Tag Archives: holidays

Twinkling Peace, llvl

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There’s something so lovely about having an evergreen, a true outdoor tree, in your house. When you add the lights to it… sweet.

Growing up, the house I lived in was pretty quiet… So there was time spent in the living room, lights on doing nothing more arduous than reading. There could be five of us in the living room, with the only sounds the rustling of newspapers and the turning of pages.

Remember sitting together in a room, reading?  Remember when 3 people used to sit on a couch and not think you had to talk or have the couch to yourself? I miss being together in Silence. Steve and I are pretty good at it, we just don’t do it much… Note to self for the new year! just a quick step on the light button, and I can feel a big exhale arrive.

If it soothes your soul, I wish you quiet time with twinkling lights. I’m going to hog a bunch of this this holiday season. I’ve got some books lined up… Some days, not every day, but some days, Peace on Earth really needs to start at home!

LLVL52Dec26

Seasonal, Musical Peace, llvl

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There’s been all sorts of music for me  this holiday season. From listening to the intricate, beautifully wrought (and sung!) choral music right down to the music making with my voice teacher in her living room. Learning something new, hearing something fabulous.

Last night at the Mitchell Musical Mash-Up, the kids were back from college and grad school. Ahhhhhhhhh. Music, music, music.

People used to sit around and sing. We don’t do that enough. It’s one of my secret joys in church. I love that I can burst into song in the middle of a sermon and everyone will join right in!

One of the sweetest things about these Winter holidays is the music. Take your choice: old beloved music, hoary chestnuts and new and interesting pieces being written; There are wonderful sacred pieces from many traditions and lovely secular favorites. They get played to death on the radio and in the malls and we know ‘way too many of them, even the ones we don’t like!

Singing matters. Singing helps. Having a season defined by song is a rich tradition… and it allows the meaning to deepen every year. We need traditions. We need songs. So, let’s make some memories. Let’s sing along. Let’s hear what our neighbors are singing… and why not sing a sleighing song tonight and have a rollicking good time? Laughing all the way might bring us a bit closer to Joy to the World and Peace on Earth. What more could we ask?

LLVL51Dec23

Peace Where You Are, llvl

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You know me, I love the holidays. I like pretty much whatever holidays I run into. It started with that trip to Sweden my senior year in high school. Swedish Christmas, so different and yet so festive. I’d grown up a quietly religious girl, Christmas there was fairly secular but steeped in cultural traditions. I got to spend 5 Christmases with family and friends over there. It forever changed how I celebrate.

And then I lived in NY. This time of year, it’s all about the bright lights. But my dearest friend there was Jewish. And so I was invited in to all those fun experiences. And foods. I really love festal foods. I like the rhythm of going back, year after year and having the right foods at the right time. To sit at table with people you love.

For me it’s not about the particular holiday, it’s about the whole experience with all the amazing sensory experiences — and the Love. It’s always about the Love for me.

And then it was off to CA… and that was the first time I really firmed up my own sense of these sacred days… Oh, yes, the Solstice. And the house on the hill overlooking the bay. And the friends. We got to design it to fit us. Our home… pretty fun.

And then back here to the family and what they needed, wanted. When I came back, I don’t think I understood how much their needs needed to be first. And so went the first 12 years. But in the midst of that, I was growing into a new community who had their own celebrations and they fit very well!

And now, we’ll see… But all these holidays gave me such pleasure, have such distinct flavors, taught me so much. As the song says: there is more love somewhere… hopefully it’s where we decide to be… Peace on Earth! whatever you celebrate, whoever you are! Joy to the World!

LLVL51Dec18

Peace of a Well-Loved Home, llvl

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This story is really about my own little vida local. I used to live down the street at the Belle Dame of the Belles Dames in the neighborhood. It was the first of the big houses ever built in Lewisburg. It’s been yellow and called the Tuscan Villa since forever, I believe.

When I lived there it was hacked up into apartments. They’d done better and worse jobs on making the apartments sensible. But whatever they’d done to the house, they couldn’t disguise her majesty. Ceilings are twelve feet and her windows are ten. The living rooms were spacious and the floors were lovely despite neglect. The fireplaces didn’t work, but the mantles were beautiful.

The men who owned the the house were using it as a cash cow and putting nothing into it. There are all sorts of stories, who knows which are true… but that we all moved out because there was no heat, this is undisputed. (And did you know, btw, that heat does NOT need to be provided?). That my toilet sat on an unsecured pipe… also truth. But the house? Somehow, even in its grandeur, it was really cozy.

