Summer, Sabbath, Creeks & Peace, llvl

You take your Sabbath where you can get it. Mine started before sundown yesterday with a stroll down to the creek, followed by a quiet plop or two as we settled into our chairs in the middle of the creek.

And there we sat. With no particular place to go and nothing pressing on our minds. People kayaked by. They inner-tubed by. And there we were on the front porch of Peace.

We all waved and wished one another a good evening… Just being neighborly as folks traveled a sweet highway.

A friend joined us. More desultory conversation ensued.

And then the frogs sang.

Ah, the Sweet Sacred Peace Prayers of Summer. Mother Earth was putting on the ritz in a quiet kinda way. This is what a Sabbath is all about for this (don’t tell anyone this part) Country girl.

Loud Dandelion Spring Peace, llvl

One day there’s nothing and then the next time you look there’s been an explosion. (What has a stealthy beginning to a loud and insistent life? Dandelions!) Last week the violets held court on the lawns. Nothing else to see but grass. This week, dandelions in full bloom, cheerfully giving the violets a run for their beauty.

I like sturdy, cheerful things that steadfastly refused to be moved from their purpose. I’d like to be that. Although I swoon for violets, I’ve probably got more in common with the dandelion. And truth to tell… don’t flower fritters sound delish? Yumhoo.

But what’s great? for this space in time we get ’em both. Delicate little violets. Sturdy little lions. (and in the gardens dragons! such fierceness!) Mother Earth’s a canny one, isn’t she?

Today it’s raining… good day to pull up your head and take a walk. The allergies can’t bother you, and truthfully, the flowers are just as beautiful in the rain and the walk as healthy. Peace on the lawn with raging flowers. Go figure.

Work, Play, Peace, llvl

When you’re living “local,” Mother Nature sucks you in! Pay attention, she says, we’re in relationship.

So, no matter how busy you are, no matter how important your work, you have to make time for a cup of tea with your friend the Earth — the Great Mother. You have to care how she feels. You have to notice when she’s looking great… (and yep, you have to be the nurse when she’s ailing!).

And you have to balance the other important things in your life with this relationship. Your health is dependent upon hers. And her cycles ground you and give you so much pleasure.

It’s Earth Day… the 44th. Why not take the next year and explore your relationship with this fascinating, complex, breathing entity? And today? start a new habit of noticing and appreciating. She’s worthy of your effort and respect. Peace to all on Earth. Peace with the Earth. Peace. Earth. Peace. Earth. Peace.

Speaking Sabbath Peace, llvl

I continue to be astonished by the journey. Having declared that this year’s journey was all about living locally… my world continues to unfold. People drag me off to do local things because I’ve said they’re important. So I get to see a snowy owl. I’d have been happy before to know they were there, but I wouldn’t have gone out of my way… but someone made that happen.

All of a sudden I’m taking a course about geography (and geology), things about which I have a somewhat, shall we say, intellectual interest. Mother Earth & Nature are not so much about their actual dirt for me… (ok, i’m shallow, what can I say?)

In my word scramble that says what my important key words are, the word Sabbath keeps getting larger. As I click it every Sunday, after I’ve written about trying to be aware of it, I work to honor and enjoy the day — to infuse it with a joy that is slower and more aware than my usual dash-through-the-day enjoyment of life.

And living here, truly here, I begin to be aware not only what’s right and wonderful, but what’s broken and in need of our loving hands. This was a clear and painful conversation we had at class… painful because we were all poking at the rough spots in our love for where we live.

So, as you go through your day today, take some time, think about what makes your world wonderful… and where your duty lies… Duty, not a very 2014ish word, is it? But our duty is what moves us toward Peace. oh, this being conscious is hard.

Snowy Owl Peace, llvl

It’s all supply and demand, but this time I can get it. Apparently, last year was a bumper crop for lemmings somewhere way up there in the Arctic tundra. Which meant that the snowy owls, instead of laying one egg, all laid three. And they all hatched. Lots of snowy owls. This year, there aren’t as many of those little cliff leapers, but now there are two many snowy owls for their original region, so they widened their territories.

