Good Boots for the Walk into Peace

You can’t over-estimate the importance of a good pair of boots.

When you get good boots, they’re old friends. They hang in their with you for years at a time. You get them resoled and resewn. You polish them or you don’t. You put the waterproofing on… and you wear them. You wear them because they tell the world who you are and you wear them because they’re the most comfortable things in the world.

Old friends, those boots. Who better to walk into Peace with? Who better to dance the dance of Peace with?

Peace, my dears. And may your boots be comfortable for the whole journey!

Peace on the Edge and In-Between

This is such a great picture of a weather front. On one side of the line it is bright and beautiful; on the other the clouds are grey and lowering. I love that she caught a shot with the delineation happening along the shore; as above, so below.

This, I believe, is where Peace dances; here a bit, there a bit and in between. If we’re going to dance with Peace we must live in the confusion and the mix up. We must welcome what is and what is coming; what is and what was… I don’t know which way that front is traveling.

We’re not always fans of that unsettledness, particularly when what is ahead isn’t all bright and beautiful. But we have to make Peace with that as well. Because the seeds of change are there.

Peace. I think it cuts both a fine line and a wide swath.

Happy Year of the Monkey Peace

You know me — opportunity to celebrate? Count me in.

Another new year? A fresh chance to to begin again in Love? Why wouldn’t we take that?

And then, as I so often ask, festal foods? Oh, yeah. Of course I’ll come to your house.

I confess, my celebration of festal foods doesn’t do the artistry of these gnocci justice. They’re so beautiful, and another gift of slow food from Terri and George. Wonderful things happened when those two met, I’ll tell you, on all sorts of levels. Dinner was certainly an important one.

Welcome to the Year of the Monkey. The Monkey is a clever, curious guy with a magnetic personality. He’s intelligent, adaptable, flexible and eloquent. Occasionally that wit and curiosity can lead him astray, but his heart is huge. Animal activists are hoping to use this year of the Monkey to speak to destroyed habitats and illegal trade in these little guys for pets and for more nefarious activities. It wouldn’t hurt any of us to pay some attention to this…

We are one with the natural world, whether we acknowledge it or not. It’s better to acknowledge it. Better to as Robert Isaacs Eller says, “forgive ourselves and each other, and begin again with love.” So go ahead, explore the world. Be a bit adventurous.

And don’t forget the festal foods. We think of this as Chinese New Year — it’s celebrated in many countries by billions of people as the Spring Festival. It’s a lunar holiday, beginning on the second new moon after the Winter Solstice. This year, for the very first time, in acknowledgement of New York’s large Asian population, schools are closed in observance. More people in the world travel for this holiday than for any other holiday in the world. People go home to be with their families.

Peace, my friends. Peace of the Monkey Year, be with you. Call your families. Tell them you love them.

Peace of Sunset at the Farm

One of the reasons I like snow is that it lets the sun paint it colors.

It is so beautiful to have those golden colors reflecting off the snow. It’s so easy to imagine coming home to this Peaceful and Beautiful place…

Beauty — just one of the reasons I don’t want to rush past winter… And the cold is another one.

Today the cold brings my little town our ice festival. Hurrah. There were lots of pictures from last night of friends sitting in ice chairs and having their pictures taken besides ice sculptures. The Ice Fest has arrived. We’ll have to walk down to see folk plunge into the river this afternoon… (crazy people, i tell you, not me!)

Both the picture and this festival are reasons for me not to rush past winter. Every day, there’s something beautiful. Every day in your life, there’s something beautiful. We should welcome and celebrate that.

Peace needs every day to be complete — just as it needs every person!

Solitary Peace

Solitary bovine Peace?

Cows are such herd animals. But occasionally, even they have the need to wander away.

We should trust our own need… and use it not to brood, but to plot.

Sometimes the wandering away requires a burst of courage. Sometimes we just follow the path in front of our hearts.

Peace is such a curious thing. We need to figure out how we’re best able to participate in it, and then get on with it! Sometimes it requires close work with like-hearted folks. Sometimes Peace becomes a solitary endeavor. Maybe for all of us, it’s always both… but it’s always Peace!

Bacon Peace

When I thought about the challenges of writing this year, it was more about the challenge of finding the right words — i hadn’t really thought about the challenge of the pics themselves.

