Tag Archives: nature

Pools of Memories and Loss. Peace

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Memories are such odd things. As I was remembering Harbin I took two memories and made it one. (At least I checked before I wrote about it!)

But my inability to remember everything exactly (dates, schmates!) aside, Harbin was a marvelous place.

The waters are extraordinary. I’m sure someone will make a place again… but so sad.

But here’s the reality of climate change. What are we going to do? Because those fires are going to continue. They’re having problems up the coast. They’re having problems in Alaska (and probably in Canada too, but our news doesn’t talk about that!) It’s a frightening reality.

We can make Peace with the loss of our past and the beautiful surrounds There’s no making Peace with climate change without a decision to participate in making a difference.

HarvestMoonLunacySep16

 

Consolidating the Pieces for Peace

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As the Fruit Moon wanes (alas, alack) I prepare for the beginning of my work year. It starts as it ended with a yard sale. Boy that required a lot of consolidations, but none of that mine, thankfully. I’ll just go down and hand out bags.

But I’m trying to make sense out of all the things I’ve read this summer, trying to find a place in my mind to lay out the puzzles of all those different pieces. What’s the picture? How do they all fit together. All summer I’ve been expanding and now I’ll have to pull it in to some sort of order.

In a week I face the congregation, and have to have something coherent to say… I don’t want them to miss how much I value the time they offered for this study. I don’t want them to miss the wonder I’ve felt at everything I’ve learned. I don’t want them to miss the importance of some of this simply because I haven’t done the appropriate sorting and placing. It’s been all about issues of Justice. Bob Marley said so simply, no Justice, no Peace. It’s easier for all of us to reach for Peace and ignore the hard work that justice-making demands.

That’s the work of the waning moon — to consolidate.

In the gardens and orchards, the fruits are being brought in and preserved for winter enjoyment. (Although my advice is also to eat them as quickly as you can now. Stand in your kitchen, over the sink and slurp up that ripe food as quickly as you can!) Give thanks for what we have now and for what lies ahead!

Here we are: consolidating the pieces of wonder for Peace. There are worse jobs!

FruitMoonLunacySep4

Fog Dancers for Peace

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My walking partner and I keep getting stopped on our morning walk by the beauty of the river. This morning we sat and watched the sun come up and spill across the river.

I struggle with the early mornings. But waking up and being present to such beauty is a lovely way to call my day into being. Let’s hear it for wonder.

Yesterday’s fog dancers did not drift across the river this morning, the sun was too bold; they are too shy… But this time of month as the nights are colder than the river, they will be back and back and back. You can count on them.

There’s beauty in every day, every season. We have to keep looking.

Here’s to the Beauty. Here’s to the Fog Dancers. Here’s to Peace.

FruitMoonLunacyAug25

Peace in a Dry Land

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What does Peace look like in a drought? What is it in the midst of climate change?

The issues are far more complicated than i understand.

But when people are carefully saving their warm up water for the shower and you see field after field of fruits to be made into leisure drinking and tourism…

It’s good that we change how we use water in our households and a shower a day is a luxury that’s not necessarily good for our bodies or the land.

But shorter showers don’t offset a vineyard.

Shorter showers don’t mean there’s water to fight fires. There are 22 of them in CA now. They’re just trying to save the houses built in the middle of forests and brush and letting the forests burn. Now, Nature seems to like fires; some trees only spread their seeds through fire… And yet —  Lives have been lost fighting the out of control fires.

And more wineries are going in. CA is going to become the medical marijuana center of the world: another high water crop.

And I know it’s easy to come in from the outside and have an opinion… even when it’s reflection upon coming back home…

But what I see is land in need. I’m not seeing how the drought is affecting poor communities, but i have people to see before i come home who are working in them — and some people who have a bigger economic view than i ever have.

I say this not because I’m going to make any difference in the drought in CA but because I want some balance and understanding so I can work effectively for change where I live. Knowledge is power. And balance is not always my strongest suit…

Peace has so many facets. and Mother Earth is both powerful and fragile. Both need our helping hands!

GardenMoonLunacyAug5

Lammas Celebrations! Sabbath Peace! Oh, boy!

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In-gatherings!

A friend reminded me that the ancient celebrations were more approximate. You didn’t stop to celebrate in the middle of the harvest. You didn’t grind the flour until the wheat was out of the field and threshed.

I love this celebration in the middle of the hot spell. Back home, there’s corn, tomatoes and blueberries. How much sweeter can summer get?

Out here? there are grandchildren, swimming pools and tomatoes. May in fact be sweeter.

And today, another beautiful summer Sabbath, spent with them. Full moons and hot summers. Sacred. Joyous. yeahhhhhhhh.

Hurrah! Peace be with you all.

GardenMoonLunacyAug2

Turkey Peace

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It was such a silly moment. A yard full of turkeys where I hadn’t expected to see them. In all the years I’d lived around here, I’d certainly never seen a live turkey, but then I lived in a city — and who sees turkeys in cities (other than at watering holes and meetings, padumpum)

And then to do the research and find out that they’re in 49 of the 50 states. (Five sub-species in the US.) The same question asked of Google didn’t give a similar stat on eagles, but there are a whole lot fewer eagles.

