Peace on a Changing World

The Earth tilts. The Moon waxes and wanes.

We cool, we warm. Our days shorten and elongate. The Moon waxes and wanes and our tides ebb and flow.

Every day is different, although there are some constants. The progression is always the same.

As a result each day is sacred as move through the seasons and the Moons. There is new wonder to behold for every day.

Makes me suspicious of Ecclesiastes… I don’t think I believe there is a time for war and hate. Or if there was, it’s over. We’ve done that.

Time to make Peace with today. Which means not rushing into spring, but being in the in-between and deconstructing the walls of fear and hatred and stupidity.

Let’s give Peace a real chance. Today, because today is perfectly today — Earth slowly tilting toward the Sun, Moon slowly waning… Let’s be about Peace today.

Where Hate Lines Become Peace Lines

It is exactly where hate happens that we have the largest opportunities to turn things around.

Whether hateful activities are to be the place of Peaceful ones or to be the catalyst for Peaceful movement in other places isn’t what matters, what matters is that hate keeps moving us toward Peace.

We don’t understand hate as hate. The kids on the fraternity bus (and their parents, for goodness sakes) can twist themselves to believe that racist slurs aren’t racist. Senators can convince themselves that the law doesn’t pertain to them… that’s where hate is… and it’s exactly there that it needs to stop.

We’re the ones to turn hate lines into Peace lines. We can start it on our own, we can be a point of Peace, but we want to connect those Peace points into line. Because together we are strong. Together we can. Peace. We can do this. The Peace sap is running, let’s boil it down to its full sweetness… in what’s left of this Sugar Moon… Let’s be present to the possibility of Peace, shall we? and erase those lines of hate.

Lunatic Obsession with Peace Lines

Today, when so many of US senators crossed a stupid and hateful line, I remain obsessed with the notion of lines that heal rather than lines that create conflict.

Pennsylvania’s senator was among them.

In addition to my sorrow, there’s a fair amount of disbelief. Don’t they have any lawyers and protocol officers?

But those of us who don’t choose to walk those paths need to figure out which lines hold our strength in conviction and community and keep moving forward…

Peace. in this Moon and the Next.

Lines of Peace this Sugar Moon Sabbath

Today is the 50th Commemoration, I can’t say anniversary, like it’s a happy thing, of Bloody Sunday.

It was a day about lines. Lines to keep people in boxes that they weren’t going to accept any more. Lines that people in power were clear should never be crossed. Lines that at last, at last, the media finally decided to cross to show what was going on. Lines that kept a nation of people comfortably allowing them to keep thinking of themselves as good people.

We should know our lines. What are the lines we believe never should be crossed? What are the lines that keep us from being fully who we are. Lines both protect and prohibit… it’s an odd thing, isn’t it? We ahve to consier if we’re willing to do the hard work to stand on those lines, to step up to those lines and stand in solidarity alongside others who believe and those who are unwilling to see or wake up.

So, looking at my latitude and longitude helps me consider lines. I live at 40.9˚N and 79.8˚W… What other intersection I live in I’ll need to consider. And meanwhile the Sugar Moon shines sweetly down on all of us, doesn’t it?

If you haven’t read the President’s speech from the bridge yesterday, you might want to. You might want to look up your own latitude and longitude. You might want to think about where your Peace Lines are, which ones you’ll never cross and which ones are holding you back… A blessed and lovely Sabbath to you, my friends!

Sugar Moon Distilling into Peace

You see videos with people doing lots of experiments about how well we respond to people in need. Actually we don’t do very well. People do better in some other countries, and then not so well in some others.

And while it’s an interesting experiment, people’s putting money into the cups of homeless people isn’t all that’s needed by a long shot.

We need to be clear that homelessness isn’t acceptable. We need to be clear that we need jobs and homes, we need people’s generosity and we need people’s strategic addressing of the problems. we need good will, good intentions and good work.

And we need Peace… and Peace needs us… it’s not just our generosity that’s needed, it’s our determination to make the world different… all the pieces are there, the configuration has just been wrong… so let’s boil it all down again. See if we can’t find the nectar that will fuel us for the Peace journey.

Crow Moon Peace!

Dick Bonham, friend of mine, friend of my mother’s (and part of a mutual admiration society for one another’s art), and husband to a friend, did this beautiful piece.

Crow Moon is called that because the cawing crows are supposed to signify the end of Winter. (really, they could try a little harder to let Winter know it’s ok to let go!)

Art about the Moon in celebration of a Baby. Peace. Any questions?

New Peace under the Sugar Moon?

A friend of mine, an amateur but dedicated astrologer, says that we’re in the midst of a large breakdown of societal structures. And that things are spiraling.

Don’t believe in astrology?

Okay, let’s read the newspaper.

Same message.

Determined assaults on public food, healthcare and shelter. Facile racial and religious slurs and hate crimes.

What’s to be done? One response has been the purity movements we’re seeing. They’re causing death and mayhem.

If we remain lackadaisical about this, the purity movements will win and hate will become even more entrenched.

Celebrating diversity and building civilization on that is hard work, no way around it. And it’s necessary. We are the ones. Peace is waiting for us. And creation is under assault while we don’t act. Let us be Peace on Earth. Let us distill the sweetness still here under this Sugar Moon.

The Same Sugar Moon Peace

The same Sugar Moon shines on me shines on you.

There are no hot spots under the Moon… there is only softly silvered landscape, sweetly silvered faces.

When we look at the world under the moon dripping with that soft beauty, it is possible for me to believe in Peace.

It’s not that I can’t see the Peaceful beauty in a sunny day… nothing i love like a lovely day in whatever season we happen to be in.

But the Moon’s touch is gentler. And I don’t think anyone could argue that we could stand a gentler touch…

No one could argue that Peace is what is needed here and now.

Not much else to say this morning, but Peace…

Clinging to Lunatic Peace

There is work to be done. And we’re the doers of that work. Sometimes it’s confusing to figure out what our piece of Peacemaking is.

It’s easy for me to get lost in how big the problems are and how interconnected the problems are and then to poke at those issues as intellectual puzzles rather than deal with it where it’s real. People’s lives are affected by the things we don’t address.

Children are hungry. People of color’s lives are truncated in so many ways by our refusal to see. People in poverty are seen as the problem rather than the result of laws and policies.

Some of us are best suited to deal with symptoms. Some better to rabble rouse and expose the truths of fear and greed’s costs. And some of us are policy makers. Each of those jobs are important.

And each of us can do some piece of one of them.

It’s just a matter of deciding what…

And then rising the swell of a beautiful day and a burgeoning moon to the rescue! The Moon may help us understand we’re all equal but the sun helps us to move from dreams to action.

Let us both dream of Peace and bring it into being. What banner will you take up? What cause will you embrace?

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

The Priestess Is In