The Priestess Is In

What Speed Is Your Peace?

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I’ve always been a speedy person. I have, as a friend points out, a busy brain.

When I was in my 20s. New York was perfect for me. A whole world moving at warp speed. So many new things to explore, to do.

And then… after seminary, it seemed like California was on my agenda. It probably would have been anyway… I’d been dreaming about working for Apple. It almost gives you whip lash doesn’t it, to think about the roads you might have taken and how different your road is now.

And it was slower. Until of course it wasn’t. I guess I’m blessed with being complicated as well as speedy.

And then there was Pennsylvania. As my parents were aging and dying, my life had to be slow enough to accommodate them. It was a hard, joyful, sad and marvelous journey lived at the pace of my elders.

Now the pace is different; in some cases, it’s not yet known. Death discombobulates… you tumble heart over head over tin cups. I’ve been a bit dazed for a while, so it’s been good to meander.

So, as I sit here this morning thinking about taking life slowly, there’s now a flurry about whether or not we’re not going to try and get a grant proposal in by tomorrow. Luckily, I can still move at New York speed when I have to!

Slow Peace is great. And when it concerns whether or not there is money for backpack food for children, I’ll take any kind of Peace i can get, including money from strangers!

FruitMoonLunacyAug31

Friends, Sabbath, Renewal, Peace

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When I thought about this weekend, I thought about my friends who were getting married and the groom’s daughter, my beloved niece.

Somehow, it escaped my imaginings that there would be other friends i knew there. Their family, the circle of friends from California, whom I knew from my years out there. And I hadn’t really factored in the bride’s huge Canadian Clan. Blessing upon Blessing.

So it was lovely and fun and there were lots of people to talk to and laugh with. The room was gorgeous. I enjoyed the ceremony (and you know how judgmental I can be about that!) So many reasons to celebrate!

And it was all so New York, so that was a lovely revisiting as well. And the Moon made herself a beautiful part of the weekend, that full and lovely Lady!

And today, after a visit with my girlie, I’ll come home to my life. This marks the end of a long and lovely summer. Just a few more days to make sense of all the stuff swirling in my head, after this interruption of wild city life!

Today, I’ll be glad to have a relatively slow day of driving and then sitting around staring emptily into space. I’m not used to weekends on the go. But this was a fabulous one!

And at the end… things were changed and different and wonderful. Peace reigns… even the East River, the view out my window, is quiet this morning as I write. I hope you have a wonderful end of summer day!

FruitMoonLunacyAug30

Re-membering Peace

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Life is made up of such layers. So many things in our lives that have made it sweet and all those things evolve… some are still part of our lives, some are lost to us and some are just now entering.

Yesterday was the second anniversary of Deb’s death. It’s almost time for what would have been my niece’s 49th birthday. All the joy of that family is held closely… and yet… and yet… they’re all gone.

Last night was the pre-wedding celebration of my friend’s second marriage. HIs first wife, my dear friend, died eight years ago. To see him last night, so happy, so happy! Again! At last!

The dinner was at a carousel. It was a lovely venue on the edge of the East River in Brooklyn. Full Moon rising over the park as we took the water taxi in… We sat looking back at the NYC skyline on a gorgeous summer evening. Eating grilled cheese sandwiches from a food truck. Oh, I remember New York, I remember. It was once a love of mine.

And there was my friend, swirling around the carousel, his bride going up and down on the horse beside him, intimately talking and laughing, just the two of them on the ride… so fun.

And lots of old friends with lots of catching up to do.

So many memories. So much happiness tempering the loss. A chance to both be present to the moment and to put all the pieces back together to envision a sweet, sweet future.

Remembering Love is an act of defiance, an act of Peace. And I’d love to stay longer, but New York is outside my hotel, demanding I remember… and an old friend is here to walk through it with me. Bye for now!

FruitMoonLunacyAug29

 

Why Don’t I Do More Art Peace?

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Yesterday I got to go on a bus trip to the Philadelphia Art Museum.

Aside from the 5 am wake up, yawn) it was really a lovely thing to climb on a bus and head out. (And let’s here it for Panera’s who open at 6. Very convenient when you’re leaving from their parking lot.)

But the museum provided a day of splendor. So much to see and breathe in.

The light, oh, the light in those Impressionist paintings… and those lovely rivers and coast lines… Every once in a while we’d run into a teacher who was hauling her class around and explaining why this and why that stroke… it was fun to hear.

And the life! Oh, the dancers. Oh the beauty.

And what a daring interesting man Durand-Ruel was who invested in those artists and that movement! Bits of history I never knew.

