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!

Peace, Community, Sabbath, and a Full Moon

Gathered community. Gathered community knitted together — or more correctly, gathered community knitting itself together around relationship and commitment and family.

What is intimacy? What is family? what is celebration?

These are not daily conversational tidbits in our life… and yet what prepares us?

This wedding was presided over by two judges and a priestess. (sounds like a movie, no?)

Lots of stuff was swirling around the gathering… and we rode the waves. As I told you, I found myself in the catching position… and another new nephew, and another new nephew and another new niece… and zoom…

and on the Sabbath, we all rested. family tradition mimosas for brekkie. (over hotel waffes and birthday cake, goodness gracious, pleeze, may there be protein soon.) civilized coffee in a foo foo hotel. a little writing. a nap coming up.

And more family. wonderful kids who have wonderful kids.

Peace as a jigsaw with lots of little pieces… being slowly fitted together. leisure. no need to hurry. we’ve got most of this day.

Peace be with you. and catch tonight’s Full Flower Moon. I’ve got a date with my pillow.

Sweet Festival Flower Moon Peace

The Flower Moon is doing her job. Gardens are just quivering with delight. Trees are loaded. Peepers are peeping. It’s Spring, dadgummit!

It’s cool today, but the sun is shining.

A half a block away from my house two large metal sculptures are for sale. One is an almost full sized elephant head. The other is a saucy dragon. oh yeah.

It’s my party. which the whole town threw just for me, or that’s how I’m looking at it.

In villages all across the Susquehanna Valley, indeed our country, maybe even our world, people are celebrating Spring. They’re strolling in small towns, eating festival foods, greeting their neighbors, hanging out with their friends and having a good old time.

My husband’s playing in the park from 11:30-12:30. Go bang a drum with him.

(I’ll be at the food court, meeting my buds!

And coughing, yes, and coughing. But I just visited my favorite pharmacist, so I can at least mask the symptoms! Because I certainly don’t want to stop the flowers!

Bright wonderful Festival Peace be with you. Happy Birthday to my 3 birthday buddies and blessings to Ro and Arlyne who at long last are getting married! Celebrate! Create Community. and just flat out enjoy!

Pink Moon Daddy Peace

Some days, rather than writing about the world, I need to write about what’ and who are all the world to me.

My father would have been 100 today. That’s a righteous number of years of which he lived 93.

He was a good man. He was a gentle man, a gentleman. A bit stern, a chemist, so very thorough. He was a Christian in all the ways that mattered. He was thoughtful, stood for what was right, served on committees, school boards, municipal boards, pool boards. He helped start the day care center and the women’s shelter.

I’m proud of him. Proud to be his daughter and follow in his lineage. Proud of his grandkids for him and in his way… Grateful for him.

Oh, we had so much fun in the last years of his life.

So Happy Birthday Daddy. I’ll try and find some lemon meringue this weekend and lift a forkful to you in celebration. I’ll call my brother and tell him I love him. And write his grandkids and tell them I’m proud and that he would have been so proud.

Peace. I was a lucky woman with a good father. I miss him, but mostly I’m just so happy I had him and that he had the raising of me. I’m a better woman for it.

Lucky me. Lucky Peace. Thanks Pink Moon, for a great Daddy. And wow, a whole century of him!

Community Pink Moon Peace

For a woman raised in a very calm and quiet household, lord love me, i adore a little chaos. (Particularly if I have a quiet place to retreat to afterwards.)

When I was an exchange student and I went from having two fairly quiet siblings to having four fairly noisy siblings, while I missed home, I thrived.

And found a way to fit in. And continued to treasure the quiet moments.

Maybe because belonging to a group, my family and my church community, were so safe, I don’t mind watching the chaos swirl if it’s benign and building community.

I believe in community. I find it healing and inspiriting. It welcomes you home and kicks you out. It makes it possible to do things you can’t do alone. It’s a good thing.

and when laughter and hilarity ensue from learning about important things. hurrah. That happened for me yesterday. And because it’s the Season of the Pink Moon, there was an entire wonderful collision of holidays to celebrate… Making memories. Making sense. Making Community.

April Fools and Lunatics

Well, we woke up and the ugly laws are still there. Laws that say that what I believe means that I may forbid you services: health, food, housing. The Fools say: oh, we didn’t meant tha-at. The Lunatics say: this is not acceptable. Peace is inclusion.

This country was founded, with flaws, it must be admitted, on civility and citizenship.

Every amendment we’ve made to its founding has been for greater inclusivity.

But there’s something about homosexuality and this moment in history that makes us think it’s ok to say you’re less than human. And it seems that has given us permission to step up our racism and our misogyny.

Lots of people sitting back and smugly shaking heads that this just proves how crazy people are. It’s not the right reaction. We have to stand up and change the laws. We have to stand up and shop other places. We have to vacation other places. Wake up. Stand up. Speak up. Step up.

As I write, I realize beloved nephew is getting married in Arkansas. So Miss Wake up. Stand up. Speak up. Step Up, Priestess had better figure out how she’s going to respond when there.

Everyone has worth and dignity. Everyone is precious. People of faith and philosophy had better figure that out. We’re here to celebrate creation and create community.

Watch out April Fools whose jokes have turned mean. We are Pink Moon Lunatics for Peace. and we vote, in the voting box and with our dollars.

