Eating Sabbath Peace in the Berry Moon!

The sweetness of summer foods. Every year when summer comes, I wonder about spending a year eating in season… not buying anything “fresh” at the supermarket.

We used to do that. They certainly were better about that in Sweden. Salads were almost always cabbage based… cabbages that had been stored in cold cellars alongside the carrots — and they were great!

And what makes that worthwhile is the wonder of how good the food tastes when you eat the first fresh spinach, the first fresh strawberry. oh… yum… The bounty of Mother Earth is extraordinary!

Explosions of tastes and food eaten in comfy outdoor places. I like picnics but i like lunch on the porch with no ants as well!

Lovely slow meals, it’s a great way to observe the Sabbath! Hope yours is Peaceful and Joyful and filled with flavor.

New Land! New Peace!

New land is being formed as we speak! Imagine that! The world is still being created.

If that’s not a referendum for Peace what is?

Peace with one another and Peace with this beautiful planet. Reverence for Mother Earth.

I remember being shocked when I went to visit Kilauea with a friend and seeing people casually dispose of litter on virgin ground.

It was such an affront.

People missed the Mystery. They missed the Holy.

They wasted a moment for Peace. let’s not do that any more, shall we?

Save the World for Peace

This is the Berry Moon. it’s the Moon of growing things. The Moon of that first harvested sweetness.

Meanwhile on the other side of the country, where they’re already harvesting sweetness, they’re using water they don’t have for households to produce berries for people everywhere.

And out on the coast, an oil line has burst and degorged into the sea. the beautiful, beautiful sea.

And CEOs get to say sorry and think that is a response.

Big business, fragile Earth. it’s a bad mixture. And Peace is definitely the casualty. What are we going to do? I have no idea… But you can’t unsee this… and you have to keep asking yourself questions…

Growing Peace in the Berry Moon

Oh, the gardens are busy right now. Lewisburg is one of those towns where people garden. More and more towns are those where people are growing food and flowers.

Everywhere you look things are poking their heads out of the soil, testing, tasting, how about now? Yep, now seems to be the time. The Berry Moon is trying to live up to her name as her brother the Sun coaxes things along.

But we live in the privileged lands… Even our lowered amounts of rain are enough to keep our gardens juicy. In May we can hope that the unseasonably warm 90˚ weather isn’t the harbinger of 100˚ weather in July and August.

Our job is not simply to celebrate the bounty; it’s also to push for its protection.

As I write this another oil spill has devastated the coast of California. 100,000 gallons lost, as if the loss of oil is the problem rather than the damage done to the coastline. And oh, have we noticed that all the people cleaning up the spill are people we say we don’t want here… the people willing to do the hard work of cleaning up? There are so many things wrong with this picture, it’s hard to know where to pull the first string.

But taste something fresh from the garden and remember why we’re called to work for our beloved planet. “Oh, Earth Mother, I’m standing on you…” May we live in peace.

Dashing Flower Moon Peace

It’s no wonder people think we’re the center of the Universe. The other night, driving home along the river, it seemed so clear that the Moon was chasing me until she caught me and showed me the good road home.

In moments like that, it seems so easy to think we’re communing (ok, maybe it’s just me) with the Moon.

Because her soft light is reflected, she’s so much more approachable than the sun, at whom you can’t glance directly.

I love the notion of that intimacy, and I’m sure the Moon doesn’t mind the secrets I share. Maybe the Moon Goddess cares, maybe not, but she’s never disabused me of the sweet silliness of it.

And I love how she finds me and spills that golden path across the water. Swimming the Moon path may be one of my favorite things in the whole world… I love how she softens the landscape so that we can see possibility and move slowly toward our work of maintenance and restoration.

It’s such a private and quiet moment of Peace. The utter stillness and sweet contentment reminds me in those moments, that we are on this Earth to notice these moments and to help one another find the space for Peace, with ourselves, with the Earth, with one another. Let us Peace by the light of the Moon.

Crying Out for Peace in the Flower Moon

Peace does not start in perfection. It starts where we are and tells the truth. Even the ugly truth. It acknowledges what is.

Then and only then can we settle into Peace.

It seems that most of the people, many of the plants, and much of the wildlife wandered onto this land.

There is no sovereign right. There is no one who is more deserving than another. All are deserving.

