The Peace of Babies All in a Row!

Some things don’t require a lot of explanation, they just are. They are in fact just perfect.

A limousine stroller full of laughing kiddles and a long rope with slightly larger kiddles hanging on? This falls into the you can’t stand the cute category.

And then they waved and mugged for the camera. man. sweet.

Sometimes Peace is a simple shared moment in time when everything is just beautiful. Babies can give you those moments (especially when they’re someone else’s, riding by and waving!)… Peace, y’all! Let’s celebrate the sweetness… It lubricates the rest of life!

Re-membering Peace

Life is made up of such layers. So many things in our lives that have made it sweet and all those things evolve… some are still part of our lives, some are lost to us and some are just now entering.

Yesterday was the second anniversary of Deb’s death. It’s almost time for what would have been my niece’s 49th birthday. All the joy of that family is held closely… and yet… and yet… they’re all gone.

Last night was the pre-wedding celebration of my friend’s second marriage. HIs first wife, my dear friend, died eight years ago. To see him last night, so happy, so happy! Again! At last!

The dinner was at a carousel. It was a lovely venue on the edge of the East River in Brooklyn. Full Moon rising over the park as we took the water taxi in… We sat looking back at the NYC skyline on a gorgeous summer evening. Eating grilled cheese sandwiches from a food truck. Oh, I remember New York, I remember. It was once a love of mine.

And there was my friend, swirling around the carousel, his bride going up and down on the horse beside him, intimately talking and laughing, just the two of them on the ride… so fun.

And lots of old friends with lots of catching up to do.

So many memories. So much happiness tempering the loss. A chance to both be present to the moment and to put all the pieces back together to envision a sweet, sweet future.

Remembering Love is an act of defiance, an act of Peace. And I’d love to stay longer, but New York is outside my hotel, demanding I remember… and an old friend is here to walk through it with me. Bye for now!

Why Don’t I Do More Art Peace?

Yesterday I got to go on a bus trip to the Philadelphia Art Museum.

Aside from the 5 am wake up, yawn) it was really a lovely thing to climb on a bus and head out. (And let’s here it for Panera’s who open at 6. Very convenient when you’re leaving from their parking lot.)

But the museum provided a day of splendor. So much to see and breathe in.

The light, oh, the light in those Impressionist paintings… and those lovely rivers and coast lines… Every once in a while we’d run into a teacher who was hauling her class around and explaining why this and why that stroke… it was fun to hear.

And the life! Oh, the dancers. Oh the beauty.

And what a daring interesting man Durand-Ruel was who invested in those artists and that movement! Bits of history I never knew.

And I had a lovely introspective moment at the Japanese tea-house. My mom went to art school in Philadelphia and spent formative years there at that museum. We always thought of it as her museum. And I have real memories of seeing that tea house with her. So there I sat for a while, with the Buddha and remembered Mom and being her little girl so amazed that there was a building inside a building and that it was so wonderfully exotic.

It was a moment. I missed her a lot and I was so blessed to have been hers. And although I wasn’t ready for art museums when I was her baby, and I still have to be careful about over-stimulation, it was a wonderful day filled with color and light and movement.

And lovely bus companions. Hurrah.

Here’s to the Peace of Art Museums. Here’s to more thought-provoking Beauty.

Fog Dancers for Peace

My walking partner and I keep getting stopped on our morning walk by the beauty of the river. This morning we sat and watched the sun come up and spill across the river.

I struggle with the early mornings. But waking up and being present to such beauty is a lovely way to call my day into being. Let’s hear it for wonder.

Yesterday’s fog dancers did not drift across the river this morning, the sun was too bold; they are too shy… But this time of month as the nights are colder than the river, they will be back and back and back. You can count on them.

There’s beauty in every day, every season. We have to keep looking.

Here’s to the Beauty. Here’s to the Fog Dancers. Here’s to Peace.

Today and Everyday Peace

Every day. We have to find the Peace of every day. What is wonderful, beautiful and worth celebrating about today?

And then how do we take that Beauty and use it to give us energy for the road.

It bothers me that we spend such time wishing away the moment. People are complaining about winter when it’s 90 degrees and about as humid as a day could get.

And right now, the food is so good you can barely stand it! We’re so lucky. But food will be good but different as each season changes. There’s always something to rejoice about and without the difference in the seasons, this part wouldn’t be so incredible.