And I had a lovely introspective moment at the Japanese tea-house. My mom went to art school in Philadelphia and spent formative years there at that museum. We always thought of it as her museum. And I have real memories of seeing that tea house with her. So there I sat for a while, with the Buddha and remembered Mom and being her little girl so amazed that there was a building inside a building and that it was so wonderfully exotic.

It was a moment. I missed her a lot and I was so blessed to have been hers. And although I wasn’t ready for art museums when I was her baby, and I still have to be careful about over-stimulation, it was a wonderful day filled with color and light and movement.

And lovely bus companions. Hurrah.

Here’s to the Peace of Art Museums. Here’s to more thought-provoking Beauty.

FruitMoonLunacyAug27

 

 

Peace and Justice in My Back Yard

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In my little town, we’ve been shaking our heads recently over a particularly nasty case of NIMBYism. And people, who seem to have forgotten how to think before they speak, are saying awful things. Thoughtless in word and deed.

Across town, one of the professors on campus received a hateful racist note on his white board. This is a new song for a different NIMBY chorale. Let our voices swell in outrage and despair. Let us tear our clothes and wail. This may not happen hear. We will not, may not stand for it.

Not in my back yard. No.

Peace demands better of us. Peace demands Change. Peace demands justice.

FruitMoonLunacyAug26

Fog Dancers for Peace

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My walking partner and I keep getting stopped on our morning walk by the beauty of the river. This morning we sat and watched the sun come up and spill across the river.

I struggle with the early mornings. But waking up and being present to such beauty is a lovely way to call my day into being. Let’s hear it for wonder.

Yesterday’s fog dancers did not drift across the river this morning, the sun was too bold; they are too shy… But this time of month as the nights are colder than the river, they will be back and back and back. You can count on them.

There’s beauty in every day, every season. We have to keep looking.

Here’s to the Beauty. Here’s to the Fog Dancers. Here’s to Peace.

FruitMoonLunacyAug25

Day by Day Peace

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So long to my summer idyll. Didn’t get as much swimming in as I often do, since I was in CA… But every time was sweet.

Closing pools always leave me wistful. it’s not that I mind the advent of Autumn (although I still hold that TWO weeks before labor day is too early to close the pool)… it’s that I love the being suspended in a body of water outside. And a town pool at the close of a year is often fairly quiet. (For some reason, some people get tired of the pool. Go figure!)

Last night, I found myself frantically googling “Lakes close to Lewisburg,” thinking, it can’t be over, it can’t!

But it is. So, time to join an indoor pool that’s big enough I can actually get those laps in so I’m strong enough (for life and) getting my Lifeguarding Badge! Time to figure out some plans for next summer’s indulgence.

And oh, right, get back to work.

But oh, the sweetness of the town Pool and Summer. Luckily, its Peace will come again next year.

FruitMoonLunacyAug24

 

Peace of Summer Weddings

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When one of your domain names is The Wedding Priestess, you get to do a lot of weddings.

Because I have a wedding outline but not a set wedding service, I spend a lot of time working with couples to create services that reflect who they are. In that time I get the opportunity to really know and care about my couples. Lucky me!

And then I get to preside over the love fests.

It’s a fun and lovely way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

Every couple who marries is a reminder to us that Love is all that really softens our edges enough to help us grow in directions we want to go. So let’s here it for love and outrageous ambitious promises!

And for me, it’s an opportunity to remember all my couples… so fun.

And now? have a lovely Sabbath, whether you pack it full of fun or do nothing at all!

I’m off for among other things, my last swim at the town pool…

Peace, you all. May Peace, Love and Happiness be yours…

FruitMoonLunacyAug23

Great People Making Great Peace

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Ah, Jimmy Carter. Wishing you an easy passing. May Death be as kind to you as you have been to Life. May your wife find comfort in all the amazing things you have shared and the love so many have for you.

President Carter is a spectacular man who has done great things for this world. I suspect, watching his announcements, that in addition to whatever he is able to do for women as he has pledged, he will lead us in a gracious acceptance of his dying. He is, as we hate to remember, 90. If it hadn’t been this, it would have been something. May it be easy.

I’m always a bit of two minds when someone who has done great things. I’m filled with admiration and gratitude. But I’m also aware there is greatness in many of us if we only put our hearts and minds to it. There is so much we can do. There is so much difference we can make. The hard work is ours to assume.

Thank you, President Jimmy Carter, for all the work you have done. Thank you, Mrs. Carter, and I’m so very sorry. So many years together and now you are called to practice open hands, open hearts… Peace, Comfort and Blessings to you all. Our thoughts and prayers are with you and your family… and with the country who claims you as theirs…

And now in your names, let us make a difference together. Let us Peace.

FruitMoonLunacyAug22