The Priestess Is In

The Earth Says I Am Here. Do We Respond, “Peace?”

Reply

We live on this beautiful planet Earth. Too often we pay no attention to that fact.

And the Earth is paying a price. Because the Earth is paying a price. The bigger price the Earth pays, the less she can support us.

It’s that simple. We must say Peace to the Earth. And act on it. The Earth is our Mother. We must love her as such.

Because if we’re not concerned with this relationship, we limit our ability to build Peace. It’s an issue of Justice: the most deeply impacted are the most marginalized and poor. It’s an issue of bounty: She must be healthy to feed us well.  It’s an issue of quality of Life: we need clean air and water and soil. It’s an issue of Beauty: Nature moves us with her outrageous Beauty. It’s an issue of Peace. Our issue of Peace.

 

Hold that Door for Peace!

Reply

I love the open invitation of this picture. Watching a news clip the other day, I was awed watching the open invitation the Canadian police offered Somali residents as they fled the US.

I was stunned and saddened by that. I have, I guess, a Pollyanna outlook towards my country. Even though I know of many people whose lives were not as privileged as mine, I know that in my brain, not in my heart… which stupidly persists in saying “All are welcome.”

Well, it’s never been true. all are not equally welcome. But to see people fleeing for what they believe — and may be— is their lives… that is sobering. Because the Somali refugees have already fled. They have already been not safe. They recognize this.

I believe, as a person of faith and as an American, in radical hospitality. It is the bedrock of my faith…

So the question becomes what will I do to keep the door open in invitation. How will I let people know? How will I be working to create the US I believe in? How will I be calling for, working for, Peace? How will you? What can we do alone. What can we do together. Peace needs us.

This Is Not Climate Peace

Reply

It’s hard not to be delighted when February brings beautiful weather. Unless, of course, you consider that this is still Winter. Or even if you’re Northern European Pagan, it’s only the very beginning of Early Spring. Which means some warming, but 60 degrees? No. Especially a week of it.

Extreme weather events are signs of climate change. We had yet another Winter without Winter.

I’m trying to figure out whether I should take the Winter tires off my car or wait until after I drive through the mountains in March. Because, it’s not unheard of to have big snows in March. And even with climate change, that will always be a discussion.

So by all means, enjoy the day. I’m going out for a walk now. But remember, it is not a sign of hope. If you don’t like living where there is winter: Central PA is not a great choice.

Peace is a very complicated and multilayered thing.

 

Mirroring Peace

Reply

It takes being calm to give a good reflection. If the mirror is moving you get only glimpses.

Glimpses are worth something to be certain. But sometimes we want a good look at what is there. We sometimes see things in a mirror’s reflection that we might not see otherwise.

Babies are good reflectors. If we laugh and giggle, they will as well, they will mirror what we do to make that connection. At some level, they know they’re dependent upon us for food and comfort. Mirroring our behavior ties us together.

Jeanie caught a wonderful picture of still water capturing beauty. This stillness is often found at sunset… who knows why. Maybe it’s there other times and it doesn’t catch our eye in the same way… But here is Beauty. Here, for just a moment, is Peace.

Wishing you the blessings of a beautiful Peace.

Touch and Honor Your Grounding in Peace

Reply

The world is incredible. Too often we don’t pay enough attention to the Beauty that is gifted to us. And not paying attention we neither honor it or care for it.

It leaves us off-center and it leaves the world vulnerable. No one’s paying attention.

We must stand for the Earth. She is our Mother. And mistreating her is the stupidest kind of self-abuse. Because as she changes, so do our lives. Climate change is real and very dangerous.

And not only that. When we’re not firmly grounded, we think too much, talk too much from a place not our center. Let us touch the Earth, give thanks for all we have and only then move into planning and action.

Edges of Peace

Reply

We are different from one another. Where our edges meet is where we can create Beauty. It’s hard, because there is also opportunity to create mayhem.

We can rub along, slowly changing one another, slowly becoming more beautiful and more familiar to one another.

And actually, choose it or not, we will change one another. So why not embrace the change?

Peace is in the embrace and the changing.

The Sweet Peace of Before and After

Reply

They’re really quite miraculous, but so very easy to miss. There is often a silence before something immense and filled with impact happens. It’s that pregnant with possibilities moment. And then at the end of something momentous, there’s an instant that is the moment after delivery, the no longer pregnant reality of delivery that is equally profound.

Hold that silence. Breathe it in. Just before sunset. Just before dawn. Just before music begins. Just after it ends.

Classical musicians are trained to do it, maybe not in those words, but nonetheless… but so many musicians are not… they never let the note carry into the ether before crashing down into the next… or more likely turning immediately to talk about what they’re going to play next (as if you can’t set up two songs in a row.)

Keeping your eye on the prize might also include savoring and celebrating that prize. Those moments of awareness change life. They are a pause for an inhalation. Before night falls or day breaks. After incredible Beauty or unthinkable tragedy. They stop life and magnify it. It’s a sin to miss the Peace in them. And when have you ever heard me use that word?

 

Happy Valentine’s Peace!

Reply

Remember to Love people boldly… your partner, your friends, your neighbors, the strangers, the world.

The world is a much better place when we do. Breathing in Love, as the song goes, we breathe out Peace. That’s our job. Everyday. Breathing in Love, breathing out Peace. Let’s make every day Valentine’s Day! Let’s give Cupid a bigger job! Romance is easy (well, sometimes! Peace is a challenge!)

Instruments of Peace

Reply

St. Francis of Assisi… Many of us associate him with his love and caring for animals. And that would have been enough.

He organized a group around renunciation of the the world’s riches… and so his friars were known as the begging friars… I’m not as interested in that… although an aversion to building up riches is certainly not a bad thing in an order! And as a result, they embrace the poor and are ardent workers for social justice. They also embrace the joyousness of creation and repudiate the notion of original sin. And that would have been enough. Any of these would have been enough.

But then there’s this lovely prayer that I focused on today. Those words are a wonderful gift. The notion that we should be instruments of Peace. So simple and so profound. So incredibly challenging. But we can be enough, if we put our minds to it.

We can be instruments of Peace. We can be Peace.