Sort of an interesting thought to reconsider the Franklin suggestion that the turkey be the national bird. There they were, waddling around in a congress, adults and juveniles. And eagles have huge solitary territories. — This just in: Oh, Man… a myth… Franklin never suggested it. Better google late than never. Here’s an excerpt from his letter to his daughter. (find the article here):

“For my own part I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen the Representative of our Country. He is a Bird of bad moral Character. He does not get his Living honestly. You may have seen him perched on some dead Tree near the River, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the Labour of the Fishing Hawk; and when that diligent Bird has at length taken a Fish, and is bearing it to his Nest for the Support of his Mate and young Ones, the Bald Eagle pursues him and takes it from him.

With all this injustice, he is never in good case but like those among men who live by sharping & robbing he is generally poor and often very lousy. Besides he is a rank coward: The little King Bird not bigger than a Sparrow attacks him boldly and drives him out of the district. He is therefore by no means a proper emblem for the brave and honest Cincinnati of America who have driven all the King birds from our country…

“I am on this account not displeased that the Figure is not known as a Bald Eagle, but looks more like a Turkey. For the Truth the Turkey is in Comparison a much more respectable Bird, and withal a true original Native of America… He is besides, though a little vain & silly, a Bird of Courage, and would not hesitate to attack a Grenadier of the British Guards who should presume to invade his Farm Yard with a red Coat on.”

Caught! well, better sooner than later! Better I should figure it out than you and have to say… hey… Ann…

But turkeys may have stuff to teach us, if only about sticking together.

One way or another, there they were… filled with Peace on a very hot afternoon. And they made me laugh as they waddled slowly, proudly away.

GardenMoonLunacyJul30

Sweet Peace of the Road; Sabbath All the Time

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I’m on retreat/vacation. Every day’s a Sabbath with me for a while. It’s a wonderful thing and I’m so grateful. I’m being a reading fool. Sometimes a cleaning fool, which IS shocking.

Also a traveling fool. Steve and I took off for Maine for a week and had a wonderful time at our cousins’. Quiet, lovely coastal visit. Lots of oysters. Plenty of lobster. So many books. So many quiet conversations. Piles of Peace and Quiet. Lovely sleeping in the cabin in the woods. Lovely being together. So many blessings it was hard to keep track, let alone count.

We’re good traveling buddies. Talk. Talk. Talk. It’s nice. It was particularly nice doing our night driving on the way home. It was an easy drive with Ms GPS telling me how to get hither thither and yon. So, just lots of comforting darkness. Not even a moon, as it was the dark of the Moon. Just Steve and me and the road.

It was an abundance of plenty. Rejoicing in the Peace.

Now I have a couple more things to do before starting the great writing… but there’s time. Blessed Sabbath to you all… May there be beautiful slow days in your life this summer.

And there was this…

GardenMoonLunacyJul19

 

Peace on a Porch

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For me, there is really nothing quite like reading on a screened in porch. Add in the sweet breeze off the bay and a cool glass of tea or lemonade or gasp even a shandy and i’m in heaven.

I had great books to read. They ranged from the meaningful to the totally useless. What a lovely buffet!

While i was alternately either stuffing or emptying my head, Steve was living in his own wonderland. We slept in a little cabin up a rise from the main cabin. So cozy. And he could practice and practice and practice and sleep and sleep and sleep. We both did a lot of that. Gotta get up to the cottage before you have to use your iphone flash light don’t you know.

But my cousin Doug’s a Quaker and so is Steve. So they could talk and talk. They’re both COs… more stuff to talk about. Steve doesn’t go to meeting much around here, because Sunday mornings are worship of another kind for him: jazz workshop! and have been for the last 19 years.

So to have the opportunity to go to meeting to hear Doug take the message and then to just hang with him was fun for all of us.

But the men sat and told their stories about being COs. War stories of a peaceful flavor. War stories we forget about. War Stories people need to hear. War stories that they needed to tell. Peace is not easy; it’s quite hard work actually. It demands conviction and commitment. Both these men have that. I was proud of them and happy for their stories.

Peace needs us to work on its behalf. To stand firm. Always.

GardenMoonLunacyJul17

Let’s Peace on the Fourth of July

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I live in a part of the world where nature is not too far from the human-constructed. And of course I live two blocks from the river.

There are a lot of things we do wrong to nature, and particularly to our river, but still the river is powerful. A couple years before I came back, they started reintroducing eagles to this area. And they’ve flourished.

Now of course we’re messing up the river with fracking and factory farms. So much for our understanding of what’s important. So much for our reverence for our national symbol.

Will they survive? Will we?

But what I thought about as I was writing this was whether or not we honored the eagle’s keen vision or just the power of the predator.

They’re not rapacious. They eat that they might live. May we do the same. Happy Fourth of July. Let us be reflective about Peace, Justice and Freedom — for everyone, not just for Americans. Happy rainy Fourth of July.

ThunderMoonLunacyJul4