The Priestess Is In

Sunset Peace

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My mother Betty was a landscape artist. Thanks to her, we spent a lot of time captivated by what was going on outside. I now know that she taught me first to look and then to see. One of the things we saw was sunsets. In her quest to teach us about beauty, she had two helpers with sunsets.

First, on the days that Mom had the car (remember those days when families had one car!) we went down to pick Daddy up from the carpet mill where he was a dye chemist at 4:30. We drove directly West. For some parts of the year the sun and clouds would be inescapable.

Second, our dining room faced west. Mom taught me a lot about stopping whatever you were doing to look at the sunset. This served me well when I lived in the Oakland hills and would watch the sun travel its path between South San Francisco to Mt. Tam and back, offering a different sunset delight every day. The Gods of the Bay Area must love sunset, because it was often the clearest part of the day.

Deb wound up with both Mom’s sunset paintings. We all visit them when we visit her. The painting above is Mom’s view out our diningroom window. So it won’t surprise you that I find a joyful Peace in sunset… or that I stop and gulp to gawk at the beauty.

Peace in the Streams

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I hadn’t realized until today’s poem that I had created the first three poems of a four-element series. (I guess that means fire tomorrow! Or maybe I’ll think about the Chinese elements and make it a group of five!) But the notion of the stream’s pushing to move forward, even when we can’t see it, was a powerful image for me.

Most dreams don’t start full blown, they coalesce. And much of that work is done when we’re not paying attention. A little here, a little there. It mounts up until eventually, there’s enough mass to spill over.

What that means to us, however, I think, is that we need the quiet time for dreams to build. I find I need slow time when I’m paying no attention at all to anything important in my life to unfocus a bit and a give a dream a chance to build. And then, slowly regain that focus through the year. I’ll be trying to let my life and my commitment to Peace build with year. And of course as I consider the elements, my commitment to the Earth will have to build, won’t it. It would be a bit precious to burble about the changing months and not consider the need to stand for the sacredness of Nature.

Peace on a Sled

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I am not a particularly athletic person. Neither am I particularly competitive — at least in an athletic sense. So there are a lot of sports I don’t do. Perhaps it’s just because I’m lazy… I love to sit and write and have to push myself to the pool… where I am competent.But it struck me as I was getting ready to send out this list that many of the simple pleasures of life get pushed aside for the competitive ones. Mindlessly sliding down a hill close to the ground, “through the frosty air,” is fun. Snowmen and women… fun too. There are not a lot of edges to test yourself against… just a lot of laughing shrieks.

When we’d have the first particularly good snow at my college (Wilson College that is!!!!), the President would walk into the dining room at lunch, commandeer the lunch trays and start handing them out. “I’ll meet you on the hill,” he’d say, and he would. it was a pitiful hill, but it was a wonderful afternoon. You slid next to young woman you hadn’t known at the top of the hill and laughed, holding one another upright as you walked back up. Sweet simple Peace. I know that lots of people don’t have the climate for this, so I’ll say this instead: May you find such an uncomplicated Joy this month — and indulge!

Peace on the Wind

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I’ve decided to worry less about my own requirements this year and focus a bit more on what the world needs. What we need is Peace. There are as many ways to build Peace as there are humans… and probably some exponentially larger number of possibilities from the way things grow when dreams intersect. If this is true, in any way, then everything that happens is a clarion call for Peace. The Earth provides her own… I love the Christmas Carol: I heard the bells… I think those bells ring all the time, but I believe they carry farther in that cold crisp air… Peace, do you hear the summons?

Frozen Words of Peace

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Having committed to a year of “prosing” about Peace… and having found a new structure, it’s interesting to see what images arise to fill that structure. I like the notion of our Peace dreams slowly building from concept to completion, using each month’s strong points to help us construct our dreams, our work and our world of Peace. So, starting with little crystalline Peace “seeds” that are short lived but visible witnesses to our beginnings captured my imagination.

 

Peace Be With You All Year

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Oh, my friends, Happy 2013. Or perhaps more correctly, let’s make this a happy 2013. It is up to us. We get to decide to be happy and we get to decide if we’re going to work for Peace. This year in my musings, I’m going to explore how what each of the months have to contribute to the process of Peace-making. It is time. It is the great work of our lives…

For each of us, it’s a different work and a different life, but the paths all head toward Peace. Yours and mine will meet and diverge… but with a great deal of will, there will be enough company along the journey to help us know how very lucky we are. Open your hearts and minds and dream deeply of Peace. Lots of happiness along the way!

