Every Day, Beauty; Every day, Peace

Every day, there is something about that day’s unfolding that is beautiful. Actually, there are many things, if we just look.

But we need let go our assumptions that there is only one kind of beauty or we miss what the world has to offer.

Every day the world unfolds. To miss that is to miss life. We don’t have life to waste, wishing it away. Life is so precious; and it’s so damned fleeting. So many people I’d like back for a bit longer… So many people I’d have missed if I hadn’t had that grey fall or that long winter. Beauty is there on offer and it’s there to discover and it’s there to make. Same with Peace. It’s up to us. See it or waste it. Make it, or shorten our engagement with Peace and Beauty.

Beauty every day. Peace every day. Because every day matters.

Solitary Sabbath Peace

Ah, the duck and the Beauty she’s sailing into. Captivating!

We don’t head toward Beauty often enough, I fear — not in the world and not in ourselves. Even when things are in a terrible mess, our job is to head toward Beauty, to head toward Peace. This photo suggests what many of us lose sight of. Dawn offers opportunities for Beauty — and for departure — that the procrastinators among us often miss.

Whether we leave for a day at work, or a walk in the woods, or for our life’s big journey, why not leave in Beauty on the way toward Peace? Why not give ourselves a full day of the road ahead?

Here where I am, it’s a misty, mysterious morning. There is time for quiet and tea before I join my community for work. ahhhh. I’ll take that blessing and then I’ll drive along the foggy river and hope to catch the fog dancers at their spring training — and perhaps a few of this duck’s noisy friends. Have a day filled with Peace, foggy or otherwise. Find the Beauty and move toward it. Find the Peace.

Shadows and Peace

We live in a world dominated by fear. Maybe that’s always so. Maybe because I came up in the generation I did, graduating college in the mid-70s, there was the thought that things could change — and would keep on changing.

I guess they did, but the clouds above aren’t big and white and fluffy, hopeful sort of clouds, they are grey and low-hanging. They are clouds of fear and hate.

I’m astonished by the hate. I realize I’m hopelessly naive about the hate and the fear. Between my family, my religious up-bringing, my year abroad as a Rotary Exchange Student, and my tiny, little women’s college attended in the 70s, I really thought we had the blues on the run. I’ve seen hope triumph and assumed it triumphed forever. It didn’t.

The stupid, hateful fear-mongering that is going on now, the casual disregard for one another’s humanity is horrifying to me. And it’s so big. Hard to know where to enter the fight.

As always it comes back to our choices. We can’t give up on the macro level, we have to participate. I do best working here at home with like minded people. Tiny little acts of love and courage. But we cannot be out of touch with those who do the other work. They are our neighbors too. We can help them keep believing that there are reasons for Hope, that change is possible. We must feed and nourish their souls even as we struggle to find ways to feed and nourish the people of our towns and cities and countrysides.

Under threatening skies, let us build shelters for our neighbors and ourselves. Let us build enclaves of Hope and Beauty, Art and Commerce. Let us understand that storms pass, because they do, however horrible they are in the meantime. But in the storms, we can be the light and the hope. We can push back the hate.

If we believe in Peace, we must do so.

I believe in Peace.

Fleeting Gold, Lasting Peace

Part of the reason I wanted to write this series this year was to encourage us to be present to the moment. From the very beginning of the year, really, from January first, people started listing the number of days until spring or summer. (as if summer isn’t just a count down to winter, hello folks!).

It’s so foolish to wish away time. For those of us who have sat at the end points of people’s lives, we know how precious those last days are, even when it’s clear they’re leaving, and soon, on the go-to heaven bus.

Those last moments to soothe, and comfort. The last laughs and words of love. As hard as it is, it’s so very sweet, so powerfully intimate, so agonizingly beautiful. It’s beauty you don’t want to look past, even if you wish your beloved weren’t suffering (And I’m here to tell you modern medicine and humans had better figure out the hows and whys of keeping people comfortable.) But those awful moments are also gold. And then they’re gone.

But the going doesn’t diminish the beauty. They’re just over.

Winter is beautiful. It’s hard. It’s Beauty is unlike the Summer’s. As I sit writing, it’s pouring outside, making dangerous ice. Stay home, not good driving conditions. But still… beautiful for all that…

When the gold appears, stop and notice. Stop and appreciate. Stop and give thanks. And then keep your eyes open, because it will happen again.

You make Peace last by remembering those moments. The more you notice, the more you’ll see. The More Peace you’ll make. May that be so.

For today, I have this photo of golden beauty and a day at the computer and the kindle. I have food. I have flowers in the house and candles. Life is pretty darned good. (and my landlord shoveled! hurrah!)

Cold Sabbath Peace

When the World is this cold, there’s not much stirring outside.