I am a meat eater and a fan of bacon. I find it a lovely, lovely thing. And I know that a lot of people who follow me are not meat eaters and so they look at this pic and say “really?” And I understand that. If we’re going to eat meat at all, we eat too much of it and many of us eat it without regard to its raising. That’s a problem.

And a pic like this doesn’t allow wiggle room. I’m a pretty good wiggler.

And yet, here we are — Bacon. a whole grill full of it! A chef is getting ready for a day at work.

And so we make our Peace with the joy and the discomfort. Thanks for the challenge, Heather! Every day, Peace.

Dormant Dreams of Peace

We rise and fall with the seasons… but when we’re focused and involved, even during the off seasons, our project is only dormant, not dead. It’s important to give fields and dreams a time to lie fallow, and so necessary to put them back to work. Fields of dreams — it’s important that we have them.

And/but… it’s so easy to let go. Our dreams have seasons, but unless we truly renounce them, we need not to just let them molder. It’s a choice… to believe we’re worthy of our Peace dreams and they are worthy of our investment.

Pete, my friend who took today’s photo, sends me provocative choices as she decides what fields to send. And so does everyone in the group. 5 weeks into the project, there have been one or two curves each week. It’s a lovely challenge; I feel so privileged. Who gets to do this? lucky, lucky me!

The Peace of Winter Beauty

This process I’m engaged in, the daily writing and this year the daily reacting to images, is fascinating. I’ve had people say I don’t know how you decide what to write every day.

Some days I make a conscious decision. But often the picture really does say what about this… or the person taking the picture suggests it.

But I was surprised by my reaction to the icicles. I love icicles. as a child i loved those winters when there were lots and you would knock one down and suck on it like a lollipop. (yeah, can you say asbestos shingles, anyone?)

But there i was, looking at them, and then i thought about its being my anniversary today and then Rumi’s poem was in my head and i was writing the poem. Icicles and marriage. Icicles and peace…

It’s a good question to ask myself, do I dare to Peace in my Love? When I say it’s so important in other parts of life? Do any of us dare?

I find it especially poignant when I look at a world that is in such desperate need of Peace and Love. So can I start at home? Do I?

Peace. Icicles. Yep. “Stand together, but not too near together.”

Slow Food Is Sweet Peace

You need to understand from the start, that I am an admirer of slow food not a preparer of it! Although cooking more is on my agenda this year, I’m starting with cooking breakfast or soup in the crockpot. Let’s not rush into things! Nonetheless, soup is good food. Both the making of it and the eating it brings me Peace. Oh, and health. let’s not forget health.

I am neither a patient nor a precise person. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have friends who are! And whether I’m dining with them or simply delighting in their stories of good food made the old fashioned way, it makes me happy!

Some people will say they cook this way because they can’t afford to eat out, but that misses the point of cooking that way because they love cooking and eating what they cook. Whereas cooking for me is a white-knuckle affair, for them it’s an exhale into life.

I resent the time it takes; they revel. I have a friend who as her mom was dying, when her sister relieved her for a bit, came home took a shower, and then baked. A cake and cookies. It soothed her and gave her strength the way that writing does me. Familiar rituals bring order to our lives and good things to our families. Her sisters ate cookies and comfort as they gathered throughout the week. It was a bit of family/familiar comfort as their mom slowly departed her life.

That reveling is Peace. That healing is Peace. I can appreciate it without participating.It’s exactly like Peace-making. We all contribute differently. But we all benefit from the fruits of such labor — even if only visually.

Keep rolling that pasta, George! Pasta and Peace. I think it could be a thing.

When the Sabbath Peace Slowly Dawns

I love the notion that even the Sun doesn’t make a big to do every day. Some days sunrise is just a quiet “this is what we do” event.

For me Sundays are both days of work and days of wonder. Because somehow, I managed to build a life where my work is the seeking of wonder. Part of my weekly responsibility is remembering the Sabbath, calling attention to it, helping everyone remember that it matters.

I have to tell you, it’s pretty great.

I wish that for you. Wonder is a lovely companion.

This week I have the labyrinth and Dark Moon to look forward to as well. A day dedicated to Peace. A day of friends, shared meals and quiet conversation. A day of fun things to read. If I’m lucky, a little raucous laughter. And why not be lucky.

Days don’t have to start in a blaze of Glory to be filled with Peace. The Peace is there. We just have to meet it.

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

The Priestess Is In