thursday. It was so uplifting and grounding at the same time. He was asking questions about home and where it is and where it isn’t. His words were so poignant as he examined the way we think that life should be one way and forget to enjoy the way life really is.

So today, on this Sabbath I invite you to be at home. Spend a bit of time exploring your roots and feeling their grasp on the ground beneath you. Let them sink deeper. Appreciate your foundation.

And let your branches spread wide, touching, shading, exploring.

And let the Winds run their fingers through your leaves.

This is home… make it a little bit better. and then enjoy it.

Rest easy where you are. Enjoy the Peace of Home. Enjoy the Peace of a Sabbath at rest.

More Lion Peace

Writing a blog is such a fascinating process. When you sit down, you believe you know what direction you’re headed. Usually that’s true. Revelations that come are often small and pithy. But once in a while, they’re grand and sweeping.

Yesterday’s post was such a one. I really thought the lion was a curiosity. Something to explore because it had been dear to my dad and yet commemorated a massacre of Swiss guards at the Tuilleries during the French Revolution. If I think about why Dad may have had that, it takes a while. Aunt Jennie, my Gram’s aunt, used to take women on ‘Grand Tours’ around Europe. It must have been she who visited the Lion Monument in Lucerne and brought back this memento. So it’s entirely possible that it wasn’t Daddy who cherished it, or at least cherished it first, but rather Aunt Jenny, who had magical status in her niece’s eyes and then it was bequeathed to Helen. And then Sammy. And now me.

But when I looked up the inscription about loyalty and bravery and began to write about that, it was Deb’s courage and faithfulness that came to mind. She fretted after mom died that I would be ok. Was glad that Steve had come into my life, certainly for my sake, but also for hers. I think she knew she’d die before me, and felt better knowing I’d have love.

And there’s so much Love. I never worry about not being Loved. There is Love, more Love, everywhere you look. But of course when one love disappears, the heart breaks. And while the dead are always with us, where and how are questions that need to be sorted out over time. time when we want everything to happen right now, darnit.

If the Lion has taught his lesson, then what do I do with it? I’m the fourth generation lion holder. Is there another generation who wants it? What home does stuff seek when it has served? Who will have to clean this out when I’m dead? Too much stuff. All of it precious. Go figure. but luckily I’ll wait a while. I have loving to do on my husband! And we all need to be cherishing our partners. I heard from a college buddy, one I’d lived with when I went to seminary, one whose wedding ceremony I’d performed. Her husband died suddenly.

This is what happens in life. Stay present. Listen to the Lions. Make a lot of memories. and Love outrageously. This is all part of the bumpy road to Peace.

Leonine Peace

Maybe I missed the point in this poem (she says now), maybe the point is that life and the living of it require incredible loyalty and bravery.

Maybe Leo popped out of my box, now as I begin to think about how to honor Deb, to talk about how brave she was in continuing to live when so much was lost to her. In continuing to fight the cancer against impossible odds.

I do know that, with my heart set always on Peace, I can overlook the importance of warriors and even Peace Keepers/Defenders. That was where I headed with this poem. Perhaps tomorrow, I’ll have to head another way.

Thanks, Leo. You brought a lot to my life when you sprang out of your box to lie atop your pedestal in my china cabinet. I’ll keep trying to discern what, exactly, I might learn from you.

Sacred Village

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