So, here’s to every thing wonderful. yum, yum, yum. And here’s to today. Hope you enjoy it. Hope you make Peace.

Abundance. Peace.

This is the time of year when it’s easy to comprehend Abundance. Look at any garden. Count your blessings in numbers and varieties. Although, you may also, if you’re the gardener, be a little overwhelmed by the chaos, which is the flip side of abundance. We need, I believe, good glasses to find the abundance in chaos — and a lot of deep breathing.

But yes. it is our responsibility to eat tomatoes and tomatoes and tomatoes. They’re here. They’re wonderful. Sure. Put them up as well… but taste them! yummmmmmmm.

And Peaches. And Peppers. And whatever else is tickling your fancy.

Although, it must be said, i don’t feel any responsibility to eat the 45 foot long zucchini!

But enjoy. Give thanks. Don’t take this bounty for granted for one moment. And share.

There’s enough for everyone. Let’s share. Let’s Peace, for goodness’ sake.

Creek Sitting Peace

It’s simply amazing. What a silly, wonderful idea.

You pick up your plastic chair and march into the water and plop. There you are.

You and a couple friends. Your friends, their friends, it doesn’t matter. When you’re in the water, it’s magical.

People float by. Hellos are exchanged. Goodwill and enjoyment are acknowledged.

You talk. or you just sit and take it in. Life goes on around the bend but here, there’s nothing but presence.

Beauty before me. Beauty behind me. Beauty around me. Beauty within.

Peace.

Ripe Peach Peace

I totally missed one of my favorite holidays this year because I was traveling. Lammas, the first of August, is always my eat a ripe, juicy peach holiday.

I think there’s nothing more delicious. Nothing more sensual. Nothing more joyful and celebratory of life.

And here we are, with a whole month devoted to such deliciousness! Viva the Fruit Moon!

I think when the fruit is ripe and full, it’s almost a rite of holy obligation to enjoy it if we have the means. And thinking about it, the other part of that obligation is to find a way for others to enjoy as well. Fruit. We should eat it!

Being in our bodies, completely absorbed in appreciating the beauty and abundance of our Mother Earth is a prayer of Peace. Peacing! Praying! Giving thanks!

Sweet Peace of the Road; Sabbath All the Time

I’m on retreat/vacation. Every day’s a Sabbath with me for a while. It’s a wonderful thing and I’m so grateful. I’m being a reading fool. Sometimes a cleaning fool, which IS shocking.

Also a traveling fool. Steve and I took off for Maine for a week and had a wonderful time at our cousins’. Quiet, lovely coastal visit. Lots of oysters. Plenty of lobster. So many books. So many quiet conversations. Piles of Peace and Quiet. Lovely sleeping in the cabin in the woods. Lovely being together. So many blessings it was hard to keep track, let alone count.

We’re good traveling buddies. Talk. Talk. Talk. It’s nice. It was particularly nice doing our night driving on the way home. It was an easy drive with Ms GPS telling me how to get hither thither and yon. So, just lots of comforting darkness. Not even a moon, as it was the dark of the Moon. Just Steve and me and the road.

It was an abundance of plenty. Rejoicing in the Peace.

Now I have a couple more things to do before starting the great writing… but there’s time. Blessed Sabbath to you all… May there be beautiful slow days in your life this summer.

And there was this…

Solstice Sweetness in the Thunder Moon

The clouds hung around all day. And just as I threw up my hands and said that’s all the preparation I’m going to do for the vigil tonight and I’m going to at least slip into the pool, it started to rain.

I listened carefully, it wasn’t rumbling, just raining. So off I trundled to the pool, and slipped in. It really is magical this swimming in the rain thing… It was still hot and the pool was still cool. The guard watched from under the overhang and i mostly floated. ahhhhhhhh.

Then back for the vigil with the two hundred. You’ve heard me on that.

And then out to the local ice-creamery to watch the end of the glorious sunset, a moon hanging in the sky with some planets to chat with and the rising of the fireflies.

I don’t know how much we accomplished on real Peace last night (although I have my suspicions…) but it was lovely to finish the evening in the company of a like-hearted friend rejoicing in the beauty of the earth and the blessings of the Solstice… claiming the sabbath for rejoicing in and being present to Mother Earth and her abundance.

Maybe we’ll do better on big P Peace today…

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

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