But out we moved. I moved just down the street, and have been here happily ever since — even though the ceilings are only ten feet! But there she sat, deteriorating. The gossip said that pipes burst, walls exploded and mold flourished.

But someone bought it any way. Two someones. A couple. He was a contractor. Retired. And so they started to work. For the longest time they lived somewhere else. He took her down to her roots. All the wiring had to be redone. All the pipes. Heating system. Resectioning after the apartments. Lots of repair. It took months. They finally locked the doors because nosy neighbors kept poking their noses in. As the seasons changed, the work moved outside, inside, out again and then back in. She’s a painter. They made a painted faux ceiling in the entry way and put in an Italian chandelier that makes the house look as you know she once must have — and provides a throwdown to any Italianate villa anywhere!

Yesterday I was invited to a holiday party. The big hall doors were thrown open and the house was lavishly decorated for the holidays. Huge trees and beautiful decorations. The wife’s gorgeous paintings all over the walls. (Gave me the Christmas fix I needed, I’ll tell you. and ummmmmm. That painter can cook! and bake!) But the house is so happy and filled with Peace. She looks grand; she looks lived in; she looks loved! What a gift her owners gave her and the neighborhood.

And I find Peace in the most wonderful and unlikely places. But hey! we’ll take anything that works toward Peace on Earth! (and pssst! Happy Lucia… )

LLVL50Dec13

Holy Daze Peace, llvl

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It’s the problem, isn’t it, with the holidays. We spend so much time as automatons, doing this, doing that, getting this done, getting that done that we forget the whole holiness angle. It doesn’t matter what your tradition or belief, there is something mystical and magical about the Dark. Stars! Snow! Beauty! ahhhhhhhh.

Instead, we tend to think about it, hunched up in our coats against the cold as an inconvenience… one more inconvenience… as we truck along trying to check things off our list.

Let’s try and give the Mysterious a 50-50 shot this year, what do you think? Let’s notice how incredibly beautiful it is. How meaningful the celebrations. Let’s toss the damned to-do lists and invite people over for mulled wine, or hot chocolate or a simple cup of tea.

Or make a date and go for a walk in the cold dark night. Look at the stars of the softly falling snow. Let’s not call back the light until we’ve lingered in the dark…

And help me (and probably you) remember that I have not been unfairly singled out by the Universe because I HAVE to deal with the batteries in my smoke alarms’ running out. It’s just what happens in the course of life. Let us be like the ducks in Deb’s picture. Finding our Peace in the Winter… Oh, Deb, the things you see!

LLVL49Dec3

 

Stretching Holiday Peace, llvl

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Since I was an exchange student 45 years ago and discovered that Sweden celebrated Second Day Christmas, I’ve been greedy about holidays.

Since I’ve married, I’ve had Second Day lots of things because we always get together with his family on the day after the holiday… 2nd day hurrah! Leftovers and Family, what a blessing.

This week I got a third crack at Thanksgiving. No leftovers were involved, but there was a meet up at a local restaurant on a hill overlooking the river. It was grand. Nancy, our historian, had brought along name tags from earlier Turkey Days from everyone who wasn’t there. Those who couldn’t make it and those we fondly imagine eating together at the Thanksgiving buffet up in the sky.

We take whatever opportunities we have these days… because they are few and we are fewer than we were.

Gather your families… time passes and Peace looks different a few years down the road… Giving thanks for what I have and for who I had in my life. Trying to stay present in this miraculous moment.

LLVL48Dec1

Peace Offerings, llvl

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It often seems that the sacrifices we make these days are of the things that might save us. We’ll sacrifice relationships for rewards. (And we develop relationships with people on FB rather than, say, people.)

Let’s be clear, I’m not pointing any fingers here. There are plenty of cues I miss… Plenty of times I opt out of life.

Sacrifice seems so last mid-century. Everyone sacrificed. It was hard work, we didn’t like it. So we stopped.

Now things continue that we could change. But we don’t.

Was there a perfect era? Was everyone happy, safe, homed, fed? No.

Was there a sense of connection to something communal? Yes. Does that instill in us a sense of obligation to that bigger thing? Yes. Did it take investment? Did it take sacrifice? Yes, that too…

When we don’t take Peace seriously, when we are not responsible to it, the world continues to devolve. Someone asked an expert on Palestine the other evening what would change the war. He said what was required was for the trickle of interaction between the people would need to become a river and then a flood. That everything in the economy of other countries was angled toward that particular war. Only the people can change it.