We huddle in our barrows and long for spring.

When we do, we miss the beauty. Crystalline air. Ice sculptures made of the most mundane webs and branches. Rivers slowed by pieces of itself frozen fast to the shoreline.

However you participate, this day offers itself up for your enjoyment. It’s a day off for many of us. How will you fill this precious Sabbath?

Bundle up. Wear all the clothes you’re supposed to. And go out into the world — go out knowing that you can come back in.

And spare thoughts for those who have no place to go. Maybe spare some change.

Peace needs to be for all of us.

Here’s to a frozen Sabbath Peace. May you enjoy it.

The Peace of a Winter’s Night

There are so few perfect Winter nights. I know, this year’s column is all about being at Peace whatever comes, but those spectacular winter evenings when there’s snow on the ground and you go outside into the quiet Darkness.

I love the nights that are not the in-between nights best. If it’s snowing, that’s great — Gambol in the snow! If it’s clear it’s amazing — Bundle up and tip your head back to watch the sky.

Trish’s picture really caught the magic of a perfect Winter’s night.

I hadn’t realized, there seem to be far more great Summer evenings. Get a warm night and out you head to the ice cream stand… You could, if you didn’t care about your hips, do that several times a week.

But these perfect Winter nights? There are only a couple to savor each Winter. Inertia can keep you from getting out and enjoying… and then you miss it!

There is Peace in a beautiful Winter’s night. Don’t miss it!

The Peace of Being Who You Are

The eagle in this picture is so glorious in his existence.

Animals are who they are. That’s all they know how to be. That’s all they know who to be. And they know it’s enough. So they sit and preen in the sunlight. Not for us. Just because it feels wonderful.

Too many of us spend too much of our lives trying to be someone we’re not. Eagles don’t have that complication. Find food. Eat. Share with your mate and your children. Nest. Protect your mate. Sit on a branch in the sunshine.

Our lives may be more complicated than that, but they’re often not as complicated as we make them.

Sometimes, it’s just about being beautiful and allowing others to enjoy… Sometimes we might turn our head in a different direction to find our Peace. Because the world needs our beauty as much as it needs our brains. It needs our Love as much as our strategy.

Peace. What if we could make it simpler?

Puddle Dancing for Peace

Here on the East Coast today, we are perhaps needing to roll a snow man or sled down a hill rather than to dance in a puddle… but the message is the same. This is the beauty we have. Dance in it. Enjoy it.

It’s not an inconvenience. It’s what is.

We prepare for what’s ahead, if we can… and deal with what arrives. Wishing it were different takes an awful lot of time — wastes an awful lot of time. And when it comes to weather, we can’t really make it much different — well, we can stop doing things, and demand that corporations stop doing things that contribute to climate change.

But when the weather is here, might as well dance. Rain or shine, we might as well dance for Peace. Every day.

Our Own Beautiful Peace

There is inside us such beauty. So often we are afraid to share that beauty with the world.

But sometimes we can’t hold back.

So it is with dusk… It’s a daily thing, this setting of the sun and its rising. But some days the sun cannot hold back. In fact, i think the sun would preen every day if the clouds would let it. It’s proud of the beauty it can offer.

Would that we always were.

But on this grey and misty day, maybe we can consider indulging our own Beauty.

That way lies Peace.

Remembering the Peace of Advent

One of the hard truths about this time of year is that we are forced to confront what we may have missed, or have lost. For some of us, those of us who are very privileged, the holidays have been sweet, families have been united and traditions have traveled between the generations. But even those people have lost beloved family members who are no longer there.

It takes a while to recalibrate. It takes a while to decide to focus not on what i don’t have but on what is there. It’s important for me to honor the heart of the holidays, both religiously and communally. But it’s also time to cut out the pieces of the holiday that no longer fit.

I love to think of the root of the word remembering … to re-member, to piece back together. To take the remnants of the good and to make something beautiful from it.

It takes a while to demand (of yourself) the space to celebrate holidays in your image in a fashion that suits you. But you are worthy of that. If you’re alone, find other people who also are. Or celebrate another holiday and make that yours until you can reclaim your own for yourself.

Remember the holidays… Feel free, not to long for what you once believe you had, but to create that which celebrates the deepest possibilities of life. Savor the Dark. Explore the Mystery. Be amazed by the Wonder. Gather with those who love you as you are — even if that means you’re alone and loving yourself fiercely.

Allow your holidays to be filled with Peace. Share that with others. Remember. Make that cloak of beautiful memories and move forward with joy. Peace be with you. Peace be with us all.

Alternative Advent December 12 – 15¢ if you have dishes in your house. There are actually people in our Susquehanna Valley who do not. So be generous. if you have more than one set, try 15¢ per set.

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

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