Needed: Pink Moon Sabbath Peace

The world needs a Peace that’s pregnant with possibilities. It needs a Peace that holds that Life is sacred and stops for a moment just to be present to it.

This weekend, which is the weekend of the first Sabbaths in the Pink Moon is just such a weekend to contemplate that Peace. Spring is, snow notwithstanding, burgeoning. This is a moment in time where everything seems possible.

Maybe we need to take a pause, relax and refresh ourselves… and as the song says: start all over again.

Right now, we’re watching one jihadist who grew from a basketball-loving kid — but there are thousands of them. The fault is not just in them, it is in a world that fosters that need for structured hate.

In moments when I feel most hopeless when I see what’s going on “over there,” I have to remember that some of that started here. I can’t do much about over there. I can do something, no matter how small about over here. Because today it’s Minneapolis, tomorrow it could be the Susquehanna Valley. Despair has made itself at home in a lot of people. And lest we point fingers at one religious group, let us remember our white supremacy groups of which my home state has so many. It’s the same hate, it just dresses differently.

We then, are the answer, the antidote, we and the inspiration of this beautiful spreading Spring and a new Moon of Possibilities. Let us pray… and then let us get to work!

Pink Peace Lunacy

We hear and we hear and we hear about things that are wrong with this world. And there are many things. Isn’t it time that we begin to create the things that are right with this world? Isn’t it time we be what is right with this world?

I’m still grappling with this notion of sacred honor… trying to understand what it means to me… thinking that perhaps it needs to mean something so that things change. I believe that we’re the change. And that people in parts of the world where change is much harder than here need to know that we believe that they’re the change.

Although it’s certainly easier for me to consider what the change might be here far away from some of the awful violence people are experiencing.

But if Spring can turn a white world into pink beauty, if the Moon can go from nothing to bursting, if we can begin again, then Lunacy is not impossible — and neither is Peace. Let us be Lunatics of Love and Hope and Peace. Let’s start now!

Pink Moon Spring Peace

Or should that be Pink Moon Peace Springs? Whatever, it’s all here! The Pink Moon! Spring! In our area, it came in cloaked in lovely white snow. The Peace part is up to us.

It’s a wild and wonderful time as the weather dances back and forth. But we all know what direction it’s going! The phlox is going to win this. It’s her turn.

Peace? Is Peace going to carpet the world like the wild phlox?

Well, that Possibility is sort of up to us, isn’t it?

Snow Moon Peace Prayers

A couple marries. A young husband dies. A restaurant is shot up in Göteborg. The season changes, the Moon darkens and then, ever so slowly begins to grow again. Blessed to stand by the edge of the ocean, I open my heart…

To be aware. To be grateful. To be of use. To bring Peace. To be aware. To be grateful. To be of use. To bring Peace. To be aware. To be grateful. To be of use. To bring Peace.

Today, back in my life. I have the same prayer. and did I forget to mention, to be delighted.

Honoring Snow Moon Peace

“My Sacred Honor.”

I think that I take myself, my calling and my goals seriously and then I hear this phrase.

Do I consider myself to have Sacred Honor? And even if I can wring a quiet equivocating yes from myself, do I carry that as a central tenet of my work and being?

Or do I dismiss that as fanatical? Is it? Must it be so?

Do I underestimate the importance of what I do and believe if I don’t see this as Sacred Duty and that my Honor is dependent upon my steadfastness to the task? If I don’t do this work, am I daily spending those important moments in self-reflection?

How does it change how I work and speak about my Work if I accept that my remaining true not only to myself but to my Work and my Belief in that work — and in myself?

I think I’m going to have to poke at this a while… In the meantime, Peace be with us. And may we be Peace. We’re winding down, just a few days left in the Sugar Moon, soon the Pink moon will start spreading its carpet of blossoms across our lives. It’s important to be patient for the last few days of the boiling down to nectar of this Moon. Peace is sometimes called upon to be a Patient and exacting Peace.

Peace without Patron Saints?

I like a party as well as the next woman — or at least I used to before I discovered I could stay home and write…

But St. Patrick’s day (in addition to having been my Aunt Kathryn’s birthday) has always been a bit over the top as it’s celebrated in this country.

