Soft Sabbath Snow Peace

Here where I live, the snow is gathering itself to fall. Hopefully there will be a bunch so the full Moon has something to sparkle on!

I love the silence of the snow. I love the way it makes the world slow, especially if it’s falling hard. On a Sunday afternoon, that means I’m free to snuggle in… or wander around in the beauty. Ah, that’s a Sabbath I have to like!

Pretty fun!

Winter… everyone’s been trying to get rid of it — far too prematurely if you ask me — but in ancient Northern European calendars spring begins today on Candlemas. You have to have noticed that the sun changed, right? I’m dreaming in the morning… this is the only time of the year I dream, as the light begins to infiltrate my morning snoozing.

We’re halfway between deepest Winter and lightest Spring. And out here close to Punxsutawney, we know it! We’re about to haul Phil’s butt out of bed to prognostigate. In preparation for Monday, Here are a Phew Phun Phil Phacts (sorry, I couldn’t help myself.): They hibernate about 150 days. Their temperature drops from 99 to 37, their heartbeat slows from 80 beats per minute to 5, and their breathing drops from 16 breaths per minute to as little as two. I got the gender wrong on this musing. The males awaken about now to visit all the females in their territory, so that when their very small window of opportunity for whistle-pig love opens (about 4-6 weeks later in March). Thus the time period… (it must have been much the same for hedgehogs, because that’s who all the original myths are built on!) The females are obviously still working on their beauty sleep. So they don’t care about the weather, just their hormones!

The Peace of Snow Moon Community

Shoulder to shoulder around the fire. Or at a restaurant. Or at the theater.

The weather’s totally impossible right now. So it’s a good time to snuggle up and get to know you neighbors. Take a chance on finding new people to know and connect with.

Someone just wrote on her facebook page: What to do when it is 7 degrees outside? Have a warm breakfast with good friends and then it goes up to 12….whoo hoo! I responded, see, friendship works miracles. (thanks Benita, you little community builder, weather magician, you!).

It’s not always easy to make connections, and yet it’s so important. And in this season of the cold and frosty Snow Moon, we can use some heart-warming encounters.

Yesterday, I went with a bunch of people to see Art at the local ensemble theater. Oh, we’re so lucky; we have a fabulous theater group in Bloomsburg. But if you don’t live around here, there’s someplace else wonderful to gather; something to spark an interesting conversation.

These small acts of community are beginning acts of Peace. There is great strength in Community. People say it’s Lunacy to go out in this weather. Ah but that’s just their thinking of lunacy as crazyness and not as sacred inspiration! Lunacy has a leading role to play in Peace.

Peace and Lunacy at the Snow Moon

Big Foot. Yeti. Coming to town.

What is it about humans and their myths?

No really, we saw him. Boston. Well, we didn’t see him. Someone did. Pictures!

I once sat next to a guy in a waiting room, when Deb was getting cancer treatments, who was devoting what was left of his life to seeing Big Foot. (he’s all over PA, don’t you know). If that isn’t a metaphor for miracles, I don’t know what is. (and people only see one… never a family, how do they come into being?)

Now don’t get me wrong, I write poems about Faeries… I adore the notion. It was easy to see in the Swedish woods where the stories come from. (I’m not sure that I started out to write a Yeti-denier post)

But what if we kept our Lunacy for working on things like Peace? Wouldn’t the world be better for that?

And let the poor guy with big feet get himself a beer and a hamburger on a cold and wintry day?

Because I’m not really sure what Bigfoot’s going to do to change the world. But I’m pretty sure that Peace is a wild and wonderful idea under the Snow Moon. Let’s hear it for Peace.

Cold Snow Moon Lunacy and Peace

What is it about bright, cold, sunshiny days that spark us to flurries of good work?

I don’t know, but i’ll take it!

I tend to work on many projects which is a mixed blessing. I love it, but whoo, sometimes i get a bit confused and a bit distracted!

But then there’s a day like yesterday and I’m off!

Hard sometimes to keep all the plates spinning at once, or in the image i used in the musing, to keep the right spices in the right soups and to keep them on simmer rather than boil!

And yet, who knows what magic can happen in the midst of the luncacy…

You have to be open. But you also need to be deliberate and occasionally careful… you need some structure to support the wildness.

So… Play to your strengths. Plan. Get your ingredients laid out in their appropriate groups. Then turn on some great chants or a loud and defiant aria; and go wild. Lunacy and Magic are not happenstantial occurrences! They’re very hard work

Create! It’s what you were born to do… It can lead to astonishing feats of Peace. what more could you ask?

Lunacy, Laughter, Snow Moon Peace

Oh, it was a fun and silly thing. Missing imprints in the snow and that was all it took to have a moment of family laughter… even though most of the people laughing were (oh, the temptation to say… beyond the veil… in a sepulchral tone of voice is large) dead and the others not present.

But you know your family well enough that pesky little things like death don’t really bother you. Mine loved to laugh. And yesterday on the bridge, I could hear them all, hear their snorts and snickers, hear them adding to the ridiculousness.

