We Need Peace With Earth

Earth Day is tomorrow. It’s having it’s 45th birthday.

On the one hand, people are aware and involved.

On the other, we are naive, oblivious and self involved.

It’s all very hard work. Many of us do some of the things we’re supposed to. We work to reduce, recycle, reuse. We compost. We drive better cars. And all of us have secret and not so secret places where we’re not really so good.

One of the places we often fall down is in the political involvement, because corporations do all sorts of dirty things that all the bricks in the toilet and turning off the water while brushing your teeth can’t begin to touch.

I think we also pay too little attention to the sacredness of this planet. I think that because we litter, we don’t pay enough attention, we accept that things are/will be polluted. Why is it a crime to desecrate a church and not the land? it has come to this, picking up trash, working to clean up streams, protesting pollution and unsafe practices is a life of prayer. Are we ready for that?

I know the original chant said it a little differently, but my group always sang it this way:

Where I stand is holy
Holy is the ground
Forest, mountain, river,
Listen to the sound
Love is all around me.

In this time of the Flower Moon, when Mother Earth so generously shares her beauty and promises her bounty, let us take off our shoes and stand in grateful reverence. And then let us begin the work of Peace with the Earth.

Imagine Flower Moon Peace

Oh, John Lennon. We miss you.

We miss your tender optimism. We miss your vision and hope.

Here we are, all these years later in dystopia rising.

Everyone’s learning to fight and shoot.

Not a lot of time to imagine when you’re avoiding a quick right hook or thinking you’re fighting off savage marauders. No time for joy. No time for hope. No time for Moons that promise and bring the flowers…

Imagine giving Peace a Chance. Imagine.

Flower Moon Sabbath Peace

Spring Mornings. They’re really quite beautiful. Blue, blue skies that you can still see because the leaves haven’t come out to block the sky. Chilly temps that you know will warm. This is the weather that the Flower Moon brings along with the march of spring flowers.

Spring afternoons when you finally are excited about doing chores that by the end of the summer will annoy and bore you.

Sunday mornings, quiet before the dash to church and meetings. Well, except for the birdsong outside!

Sunday afternoons when a walk requires nothing more than grabbing a sweater before you walk out the door. When a pool of sunlight is just meant for dragging a chair into as you read the Sunday Papers.

It’s a sweet time of year. It’s still a little early to start gardens but just in time to ream about them. A day off means time to enjoy the wonder and beauty and be grateful for Nature’s abundance.

Sweet Sabbath Peace to you, my friends. Enjoy the day.

Flower Moon Love and Peace

The Flower Moon. Today’s the day it begins to build. In a couple hours, not one bit of the moon will be visible. Even now, as I write, there’s just 0.1 percent of the Pink Moon left. (I know, it’s daytime so it’s not visible at all!)

But, then there it will hover, a vast empty slate, full of possibilities.

It’s called the Flower Moon because the world gets so busy blooming. But it’s also called the Mother Moon, the Milk Moon and the Corn Planting Moon. Mammals all over our region are giving birth and nurturing their young.

We’ve got stuff to think about! Finding the Peace and the Balance. And today? we also have Love to think about. One young philosopher is making huge discoveries about Love… here we are. Love is and it keeps going. I’m not sure whether he was thinking that we keep loving those that were gone, or that their Love lingers on our hearts when they’re gone… tiny little fuel cells of Love.

So, in the Flower Moon, let us Love and let us Peace!

Pink Moon Daddy Peace

Some days, rather than writing about the world, I need to write about what’ and who are all the world to me.

My father would have been 100 today. That’s a righteous number of years of which he lived 93.

He was a good man. He was a gentle man, a gentleman. A bit stern, a chemist, so very thorough. He was a Christian in all the ways that mattered. He was thoughtful, stood for what was right, served on committees, school boards, municipal boards, pool boards. He helped start the day care center and the women’s shelter.

I’m proud of him. Proud to be his daughter and follow in his lineage. Proud of his grandkids for him and in his way… Grateful for him.

Oh, we had so much fun in the last years of his life.

So Happy Birthday Daddy. I’ll try and find some lemon meringue this weekend and lift a forkful to you in celebration. I’ll call my brother and tell him I love him. And write his grandkids and tell them I’m proud and that he would have been so proud.