Presto Changeo, snowy owls in North Central PA, creating a new end of winter vida local. Mother Nature offering joy to her humans (and terror to the small, and even not so small wildlife.)

And I saw one. My friend said, oh, wow, there’s an immature hawk, maybe we’ll see the owl take the hawk. (ann the girl who likes to pretend that meat comes in styrofoam packages — no, i know better, and i give thanks to those whose lives are sacrificed that i may eat all the time! but still, ewwwwwww. ) I smiled gamely, tried to look interested and thanked the owl for sitting still and taking a moment to preen.

And there it sat. Not all that far from a large field of swans. Swans, hanging out in the cornfield. A hundred or so. It doesn’t get more beautiful than this. Nature, right here in my little local life.

I’m so grateful Liz was willing to haul me around and make me sit and watch. Taking the time to enjoy the beauty! Hooray!

Peace of the Snowy Owl, to you, my friends, and of the migrating Swans. Peace of la vida local.

Moon Peace, LLVL

The Moon is so very constant. And She offers a soft light for us to look at our world. Her gentleness can hide some of the biggest blemishes and give us courage to go to work — before we know how daunting the task before us. She silvers those with whom we are in conflict and those whom we love. If she can love us both, can’t we, in her soft light?

Sometimes when I have a quiet moment, I think back to my pagan roots or the Farmers’ Almanac, whichever is closer or seems more appropriate, and wonder why I don’t pay more attention to the waxing and waning of this beauty. True, she’s outside and I often try not to be. (I know, what a lousy vida localist! maybe this year will change me!) But if the Earth has a rhythm and nature responds to it, it would seem to make sense to work with it rather than against it.

Can I live deliberately enough to know when to rise and when to fall? When the Earth and the Moon have my back? I have no idea. Can you? Can we find the Peace that living rhythmically offers? Can we offer that Peace. Can we envision the Moon rising on war-torn, natural catastrophe-wrecked land and push Peace into her gaze… Can we?

Can we even just appreciate how beautiful the Moon is on our river and hills, simply being present to her Beauty? It’s an ancient call. Can we hear it? Can we want the Peace enough? If Herman could hear it… yah — I don’t think I want to finish that sentence. Moon Peace, my dearlings, Moon Peace to you. Let me count my blessings by the light of the Moon and see them silvered and so beautiful.

Winter Morning Peace, LLVL

My internal alarm clock isn’t working very well these days. It’s regular, seems to awaken me at the same general time, but that time has nothing to do with sunrise. A shame because I like it.

I’m not sure why I’m so nocturnal these days, but I seem to be. There’s no real need to fix that, at the moment, so… i’m exploring the night hours and sleeping in until 8 whole oclock some days. Ah well, the ground hog is coming, and he’ll be shaken awake by the same light that will begin to pull at my body clock. Sunrise I’ll be happy to see you. (remind me to go the heck to bed!)

But some of my friends, Deb among them, have dogs… Dogs get up. And if your life says you need to be somewhere at a certain time as opposed to needing to spend a certain number of hours in front of your computer, pecking away, then you get up with the dogs.

And looks what’s outside waiting for you. Deb caught this beautiful waning crescent pulling her recalcitrant brother out of bed. Follow me, she hollers!

There are Natives in the Northwest who start their stories with: I don’t know if this story is true, but I know that it happened this way… I’ve always loved the notion, pushing at true and Truth and how both matter. I’m hoping it’s ok, that I’ve used this phrase, you may read their stories, but you may not tell them. You may only tell the stories of your own clan.

Isn’t that what la vida local is trying to do? to determine what our own clan is and then to tell the stories. Now tomorrow’s moon will get up later. Soon enough it will be full Moon time and that lazy jade will be rising with the sunset to flirt with us and call us into the full lunacy of Peace right along with her. Tomorrow is the black moon (a second dark moon in a month, oh, so rare!). And as much as I love her, if the temps stay as cold, I may enjoy her rising from my back porch. Wussy Witch that I am. But observing the sweet Moon’s coming and going, the way she silvers the landscapes I love, that is living la vida local and making Peace with where I live.