It would take hard work. It would take sacrifice. But Imagine. We might be part of what brings Peace. The Peace on Earth Season is right around the corner. Let’s consider Peace. Let us make offerings small and large to Peace. That might put wonder back in the holiday season!

LLVL46Nov15

Peace of All Souls, llvl

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Today we learned that a fourth child is dead of gunshot wounds in the last we know of high school shooting. The only way to make Peace with that is to change laws about guns and our ho-hum relationship to violence. Are you voting on Tuesday for someone who will listen to your wishes around safety? Are you learning what you need to know about this issue? Are you engaging people in discussions? You might want to.

And I don’t know what we do for children like Jaylen, who somehow find themselves so alienated that this looks like an option. Because that poor broken child is lost as well. His family is as devastated as the families of the other children.

And today, we remember our beloved Dead. I learned so much about Day of the Dead about commemorating the dead when I lived in the Bay Area. All over the world, people have celebrated this time as a time to remember. And yet so much of American culture is around forgetting the pain. Any of us who have ever tried that know it doesn’t work…

And why would I forget? Why would I forget people who brought joy and beauty into my life? Why would you? Re-membering, calling them back into your heart once a year is a reminder that your life has been enriched. It is a way to proudly acknowledge that your life has been blessed by these wonderful people. It is a prayer of thanksgiving. It is another way of making family and creating community. So today, on this day of all souls, I will spend time with your memories and I will give rejoice and give thanks and sigh for those things we will never do again. And it will be a worthy use of my time. It will be a splendid exercise in Peace because you are among those who taught me the beauty of relationship.

LLVL44Nov1

Boo! Spooky Peace, llvl

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For me Halloween is a holiday, but a holiday of Mother Earth, not the party store. It’s half-way between the Autumn Equinox and the Winter Solstice. Otherwise known as the beginning of Winter. Winter deepens as it nears the solstice and then it starts lessening its grip — never mind that the cold is still fierce. As the hymn says: “Light is returning, even tho’ this is the darkest hour, No one can hold back the sun.”

This is the time for looking within, for remembering our ancestors and our heritage and our lineage. This is a time of releasing the grudges — anything that hold us back from a good night’s sleep and the Sacred Dreaming that is to come. The only goblins I believe in are the hobgoblins of our thoughts that haunt us and hold us back. Let go!

I get a little whiny about commercialized, over sexed halloween… I dislike that it’s another opportunity for greed and materialism. I guess I’m a humbug. So today you get not one, but two (count ’em, two) poems about being a Witch on Halloween. (the first one’s in paragraph form, because Word press is not a fan of poems, keeps leaving a space between the lines… Funny all this time i’ve been writing on Word Press, I’ve never known this…) I’ll spend some time in this six week season thinking about the possibilities of letting go… But in the meantime, here I am, in all my glory, Grumpy Witch!

It’s not easy to be a witch on Halloween — Where’s your hat, everyone asks me? And then they laugh. Like they’re the first person that ever thought to say that. Ha!

I’m a witch. This is what a witch looks like. I look like this every day.

Of course I wear black, I’m an edgy, New York kinda witch.

But my spiritual practice is not about wearing a pointy hat and riding a broom. My spiritual practice is about honoring creation and all who dwell within.

I don’t even like cats and as for snakes, no thanks! I must confess, the whole thing makes me grumpy.

Yes, there are witches, real witches, who wear their silly hats and carry a broom around. But then at Christmastime, you can find Christians in some pretty scary outfits, with flashing pins that have very little to do with any baby born in a manger, destined to claim the world for peace. And Easter Bonnets do not make much more sense.

 While people run around this Halloween, dressed like goblins and harlots, the world is slowly dying. On this sacred day, when it is believed by some that the veil between this world and the next is the thinnest, that our ancestors can whisper their wisdom in our ears, the din of battle over-rides the still small voice.

Divine Spirit can shape and change us and all we want to know is, “What do you have for candy?” and “What are you wearing on Halloween.”

So yes, I am a witch. And no, I don’t wear a hat. and if the Gods had wanted me to ride a broom, vacuum cleaners would never have been invented!

So, color me a little bit grumpy and a whole lot grateful. No hat, it ruins my hair. Yesterday I had a ride through Autumn’s dying colors and I rejoiced. Boo! There, witchy obligations handled, I wish you Peace and a spooktacular, sugar laden evening if that’s what turns you on! Consume responsibly.

LLVL44Oct31