So you laugh. And then you cry. And it all happens on a bridge on the way to breakfast when snowy footprints are obliterated. I’m blaming it on Snow Moon Lunacy and the strength of Love.

Hope Peace ambushes you with laughter and Love. Life really is Magic, isn’t it?

The Lovely Lunacy of Snow Moon Peace

Oh, it was a gorgeous day yesterday; light snow fell and fell and fell!

It kept us busy shoveling, which got me outside enjoying Winter. Where were the children? It was such a lovely snow!

I have nothing deep and meaningful to say about this Beauty. But oh, i enjoy the beauty.

And there’s everything good to be said about going outside and being overcome with delight. I had a fairly relaxed day, Mondays are often down time for me, more about house chores than work. And indeed laundry was done, things put away, sidewalks were shoveled. (And the snow was so light, very little strength was needed to push it around!) The Moon was not admired, the snow had elbowed its way to the front!

But friendships were renewed with visits, chats were had and a gloriously indulgent Hotel Budapest was watched. It was a slow day, dotted with pauses to gasp in wonder.

Lunacy to stand outside in the snow? Perhaps, but what a thing of Peace!

And while I reveled in the Beauty, I was mindful of the danger that many people will be facing today and tomorrow… May all be well.

Dancing Lunacy in the Snow Moon

I had the most fun yesterday. My friend Sue and I, who are inexplicably competing in the the local Aphasia Center’s Dancing with the Stars fundraiser, were plotting and planning.

(Why yes, we do know what we’ll be wearing, thank you! Bling always matters! especially when you’re unsure of your steps!)

We’re only going to win this if lots of generous friends show up… ahem. It’s a great cause. You can sign up here… No one told me that being a minister would get you the good gigs… I think next year, Sue and I should solicit lots more clergy…

But in the meantime, we’re going to have so much fun. Because… hey! Dancing.

Who plots and plans dancing? Few of us. We don’t get together to dance. We don’t get together to sing.

Why is that? Because you know what? it’s incredibly fun. What else is there in your life that you say that about as an adult. It’s incredibly fun. Rise up on the strength of laughter! And where there’s fun, real fun, there’s Peace. Let’s dance!

Indulging in Snow Moon Sabbath Peace

All the beauty of winter was on display yesterday. And here’s it’s message: We have to get out in it while it’s here.

It’s a challenge, it seems to take advantage of the beauty of something as fleeting as snow. But part of snow’s Beauty is the temporary nature of it. Those sweet, beautiful flakes. those blanketing drifts.

It’s so easy to dash toward the cold and wet and the icy. But the Beauty is real.

If we don’t indulge the wonder, we lose so much of life. And the complications are real. You’re going to be late when it snows. There’s going to be extra work. You’re likely to have to pit your strength against its implacable presence. It’s slippery. It’s Winter. It’s snow. Yet another sacred manifestation of a sacred season…

But the slippery part leads to sledding and tobogganing and hot cocoa and laughter. Such different fun that any other season of the year.

And it’s unbelievably beautiful. So mind where you walk and get out there and be amazed and amused. Happy Sabbath! Happy Snow Moon! Happy Peace!

They’re all ours to enjoy and indulge. What are we waiting for?

Snow Moon Harmony and Peace

Singing is a pretty miraculous thing. We don’t give it the space nearly often enough to do what it can…

Something wonderful happens when you sing together. And it deepens when you harmonize.

And when it’s someone very different than you and you are willing to lean in to blend your voice with theirs… then magic can happen… or even Peace.

It makes the work of Peace easier. You have a softer view of someone you disagree with when you’ve just made beautiful music together… and you’ve moved from the weakness of a solitary position to the strength of joined hearts.

Let’s learn those old sweet songs again… and sing together. Let’s make Peace while the snow falls — if we’re sitting shoulder to shoulder around the fire, let’s raise our voices.

Want to have a community sing? hmmmmmmmmm…

Peace in the Midst of Snow Moon?

Bah. Since I wrote yesterday about my thought that humans are now often the deep impediment to other people’s eating, I’ve been trying out the truth of that statement in my mouth.

Sadly, it tastes like truth. It sounds like truth.

I don’t know what it is about metaphor that allows me to see differently, but it does.

I’ve known underemployment and low wages are a major cause of food insecurity in this valley, but I’ve never understood it quite this clearly.

People need living wages. They need to be able to care for their children. Children need to eat if they’re going to be happy kids and productive adults. It all feels pretty straightforward to me…

If people in capitals are not going to change, we’re going to have to use our Peace shovels and make a difference. There’s a lot of snow. The more of us digging, the more who will join us, the more power and strength we add to the task. What if we were the avalanche rather than the greed and stupidity? What if we made Peace what people wanted to do? It can only happen if we step up and do the hard work. Let the politicians see what matters to us. In the meantime, let us feed the hungry. Let us sit shoulder to shoulder around the fire because we have invited people into our abundance. We can make it so.

Sacred Village

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