My Once Favorite Brother

In honoring the UN’s International Day of the Girl, I wrote this second poem in response to Susan Daniel’s Poetry Blogpost. It struggles with the emotions a young mother would feel for a beloved brother who not only participates in but profits from the practice of child marriage. It is a system that must be eradicated. When our girls are safe from such predatory behavior, when our girls and women, both young and old, have the right to decide their futures, then our relationships with our brothers will be celebrated. Thank you for listening. Thank you for taking this issue into your heart and mind.

The Petals of My Daughter

The wonderful David Bauman (who today is reading at the Capitol Building in Harrisburg, PA, sent me a link to a post on Susan Daniels’ Poetry Blog inviting women poets to write a poem about child marriage or child brides in honor of the UN’s International Day of the Girl.

This was a wonderful opportunity to reflect on an agonizing subject. Some of you will know that the Elders, an international, interfaith group of Senior States Men and Women are working hard to eradicate this tribal custom where it flourishes in our world.

This is an issue of power, male dominance and tribal custom which masquerades as a religious issue. I have longed for a way and a place to speak to this, but I speak best through verse. With Dave’s urging, I wrote, we recorded and he posted to my wonderful new Youtube Channel. (more about that later!) Here is the first of two poems: This one’s entitled: The Petals of My Daughter. On this day dedicated to empowering the voices and actions of our daughters, let us work to make the world safe for them.

Peaceworking

If you’d have asked me about my greatest fears before running off to peace camp with ThinkPeace Workshop for Girls this summer, after I got past the actual camping part of it, I’d have had to say, I worried about how the girls would get along. I am happy to say that all my fears were ungrounded. (I was ungrounded, I got to sleep inside on a bed! whoopee! Imagine the delight of an Aging Indoor Priestess!)

But I’m here to report that Peace-working causes actual Peace to break out. I’m not saying there weren’t rocky moments and the girls weren’t girls, but they were kind girls. They were involved girls. They were caring girls. Maybe crossing out were, substituting are. They are adorable, strong, funny, smart, wonderful breaths of air and hopes for a new world. They are girls.

These lovely young women watched movies that broke their hearts and challenged their senses of what is fair. They participated in projects that acknowledge that the world is not easy or gentle but are designed to change that. They spent some time writing their ways out of own troubles and then envisioning ways to help World Girls move out of their own. They saw their privilege and looked for ways to leverage that. I’m not sure if they’re clear that’s what they were doing, but that’s what happened. And in their free time, they played, sometimes like the young women they were, sometimes like little girls, running in the back yard, playing in the pool. More friendship bracelets were made than anyone would have thought possible. (As a child of a child of the Depression, I was astounded by the supplies they ran through!) People’s fears were soothed.

And they spent most of the week in a puppy pile on the couch and floor in the Gathering Room. They solved problems together. They traded taking the lead. They included everyone and they worked to their strengths. They stepped up

They didn’t do this on their own. Peace doesn’t break out spontaneously. The week was carefully set up. Boundaries were set. A covenant was drawn, agreed to and pretty much followed. And that week, girls made a difference. In their own lives. In the lives of their companions. In their Leaders’ hearts. And maybe, just maybe, in the way the future grows.

That’s a pretty good outcome from a week of gathered girls. Sing Ho! for the Peace of a Girl.

 

ThinkPeaceWorkshop

The Priestess went to camp this summer. It was extraordinary. I’ve been putting off writing about it as I wanted to get it “just right.” But then I realized, I could write a lot of blogs about camp. ThinkPeaceWorkshop for Girls is the brainchild of Kelly HImsl Arthur and Liz Overheul Curry. Two moms with girls, thinking about Peace. Two moms wanting to raise a new generation of Peace Warriors.

I found TPW on twitter and followed. We followed a traditional cyber-courtship model… follow, like, post, invite, engage! And before you know it Kelly and I and then Liz and I were in FB heaven. And then we emailed. and now? now we’re friends!

They’re doing such wonderful work, offering girls the opportunity to think beyond middle school and senior high activities. These girls are thinking about Peace. They’re thinking about girls and the challenges they face in other countries. They’re thinking about (and doing about) becoming part of the solution rather than one more nonchalant part of the problem.

If you’ve been following my posts, you know that I don’t approach living close to nature with anything other than trepidation… so, I surprised myself when I asked: “Can I come?”

But Kelly said yes, and off I went (and I got my nature in small doses!), and it was extraordinary. Four adults, two young women and 16 girls. Writing, Stretching, Listening, Cooking, Learning, Goofing Off, Getting Serious. Peace begins with a girl. and girls began to envision that they might be that Peace-Beginning Girl, each and every one.

Can’t do it justice in one post. More to follow. Speaking of following… you can find them on FB and become a fan of sweet young girls becoming sweet Peacemakers!

Hats off to Kelly and Liz! Get to know them. And then get busy making Peace as only you can make it.