Tag Archives: Mother Earth

Cleaning Up for Peace

Reply

Resignation is so seductive. I’m not talking about the “take this job and shove it” kinda resignation, i’m talking about the slow, seeping ebb of our willingness to act on our convictions, the inertia that keeps us bound in our everyday patterns, while things slowly get worse. What’s the use?… what’s the point? we wonder…

Oh, come now! The use is we live on this world that deserves so much better than we give it. The point is we’re not being kind to those who come after.

Kindness. We often sneer at it for being saccharine. OK, I often sneer at it. And yet, kindness is a welcome respite in a tough world. When your store clerk really looks at you, you appreciate it, your day eases. His or her day eases when you take the time to appreciate, not just their work, but them.

And our precious Mother Earth — It’s time to go to work. Not just picking up trash and doing your recycling, although that’s always helpful. But find out what’s going on in your neighborhood that threatens the Earth’s well-being and start working against it. Start cleaning up your little patch of the river or forest or city. Start! or Continue! those are important words.

Our well-being and that of the generations after us depend upon our work. Who are we to leave it to the next generation? We participated in the slow slide, time to turn the tide! Yes, it’s hard work. But that just makes it all the more rewarding.

PeaceMay17

Everywhere, Peace

Reply

The events in Boston have kept many of us riveted to our TVs or computers. It was difficult to look away, difficult even to remember that only halfway across the country another tragedy had occurred and even more people had died and houses had been lost along with lives. Was this a tragedy caused by indifference rather than intention? It may be hard to tell, since it seems there has been no oversight on this company for many years. But as in Boston, there is no way to protect yourself from such a thing if you’re going about the business of living a life…

Which leaves us all with so much work to do. I do seem to keep ringing this bell don’t I. But as our worlds get larger and larger, thanks, in large part to technology, we have to pay attention on so many different levels and in so many different arenas. Eyes and hearts open. Hands out. Brains engaged. Hard work to make this world safer, sweeter, saner.

Harping on Peace — nice double entendre, eh? I work to keep the tune palatable to the ear and keep my fingers in practice so that I can continue to play. Because if we keep doing our work, the chorus is only going to swell! But my dears, offer up your prayers for Peace and then do the hard work of praying, the getting to the business of bringing Peace to our beloved Mother Earth.

PeaceApril20

The Peace of Many Celebrations

Reply

Welcome to the weekend! Religious festivals overlap in a joyous burst of New Life. In the Spring it’s not just the Christians and the Pagans together at the table, as that sweet song says, there are lots of us digging out family recipes and putting the extra leaves in the tables.

Too many folk think this is a reason to snip and snarl (when we’re not decorating eggs or hunting out our Seder plate),but this is a reason to be joyous. What ties us together is that we are all celebrating. Mother Earth is calling us all back to life. Menus may collide or need some adjustment, but may your feasts be traveling one and may you get to know your neighbors and their religious practices. May Peace break forth with the flowers and may we be the reason why. Enjoy and sweet blessings of the holidays to you. let’s see… gefilte fish, peanut butter eggs, bitter salad greens… priestess or glutton, you decide!

PeaceMarch29

The Peace of Winter Trees

Reply

I was delighted when I studied Chinese Five Element Theory and discovered that it includes a Fifth Element, Wood, one of whose functions is flexibility. In our busy urban lives it is an element to which we pay too little attention. Tree hugging — actual rather than philosophicall! — is really quite balancing for our health. It improves our spiritual and mental flexibility. Most of us can use that! (as for whether tree-hugging, philosophical, is virtuous, I invite you to discuss amongst yourselves… but I would, no great surprise to any of you, come down on the side of the trees.)

One of the joys of learning the five element theory was the need to suspend disbelief and learn something completely new. I compare it to learning the alphabet. If you spend your life trying to figure out why the would designate this symbol A as the letter A, you’ll miss the astonishing things that can happen when you break the code of reading. Here’s to learning new things and believing six impossible things before breakfast!

And of course here’s to trees and all the wonderful things they teach us, of which flexibility is only one!

Peace in the Streams

Reply

I hadn’t realized until today’s poem that I had created the first three poems of a four-element series. (I guess that means fire tomorrow! Or maybe I’ll think about the Chinese elements and make it a group of five!) But the notion of the stream’s pushing to move forward, even when we can’t see it, was a powerful image for me.

Most dreams don’t start full blown, they coalesce. And much of that work is done when we’re not paying attention. A little here, a little there. It mounts up until eventually, there’s enough mass to spill over.

What that means to us, however, I think, is that we need the quiet time for dreams to build. I find I need slow time when I’m paying no attention at all to anything important in my life to unfocus a bit and a give a dream a chance to build. And then, slowly regain that focus through the year. I’ll be trying to let my life and my commitment to Peace build with year. And of course as I consider the elements, my commitment to the Earth will have to build, won’t it. It would be a bit precious to burble about the changing months and not consider the need to stand for the sacredness of Nature.