You can’t pursue language and action about plants and fish without making that a de facto acceptable argument. The next thing you know, we’re talking about people and sealing them off from the public in privately funded prisons.

There is only rising up. There is only speaking out. There is only examining the words and the reasoning with which we pursue plant life which invades the way we think about one another. What is the noxious weed here? I think, perhaps, our thinking…

We’re in the Flower Moon, the season when the world carpets herself in beauty. She doesn’t care much where the flower came from. There’s a whole lot of thinking to be done between here and Peace. There’s a whole lot of Loving to be done as well.

As I write, I carry prayers in my heart for Nepal and for Baltimore, in addition for this awful situation.

Lazy Flower Moon Sabbath Peace

It’s chilly, but it’s a beautiful day out there! Blue, blue skies and all those budding bushes and trees.

And I’ve sort of written my way into an open day, so this afternoon’s going to entail some sitting around with a book. maybe a little walk. Some time to ponder the very sweet gift of love I received from so many yesterday! I could use a little peace and quiet after all that glorious frivolity…

No sense giving in to the allergies, they don’t seem to be going away! Might as well just ignore and appreciate what’s in front of me.

Spring’s beauty is fleeting. No sense missing it. And the Flower Moon and her Bounty comes but once a year!

Wishing you Peace on this lovely Sunday. Spread it around! Be at least as generous as Mother Nature!

Flower Moon Peace Walks

I recently, finally, thankfully started walking again, after a winter of inertia. I swear, I could have sat all night, I could have sat all night, and never left the chair… Oh, right, I did. all winter! And the book? Went in a circle.

I was gearing up to boot my butt out the door when my friend asked me if i wanted to walk. I sniveled, I bargained, but at least 5 days a week, there i am at 7 am out in the neighborhood.

What’s great (exercise aside) is that SJ is a student of the Earth. So I feel as if I’ve got a tourguide to my town. I’m likely to see houses, skies rivers, she sees the Earth in so many ways.

It’s such an interesting and alternative view as we walk along and look and talk. There we were last week standing under a group of trees outside Deb the photographer’s house that were filled with Cedar Wax Wings. A whole charm of them.

And then looking at a little bog filled with something or other that someone was going to be so glad to hear about because she’d been wanting it in her garden and nature wasn’t going to begrudge her a few plants.

And then hearing about the knot weed, the good, the bad and the ugly.

There’s a lot of bounty out there in the Flower Moon. Including the pollen —which make the lovely maple trees. There are a lot of ways to make Peace with this Earth. I hope I keep the walking up. There’s so much to see and learn and do! Peace! You’re so fascinating!

Earth Day Peace!

Happy Earth Day!

I am so grateful for all the people who have started the movements, often from sweet and simple activities that monitor, care for and lobby for our beautiful planet.

I am so grateful for the beauty that keeps me moving out into the world, the incredible connections of the web of all life, and the simple pleasures of living on this planet.

I am so grateful for the visionaries who keep me dreaming of possibilities, the strategists who figure how we might work smarter and all those people who begin again, every morning, in love.

And that’s the challenge, isn’t it? To begin again in love, the slow, arduous, complicated trek toward Peace. Our Earth demands nothing less.

We Need Peace With Earth

Earth Day is tomorrow. It’s having it’s 45th birthday.

On the one hand, people are aware and involved.

On the other, we are naive, oblivious and self involved.

It’s all very hard work. Many of us do some of the things we’re supposed to. We work to reduce, recycle, reuse. We compost. We drive better cars. And all of us have secret and not so secret places where we’re not really so good.

One of the places we often fall down is in the political involvement, because corporations do all sorts of dirty things that all the bricks in the toilet and turning off the water while brushing your teeth can’t begin to touch.

I think we also pay too little attention to the sacredness of this planet. I think that because we litter, we don’t pay enough attention, we accept that things are/will be polluted. Why is it a crime to desecrate a church and not the land? it has come to this, picking up trash, working to clean up streams, protesting pollution and unsafe practices is a life of prayer. Are we ready for that?

I know the original chant said it a little differently, but my group always sang it this way:

Where I stand is holy
Holy is the ground
Forest, mountain, river,
Listen to the sound
Love is all around me.

In this time of the Flower Moon, when Mother Earth so generously shares her beauty and promises her bounty, let us take off our shoes and stand in grateful reverence. And then let us begin the work of Peace with the Earth.

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

Tag Archives: Mother Earth