Peace in the Dead of Winter.

It’s been cold, cold, cold… There’s something pretty wonderful about that.

I have the clothes. I make sure I’ve got lotion on my face and hands. And off you go, invigorated.

Shockingly, here we are at the 19th of January, what meteorologists call the Dead of Winter and this is only the second time we’ve had bitter cold. The light is slowly changing, by the end of the month we’ll have almost enough light to wake a ground hog!

Yes I know it’s cold. This is what winter’s about. Pests and Germs are dying as we complain about the cold… But heat up yesterday’s soup and admire the beauty!

The cold, clear Peace of the Dead of Winter be with you.

Soup and Peace

There are days when only soup will do the job. For whatever reason you’re feeling less than your best self, a bowl of soup can help to make your world right again.

Especially on a frigid day like this, it’s a great thing to set a pot of soup simmering on your stove. Your house fills up with steamy goodness; the scent alone says you’re taking care of yourself… You empty the refrigerator and make something wonderful.

It’s good for so many reasons, not the least of which is it uses up the things in your cupboard and fills you up without demanding a lot of the Earth. My friend makes soup for his mom as she ages, because chewing is harder. She gets to have favorite flavors and the comfort of a family recipe. Soup nourishes and nurtures.

I don’t make enough soup. Partially that’s because i live alone and still haven’t learned to make soup for one person with only a little left over. Oh, put it in your freezer, people say. Really? I’ll never eat a gallon of soup. Still you find ways. You also find the places that keep soup in your life. Happily there are a couple restaurants now that focus on soup.

Sometimes, when there are things going on in people’s lives or your own, there is nothing sweeter than sitting down and sharing a bowl of warmth. Whether, spicy, hearty, delicate, it comforts and sustains.

Sometimes Peace really is that simple. Soup doesn’t answer all the questions in life, but it can give you a pause from the madness. Sweet comfort alone or shared. There can be Peace in that, if we’ll allow it!

Puddles of Peace on a Sabbath Morning

I’ve always loved these cloud configurations. When I was a child, they tried to convince me (and by they, I don’t mean my parents!), that a stern God kept watch on me from glorious clouds. It was sort of frightening.

But give me a few years, working on Peace, and I’m now able to see the Peace and the Possibility being poured out.

Today, on the celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr., with our world in a shambles, it’s a good day to consider whether we really want things to be different.

What world do you want to have? On whose behalf will you work — even sacrifice?

It’s a thought to mull over on a Sabbath isn’t it? Peace? What’s it worth to us? and Justice… for all. Let us Peace.

Peace Symbols — Resting in Peace

Many of us where symbols of our tradition on our persons. When we die they adorn our graves. In the past our graves have been kept separately… Religion from religion and sometime sect from sect.

In the town my brother in law grew up, The Catholics and the Protestants are on one side of the road. The Methodists and the Lutherans have driving paths between them…

Too often our symbols pronounce you’re not like me — which in some ways means you’re not of my heart, my flesh. But you are. Huh… so, Ann are you beginning to develop a theology about cemeteries? Are you beginning to think that we should lay down together, jumbled together in eternity as we are in life?

I know that that’s an anathema to some traditions. And I’m simply feeling my way forward — and really I care more how we jumble up in life. How i sit with you and know you as my friend? That is the work of life, isn’t it? and then together to be friends to the rest of the world and to Mother Earth?

May our symbols remind our hearts of the work we are called to do or even if we will the way we were called to live. May we live in Peace. and when it is all over, may we die into the Peace of our Mother Earth…

Oh, and the fairy crosses? found in Georgia and Virginia. Not surprisingly, they have legends surrounding them.

When the Peaceful Are Endangered

Odd, ungainly, gentle, gigantic, otherworldly, the manatees are known to be over 45 million years old. For 15 million years they have lingered in the waters of Florida.

Now, due to fishing entanglement, loss of habitat and boat collisions, they are endangered. They’re one more species being harried into extinction by our heedless living.

Another wonder of the world whose future rests in our hands.

May our hands be loving and kind. May we choose to be part of something bigger and ore ancient than we are and protect them. May we be Peace in their world and thus in our own.

Jars of Peace Dreams

This is what we need isn’t it. For each of us to have a jar filled with Peace dreams that are invisible to the rest of the world, but oh so clear to us. We can share our dreams with others, but they can only see part of them… We can work to make them come true which gives others the chance to work with us on those dreams…

The deepest sweetness will always be for us to uncover.

Let us dream of Peace and protect them carefully in our Jars of Dreams. And bit by bit, step by careful step, let us make them come true.

Puddle Dancing for Peace

Here on the East Coast today, we are perhaps needing to roll a snow man or sled down a hill rather than to dance in a puddle… but the message is the same. This is the beauty we have. Dance in it. Enjoy it.

It’s not an inconvenience. It’s what is.

We prepare for what’s ahead, if we can… and deal with what arrives. Wishing it were different takes an awful lot of time — wastes an awful lot of time. And when it comes to weather, we can’t really make it much different — well, we can stop doing things, and demand that corporations stop doing things that contribute to climate change.

But when the weather is here, might as well dance. Rain or shine, we might as well dance for Peace. Every day.

Great Leaping Peace!

It’s funny when it’s chilly outside to think of cheery dolphins leaping, but of course they don’t care what the weather is.

And their joyous leaping is something to remember in our own lives. They do it for a lot of reasons, they look for predators, they get more air, they find direction… but they also leap in play — for the sheer joy of it. What if we allowed ourselves to be that joyful?

And what if after our leap we fell back into the waters of Peace and could luxuriate there?

It’s Leap Year. Perhaps we ought to spend it leaping into Peace… Perhaps during Leap Day, we might court Peace, invite it to be our Beloved…

Think about it, why don’t you? and what the heck, leap, if only a tiny little bit for Peace, into Peace. Peace every day. Everyday Peace. It matters.

Peaceful Winter Food

When I was taking acupressure courses, one of them was on foods. Our teacher was very clear that we were to eat foods that were grown within a 50 mile radius and appropriate to the season.

If it’s winter, it must be root vegetables. And if you’re lucky, tasty bitter greens grown in a cold frame

To eat from our region is to honor the Mother Earth. It is to honor our bodies. It is to honor Peace.

It is to take from what is available to us which means to leave what must be available to others. So many times what the West needs is grown where those from the Southlands might have.

Let us eat in Peace.

Inviting Sabbath Peace

Some mornings dawn breaks gently. Other days it flashes into our lives. I love that this picture issues a quiet invitation. I love that dawn came softly today as well.

I was up late reading last night. Silly me. on the night before Sunday morning. Go to bed Ann… but the book was so good. And I’d been at a great party before and I needed to calm down… nothing like reading!

But I slept well and deeply and this morning i came slowly awake right before the alarm. ah…

And today is going to be a lovely day. I don’t preach; one of my young wildfire students does. And this afternoon, I have one email to answer and that’s about it for work! The house is clean, the laundry done, and I still have two books I’m poking around in: one mind stretching and one just for fun.

Gentle Sabbath Peace. I wish you the same. Everyday Peace. Every day, Peace.

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

The Priestess Is In