Working with the Snow Moon Peace

Having been watching the weather in Sweden, I know it’s far warmer there than here — at the moment it’s about 35 degrees warmer. (it is a bit brrr-ish here at 0˚. I currently have heaters aimed at the cold water pipe in my sink and am flushing warm water down the toilet… neither of those pipes have insulation… sigh.) So it’s not unreasonable to hear that they’re going out into the woods to gather winter fuel.

Still, oddly, I find it difficult to imagine my loved ones in anything other than my weather, so I find it extraordinarily brave of them!

What they are, in fact, is far better attuned than I to the difference the seasons make in the woods and how best to take advantage of that… or rather, more rightly put, to live with that.

it’s hard, since i’m an indoor girl to be to aware of how the earth moves… and it’s good to have a circle that includes people who know the forest, know when the mushrooms crop up and the berries come, know when the forest offers what’s needed.

I’m both wildly interested and disinterested in the same moment… Sometimes I think it’s just laziness… others, i’m not sure…

So i return as I often do to the circle. To having those in my circle who know what I don’t. Who pay attention differently, who turn their heads in other directions… Those friends keep us more widely engaged.

And now I have the image of birch logs blazing merrily in their fireplace… and I think of their eating one of my favorite pastries through the Lenten season… as they presage the Sugar Moon in so many ways. (who’d expect the Northlands to lead us into the the Spring?) I love them, and I love that I’m invited to see life through their eyes.

We make Peace with the Earth, with the Seasons and with our lives in so many different ways. It’s only as we gather them together that Peace can be seen as the beautiful patchwork it’s meant to be…

Looking Back at Lunacy & Sabbath Peace

Riding in the back seat of the car with siblings is/was a rite of passage for many of us.

For many people, back in the day (whichever day that was), it was a Sabbath occupation. Once services were over, whatever tradition you were, you got in the car and went to grandma’s… or auntie’s… or…

It wasn’t so funny then, especially if you were smushed on the hump because you just happened to be the third (and therefore the shortest) child, but what’s funny is how universal the complaints.

I suggest you throw your offspring (no matter their age) in the back of the car immediately and go off for a drive. Everyone should have such childhood torment and delight… it makes for a lot of fun when you’re grown up..

It’s going to be bitterly cold, so please be careful. Peace be with you all… The Snow Moon is bringing those arctic winds and icy drifts. brrrrrrrrr.

Lunatic Love under the Snow Moon

I guess Valentine’s Day is for lovers… that’s what they tell us. And I’m happy I have my sweet Valentine (and happier still that he’s visiting our family giving great big grampa hugs!) But I still like school Valentine’s Days when we all sent everyone sweet small hearts. (I only now think about the fact that there were kids who probably couldn’t afford this…)

But Valentine’s Day was for everyone. And if there was someone in your class you balked at sending an “I love you” card, you had the long discussion with your mom about loving everyone. There wasn’t a problem next year! Friendship like many other things, needs to be cultivated.

Valentine’s day, not just hearts and flowers for star-crossed lovers… (and un-star-crossed lovers)… Love is for everyone. Love is for Peace. Peace is certainly for everyone. Lunacy. You betcha. The best kind under a consolidating Snow Moon. What could be better?

Community Peace Under the Moon

Community is a practice not an entity. It takes time and effort to slowly develop the skills to be a good community member, to take your place in the crowd.

There are so many jobs to be done. There are jobs for everyone. Often there are people to teach us those jobs. But sometimes, now, because we’ve been moving away from living in community, we’ve had to dig around a bit to see if we couldn’t find the roots. Then we’ve had to relearn… or in some cases make up… our hand books for best community practices.

Who makes the scalloped potatoes? Who makes the sauce? Who makes the Pad Thai? Who are the people with the pieces of our community that we have to assemble and cultivate.

It’s a slow process… but one that can give us so much if we choose to participate. We have people who want to follow in our footsteps and we can hand down the information we’ve cultivated…

This painstaking making of community is also the painstaking making of Peace. It’s what we need. It’s its own sweet lunacy — the lunacy of Peace. As I said earlier — wouldn’t you like to be a lunatic too? (and now, don’t feel you’re ready for lunatic? there are now lunatics in training! This could be you!)

Making Sense of Moons and Peace

It’s not that I think you can’t do any of your work at any point, but sometimes it just makes sense to consider working with the tides and the seasons.

So many of us (and I’m among that crowd) barely know that the Earth changes. We live our lives, do what’s before us and often don’t look out the window to see what’s going on.

We live on this stunning, powerful planet. We talk about working for it, but why not work with it? Why not let its strength work with us?