I spent my 20s and much of my 30s in New York City. What a day of revelry St Paddy’s day was! And I suppose still is. Marching bands and green beer. Lots of public drunkenness. Really, last night as I was sifting through images i thought, oh, my goodness, cops used to fall asleep on park benches and in the subway. That was an earlier trusting time. They were wearing guns! Nobody took them! Nobody hurt the cops. So I guess there is some good stuff to those earlier times. And recently, as in this year, LGBTQ folk get to march along with everyone else even in Boston’s parade. So, backing down the discrimination is good…

But the more I read about the Patron saint for this, the more I began to question the notion of Patron Saints… Rome, and it’s friend Christianity, were in Ireland to conquer it for the empire and spread their version of orthodox religion. I suddenly stopped and thought, right, they killed a lot of people, Pagan and Pelagian, in the name of the one true faith.

They drove out the “snakes.” How old were we before we realized, right, the only snakes they talked about were the Pagans, the unbelievers.

It makes me weary. Can we, we the people, start working on Peace that includes rather than excludes? It seems to be time, doesn’t it?

Peace for everyone… not just for one group… because that’s just oppression. Peace from Love.

Snow Geese, Swans & Sugar Moon Peace

Migration is such an amazing thing. Birds travel thousands of miles from their summer to winter homes and then back again. (well, they’re traveling to keep the same seasons going).

Because I live two blocks from a North/South waterway, there’s no escaping this beautiful reality.

I drove over to “the” field yesterday about dusk and 2000 birds were taking off. They flew in formation back and forth, catching the sun and then the shadow. They looked like an Escher print. Now brilliantly white, then golden in the sun, then black in shadow. The Vees formed and reformed. They called back and forth.

Every year, the same astonishing display. As I said, for me, it’s wrapped up in my Dad… but the beauty is overwhelming on its own. There it is, for free. Today, maybe tomorrow, but certainly next year! Making memories and all we have to do is show up and be present.

Every day there’s a reminder of life’s Abundance and Beauty. Swans and Geese are today’s gift of Peace from the Snow Moon. (oh, and the gulls, let’s not forget the gulls!)

Sugar Moon Sabbath Wonder and Peace

Wherever you go, there is beauty.

For me, part of writing daily is to remember this. My musings are a spiritual practice of observing what’s right here in front of me.

The act of observation offers a deep reminder to appreciate — whether it’s an appreciation of the possibilities that lie at the heart of dysfunction or, like today, simply the simple awareness of the sight and sound of birds, on the wing and on the ground.

March is often a damp and chilly month — and every single day of it — just as every frigid day of February — is worth appreciation. No other day is like this one. The moon changes every day, and even if we were to look at the same time every day the Crescent Moon changes by degree and position and of course by when it rises and sets… it’s all pretty astonishing, isn’t it?

It’s a Sabbath today, let us enjoy both the day and the wonder.

Wishing you the Peace of a wonderful day.

Happy Sugar Moon Peace Pi(e) Day

So a friend chastised those of us celebrating Pi(e) day for not celebrating Tau day. (And looking at this article from the Kahn Academy… it looks like last year was the year to have really whoop(ie pie)d it up… Hopefully she’ll help me remember 6.28 this year!

But I think it’s delightful to have a lovely day the entire world can agree on… and liking math and circles and pie can’t be a bad thing.

Peace is built on celebrating both differences and similarities. We share Pi… Let’s share Pie!

Let’s all enjoy a piece of the blessed Peace Pie. There’s plenty to go around. Even the Sugar Moon seems to be in on it!

Only Peace in the Sugar Moon

Language has power. Words matter.

But it seems that things that have been in our lives forever don’t often get noticed.

I was really startled yesterday when I went back to that Ecclesiastes passage yesterday. It was a passage you heard a lot. Thanks to the Byrds and coming of age at the right time it was a song I heard and sang often…

But yesterday as it came to mind, I realize I really don’t believe this. I don’t believe that any God ordains war or hate or killing. There’s no gift of the Universe in racism, sexism, name whatever ism you can come up with. No.

Today when Boko Haram and ISSL are declaring themselves engaged, I want to say clearly, I understand that they think their fanaticism is Divinely ordained — and I think differently. Very differently.

Whatever you hold as holy or precious is life-giving, not life denying… and if it’s not, look up holy. Explore it. Spend some time in Nature and come home and say, oh, yeah, war, what a great idea. I don’t think so.

Peace is Sacred. Misunderstandings and Differences are opportunities to grow toward Peace. War and hate are simply giving in to the laziness of not understanding. I get the seduction… But as Matt Fox says: Artificial Ecstasies…

Bah. Under this particular Sun. Under this Sugar Moon: Peace. It’s what we’re made for…

Therefore let us keep the feast.

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

The Priestess Is In