Peace. I was a lucky woman with a good father. I miss him, but mostly I’m just so happy I had him and that he had the raising of me. I’m a better woman for it.

Lucky me. Lucky Peace. Thanks Pink Moon, for a great Daddy. And wow, a whole century of him!

Pink Moon Peace Realities

It is what it is. My friend Lenore says that all the time. And I keep coming back to it.

Paid my taxes yesterday. Every year, the Pink Moon arrives and you can bet that Tax Day won’t be far behind. It was a stretch. And you know what? I’m doing it wrong. Year after year. It doesn’t change — because I don’t change.

I like to think I’m just that way with money. but I’m pretty sure I’m lying to myself. I think if I did some accounting, I’d be aware of places I’m not balanced in most of my life.

I know I pay a price for it financially. What do you want to bet I pay a price for it in other ways… and other people pay a price as well…

And then that lovely question… and what am I going to do about it?

Realities just help us to see both the distance and the terrain of the journey to Peace. Peace means a lot of things. Our honesty is part of the struggle. Sigh. There’s always work to do. Luckily it’s a beautiful day for work. What day isn’t?

Pink Moon Gecko of Peace

Oh, I love word silliness. This particular small bit of word silliness amused me more than many small bits.

Yes, it’s sad that this child has so little written language and doesn’t listen well. I’m sure his prof is flummoxed about how to help this college-aged child embrace learning as well as pass his class. I know there’s some serious underlying stuff here. But as a friend once said, “Shallow can be nice.”

And oh, the shallow take on this? Joyful. Delicious. Laughter, the best medicine.

Ask the Gecko… Only the Gecko knows.

I wish I’d known when I was in Florida that those quick lil fellers had the answers to all the important questions of life — or at least the day… I’d have been more inquisitive.

Goodness knows I like knowing things.

But you really need to steer clear of the bad news Geckos. If that’s all you get, you’re just looking on the wrong sunny wall.

Hey, lil Pink Moon Gecko of Peace, what’s the haps?

Leaning on Pink Moon Peace

I know, I’m the one who keeps saying be here today; don’t wish it away.

But yesterday was so beautiful, it was hard not to want more, more, more.

But it was what it was, one sweet, perfect shining jewel of a day.

To want more is human, but ultimately greedy. And doesn’t leave you loving what you have right now — a perfect Pink Moon Jewel of a day. Flowers coming up, trees considering, and sun on our faces.

Oh, we give thanks! Mother Earth, Nature, the Divine, however you call it, got it right.

And if we’re smart, we’ll let the Peace and Beauty of that day dwell in us… and we’ll dwell in it. Because that’s where the Peace is! That’s where the Magic is! Both are pretty grand

A River Runs through Peace

Part of the Pink Moon season is snow melt and April showers. Those two things swell my lovely Susquehana and make my favorite drive all the more interesting.

And for some reason, who knows why, I far prefer the ride up the river, although traveling down river is technically just as lovely… since it’s all the same river!

Aren’t humans funny. (Although as I told someone not long ago, one day as I was driving up-river at dusk, the entire river and the valley were filled with sunset rose and it may just have been the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen). I like this, better than that, when both are pure beauty?

Ah, but the river runs and the fish, birds, and animals enjoy it. A friend says she waits to see a brontosauras grazing… and actually, it’s not ridiculous… they used to hang out right there. All those tasty river grasses!

For me, Peace is there. Most of the time, that river is calm, calm, calm. It’s true occasionally it can rage. But so can we all…

I think I need to visit it a bit more often this Spring. See what I can learn from it.

Every day I go there I’m likely to find Peace floating by! I am so grateful!

Gathered Sabbath Pink Moon Peace

I’ve been hanging out with dear friends at their new home. It’s a gorgeous Pink Moon kick-back spring weekend. Not too warm, not to cool.

I’m about an hour and a half south of where I live, so the daffodils, forsythia, and dogwood are well started.

We’ve listened to music, visited galleries and food markets, eaten: cuban food, local ice cream and my friend’s very good cooking. We’ve seen the sights: the parks, the libraries, hospitals, churches, college campuses and gorgeous old houses.

Tomorrow, I’ll preach, but after that, it’ll be a lot the same!

This is a sweet Sabbath weekend. And I’m drinking in the Peace of time with friends who are exploring new possibilities and new realities!

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

The Priestess Is In