So, I’ve been working to clean up the little pieces of life, doing this and that, working to put the pieces of dreams in place so that building can happen in the expansion of the Moon.

I don’t think it’s ever a bad idea to put structure in your life. And if there’s a structure hanging around that you don’t have to invent, why not use it?

All hail the Moon. Blessed is the Winter with its Snow and Ice. Sweet is Peace, our daily destination. (and necessary are the long number of things on my to-do list)

Expanding & Consolidating Snow Moon Peace

It’s a notion, isn’t it, to work with Nature rather than against it. To open as the Earth does and consolidate and review what happened as the Earth shuts down to take stock and gain strength for the next efforts.

Or to do the same with the Moon on a monthly basis, taking into account the essence of that month’s message.

All of which depends on my being a person grounded in life on Earth. And if I am, that permits me to be a person who seeks Peace using the strengths that are given to me to move the quest for Peace along.

Peace in the Snow Moon. the Lunacy of Peace. Peace. Peace. Peace. Peace. Peace.

Moving Snow Moon Peace

For over three years now, I’ve been writing dailies. In each successive year, I’ve become more and more aware how much the grounding in a principle, in a community, in nature deepens my ability both to observe what is and to notice possibilities.

I wonder sometimes, if the writing of the daily musings didn’t grow from my twice daily visits to my mom. Every day, at lunch and at dinner for at least a couple years, I drove to the nursing home to feed mom. Every day, twice a day, at the same time, the same route.

I watched the seasons build and fade into the next. I watched the light and the darkness fall across the sky. I saw the Moon wax and wane. I saw this happen on the same stretch of road. And then I watched the life in the houses, because some of it you couldn’t miss. Kids played in yards, people landscaped. One house burned down and a person died.

But still the seasons changed and life continued inexorably and Peacefully on as Nature insists. Even the scene of the awful fire has been reclaimed by grass and small trees and deliberately changed and renewed by clearing, rebuilding and planting… Life insists. Nature smooths what it can.

It’s up to us to translate the Peace. Up to us to identify it, name it and then extrapolate it into the way we live into what we offer the world. Peace. it’s our task to see and to do.

The Other Side of Moon Peace

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I’m amazed about what never crosses my mind.

So, wow… the dark side of the moon waxes and wanes.

NASA has gone to the trouble of putting together a time-lapsed video. It’s pretty cool.

Just as I never thought of the oh-not-so-dark side of the Moon, there are huge pieces of Peace I never considered either. The good news is that this means there are more steps we can take, there are more ways we can begin to make a difference.

There’s more value than I ever dreamed possible in seeing the other side… I’ve never had huge urges to do things (climb mountains for instance) just because they were there. But perhaps Peace cares more about what is needed than what I want… or you want. It simply wants to manifest — and it needs our help. So come on, my fellow bears and chickens… let us go over the mountains and cross the roads… Peace awaits. And NASA just blew the I’m too lazy, I don’t wanna excuse outta the sky… Strength of resolve, strength of character, strength of purpose are needed to be about this hard and delicate work. And Love. I think it needs Love.

Icy Snow Moon Sabbath Peace

The first weekend of every February ice sculptures show up on the streets of my little town. (for a good cause, but I have to think of it as odd, folk also submerge themselves in a 35˚ Susquehanna, go figure!)

If the weather cooperates, they hang around. I missed some of them yesterday, so I’ll have to rush off to see them tomorrow before the rain starts.

It’s a lovely strolling day and a wonderful way to spend the day, out and about. For some amount of money, people can purchase tickets that entitles them to chocolate at a whole bunch o places… it’s a good thing.

So today, i wish you more strolling, more visiting with friends and family, more just having a good time. Quick, before the winter rains wash the beautiful ice away… Have a beautiful icy sabbath…

Peace is in the gathering of ice sculptures from different poles to seek detente and plot about how best to deal with the global climate change…

The Lunacy of Peace

Peace, ridiculous, outrageous, elusive Peace.

I’ve never heard of anything more worthy of our efforts.

When people talk about what appeals to them about this year’s series, aside from the call to watch the Moon, it’s remembering that we’re all having the same beautiful Moon too wonder at. Your friend across the world, my friend across the world, the people we don’t know, all are stunned by the Beauty.

We ought to be able to use that unity to deepen possibility… shouldn’t we?

Peace may be crazy, but violence is killing us — it not only kills individuals, it kills our souls.

So what if there were Peace under the Moon? Do we have the strength to pull it off? Are we crazy enough? We need to be…

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

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