Maybe tonight I’ll go to bed early, and try and catch the Sun on the rise tomorrow. Unlike his sister he rises a few minutes earlier every day. Winter dawns don’t happen all year long… and there’s such beauty to behold. Nature’s outrageous Peace. The blessings of Mother Earth.

Baby, It’s Peace Out There, LLVL

or it could be. If we decided to make it so.

We not only need to dress for the weather (because it IS cold out there.), we also need to begin working for climate change. There have been other winters with cold weather no doubt about it, but when you put our chilly temps next to Australia’s boiling ones, you have to look pretty hard in the other direction to ignore that the world is changing. The news as always is this: We are the Ones we’ve been waiting for. (dammit.)

And Mother Earth needs us. Nature just responds to the cues it gets. We’re sending the wrong cues. Bottom line the Government, Big Business, the people in power are not going disrupt their plans unless we make it very clear what’s needed. I don’t know what that means; I don’t know what that looks like; but it’s not something we can just forget when it finally gets warm. Or warmer. Peace is our calling — it doesn’t break out on its own.

Has Mama’s thermostat broken? Does that mean cool summer or warm. Either. Both. Who knows. Probably.

Lots of things in this world, weather, hunger, war that need our support. Is life different now, harsher? Are we just better able to see it. Am I just old enough to be horrified? Or have we just gotten better information with a quicker spread… hard to say. But here we are.

And yes, in addition to everything else, you have to wear your warm clothes. It’s too darned cold for a fleece. And there’s work to be done. Time to step up; better wear your no-skid boots.

This Peace or That One? LLVL

It’s hard to know sometimes where to go to work. There’s so much work to be done.

Peace is a multi-faceted creature. It is gentle, but firm It is silent, but outspoken. It is beautiful, but stark. It deals with power and hunger and justice at all levels. It is hopeful, but it is inexorable in its demands.

We can go to work and pull any little tendril that needs tending and start there. Some people can contemplate the tangle of possibilities in its entirety. I love to listen and watch those people think, but I’m more a nudger toward the tendril kinda person myself.

What is your relationship to Peace? What work do you do for it? How does it change your life?

I love this picture taken by my friend Deb. It captures a moment of indecision, a moment in-between. If you’re going to be present to life, you’ve got to notice and appreciate those moments. In the case of the weather it will go where the weather goes — the temperature will go up or down. You are invited to watch in amazement (and of course make sure you’re doing your part to care for the earth). In other moments of in-betweenness, you are needed, you are invited to step up and take responsibility. So, watch for the beauty, and step up when it’s your turn. Start local, it’s where Peace grows and starts to propagate. It’s where you grow best, as well. So, this one or that one? Why, yes, or course!

Clouds for Peace, LLVL

Today’s clouds are more cotton batting and last night’s fog is today’s ice slick, so please be careful. That’ll teach us to be so disdainful of dry, frigid weather!

But clouds… wonderful, wonderful clouds. Mystery, grandeur, fun… they have it all going on. I live in a river valley, so there are hills (we call them mountains, they’re very old mountains, so let’s not hurt their feelings by pointing out that their majesty does not come from their height.) that the clouds can amass against. Our climate is right for thunderstorms so clouds can build and build and build. And some days it’s so clear that the contrails of planes are all you see, as they turn the sky into a windowpane print.

Clouds are great for metaphor, and they’re lovely just as is, without any import at all. Clouds, with or without meaning sauce. My mom painted clouds a lot. She also painted their shadows. I think, I’ve said, it took her paintings to teach me about cloud shadows. And, of course, my father the scientist would be explaining about the cold air meeting the warm air as he was exclaiming about the beauty and the bounty!

But there’s something about the grandeur of the sky that captures our attention and soothes our souls. Each locale has their own clouds as true to the area as our terrain. Local beauties!

But these particular clouds, drifting across a Pennsylvania field remind me of Love peeping out and Peace overflowing. I like the science of clouds and I’m happy to have it exist right alongside their lovely metaphors. Let’s hear it for Mother Nature! Watch where you’re walking, but don’t neglect to look up, the Divine might be smiling at you… Here’s looking at you, kid!

Sacred Village

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Tag Archives: Mother Earth