Snow Moon, Groundhog Lunacy, Peace Anniversaries

Well big surprise, Phil saw his shadow. But since we found out it was just Phil looking for love, once he figured out which doors to knock on, it’s no big surprise that we’ll have to burrow in for another six weeks. Boy’s gotta build up his strength…

Once again I have been deceived by the snow Moon who promised big snow Love, but delivered rain instead. Ah well, I got a workout in shoveling out my steps… Some wonderful person blew the rest of the (not as much as promised) snow away. Hurrah for neighbors. And good for me. I have to build up my strength as well so I get to keep having a fabulous life.

This is my day of days. It’s a day of great memories. It’s a day when I’ve made important promises and today I get to celebrate keeping them. I committed to being a Priestess. I have kept that vow. I came home to be with and care for my parents. I kept that promise and did the same for my sister. I made my promises to Steve and I have kept those vow.s Makes me very happy. Yesterday I celebrated Priestess stuff. I remember my family every day and since Steve plays tonight then we’ll celebrate with his music and tomorrow have a more private hurrah.

I’ve been building Peace in my life. I thank the many of you who hold me to those expectations of creating the Peace in my own life and working in the community to center our work on creating space for people to experience Peace and get on board the Peace Train.

But I invite you to join me in the happy dance for Peace… Celebrate, celebrate! dance to the music! (it’s hard work, but someone has to do it!)

Commitments and Peace, llvl

This summer, I’ve been able to remember what a difference ceremony can make in your life. For many years, while living in CA, I made my living celebrating people’s lives. I did baby blessings, coming of age ceremonies, graduation, weddings, first job, career change, divorces, house blessings, retirement, memorials and you name it. I even blessed the fleet.

Through it all, my clients and I looked at their intentions for the next steps of their lives and gathering their communities around them in support. Since I worked with people who were outside or in-between religious traditions, the community was an important component.

I moved back East because my parents were aging, and I spent 10 years focusing on them and on my sister as they all passed away. It was wonderful work. I’m so thankful I could. It was life-changing. It made a better woman of me.

But I missed the challenge of building services to fit. And then, thank goodness, the law changed. I was one of only a couple ministers in this area who could perform same-sex services, not just with my church’s blessing, but with their cheering and egging me on. Three of the couples were ours and the community turned out and was brought closer together for their joy.

And this year there have been other weddings, inside and outside my community, same sex and heterosexual. There have been challenges. But there has been joy and communities have stepped up to do the work to support and encourage commitment.

And that? adds up to one happy wedding priestess. At each wedding, no matter what, people come to terms with lives that are different from theirs and they sign on. And that, in it’s own little persistent way is Peacemaking. And I get to do it. lucky, lucky, lucky me!

Love, Chaos, Peace, llvl

Yesterday we celebrated Passover with a Seder at our church. It was wild, chaotic and all these visitors were streaming in the doors. I was the sole worship person that day, no assistant, so i had it all on my plate. No time to talk to strangers, other than hello, hello, come in… and occasionally holler oh! we need a new table. More Seder plates! Is there enough horseradish?

And the kids were doing Haggadah Role Play which has satisfactory amounts of dying even for grade school boys. The Angel of Death wanted to know if she could have her job every year. um… sure? There’s a spiritual path for you…

That’s what celebrations should be like, though… crowded and crazy filled with good food and laughter and lots of love. That’s Peace building If ever I encountered it. Traditions kept and embellished.

“Walk right in, sit right down, baby let your hair hang down.” Cause we’re all family here! Peace, my friends!

Chamber Quartet Peace, llvl

I always thought I was a city girl, and I thrived… But maybe what I am is a town girl. I like sidewalks (even on days like today, when shoveling is a repeat opportunity!).

What’s great about the village is that things that happen here are more accessible. People might complain that we don’t have the wide variety of activities, but mostly, those people aren’t reading the local paper. With so many colleges in the area and their subsidized offerings, a fabulous ensemble theatre, a great chorale, a local orchestra (or two or three!), musicians of every stripe, poets, dancers, you name it, there are many options for entertainment.

And when outside groups are here, especially for longer periods, like the Quartet’s two-week residency, you get to hanging out and talk and laugh with them. It’s grand. So make sure you’re exploring your village and plumbing its depths.

And then the quartet. What an interesting entity. This quartet in particular, is fabulous. Find them on YouTube and exalt. Lucy Russell, first violinist, says in one of her bios: “She is committed to enlivened music-making, fueled by knowledge, skill and passion but with the intentions of the composer always at the fore.” This quartet offers this in spade.

But the notion of a quartet. Of four highly trained people making music together, music that is precise in nature, as both the timing and notes must be exact or god-awful. The musicians must be both on top of their playing and the music as well as aware and present to their fellow players. Each person brings their gifts and adds it to the whole along with caring for the way each individual piece comes out and how music as a whole is understood.

We would all do well to find the people we work with in such a fashion so that life could be richer, deeper, and give so much more pleasure. So, if you’re local to my local, go see this quartet on Thursday at 7:30 at Rook Recital Hall. If you’re local somewhere else, find out what’s going on. But one way or the other, even if it’s not your “thing,” go listen to and watch a quartet play. And go take advantage of what your vida local has to offer.

I think the way quartets work have a lot to teach the Peacemakers…

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

Tag Archives: celebrate