Forgiveness on behalf of Peace

I am a lousy student of history. There is so much I haven’t studied. It’s embarrassing to admit but i have only the most superficial understanding of Gandhi and his non-violence and peacemaking. So much for Peacemaking!

So last night was revelatory for me.

The speaker was great. He’s retired, but still involved and an exciting speaker. He had tons of information, much of which I’d never heard, made me know I should know more, but spoke so movingly and convincingly about the ways forgiveness contributes to Peace…

The way it softens hearts…

And how it’s only softened hearts that allows us to move forward. Gandhi thought of himself as a failure because in the end, Peace was not perfected. But Peace is ongoing work. It is the best of us that moves toward forgiveness. It is the best of us that demands Peace. So it will always be a struggle… and yet…

Forgiveness. Peace. Oh, there is work to be done. And there are possibilities to be discerned.

Peace of Summer Weddings

When one of your domain names is The Wedding Priestess, you get to do a lot of weddings.

Because I have a wedding outline but not a set wedding service, I spend a lot of time working with couples to create services that reflect who they are. In that time I get the opportunity to really know and care about my couples. Lucky me!

And then I get to preside over the love fests.

It’s a fun and lovely way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

Every couple who marries is a reminder to us that Love is all that really softens our edges enough to help us grow in directions we want to go. So let’s here it for love and outrageous ambitious promises!

And for me, it’s an opportunity to remember all my couples… so fun.

And now? have a lovely Sabbath, whether you pack it full of fun or do nothing at all!

I’m off for among other things, my last swim at the town pool…

Peace, you all. May Peace, Love and Happiness be yours…

Sweet Reminders of Peace Possible!

The weekend was so incredibly tense so it was just lovely to have a sweet day of community!

No issues to work, no big thoughts to have. The hardest decisions to make were not even whether I should test everything but rather whether I should try something again! Big decisions about whether I should just stand in the splash from the Skloosh, or whether i should get on the silly ride (I did! I did!) Oh, we give thanks for the bounty of food and the abundance of beloved, laughing community!

Four different traditions. All under a yellow and white stripped tent making merry. Life at its summer sweetest. And lots of pictures to remind us we were making sweet memories

And today? I’m going to find some more strawberries on this last day of the Berry Moon. From the way the next moon’s getting off to a start, it sounds as if I should choose Thunder moon. Apparently there were big storms last night, i confess I didn’t hear them. My basement isn’t a swimming pool however, so how bad could they have been?

But today, my dears, I wish you the quiet Peace that comes of great gatherings with good friends — the last sweet remnants of Strawberry Peace and the startling beginnings of Thunder Peace. wow? do we think it’s time to make a stir?

Patchwork Souls for Peace

Some of us, and I think it’s more of a what is thing than a good or bad thing, have what I think of as patchwork souls. We have walked many paths, sat in many kitchens drinking tea or beer or whatever the local brew is, talked in many languages, whether they were of a nation or a clan…

And there is for us, particularly as we begin to understand it, a great joy.

However, it also means that there are paths and kitchens and languages that are lost or abandoned. And then there are pockets of remembered joy, sealed perhaps with some scar tissue of grief. Because there are some places, for so many reasons, to which you can never return.

I do think it helps us, as we come to the Peace-making process, to understand how many different hearts with their own languages of Love need to be engaged and how much space needs to be made for different approaches… May we be Peace and Possibility.

Lost Words of Peace

The grief and hunger for a lost language are so much bigger than I thought when I first began to explore this. (and, man, reading stuff like this makes me wish that I’d had a much better adviser in college.) I feel as if I’ve stumbled into something much bigger and truer than I suspected… something has profound implications for Peace and something that helps me understand how much more complex Peace is even when it’s also simple.

The article I read by Joshua Fishman “What Do You Lose When You Lose Your Language?” takes an anthropological view. Now I wonder about the psycho-spiritual views.

I was a language major in college. I majored in language because I learned languages easy, not because I was interested in literature. (Not that I’m sorry I read (past tense) well! There’s so much more reading I should do!) But anthro or religion and linguistics might have been a much better fit. If only they taught those things where I was — or I’d have known they existed!

We’ve all read about “civilizing” invaders who eradicate language and custom in the native born. Most of us live in a country where we’ve seen it. It’s happening today all over the world. And the results are hugely disabling. I’m not talking about language that evolves, although things are lost for what’s gained in them as well, I’m talking about the erasure of Native languages by conquerors.

So we come back to hard questions… What is it in humans that creates such fear that we feel a need to stamp out another’s world view completely, to eradicate culture? We’re certainly seeing that in some of the political campaigning. And then how do we create Peace out of all those forsaken Peace words? How do we help people find them again and help ourselves come closer to Peace… I wish I knew. But I suspect there are many seeds to Peace in that which has been lost — especially violently… What are the possibilities? What is the work? Where is that Peace?

Summer Memories, Sabbath Peace, Berry Moon

It’s a positively beautiful day.

It’s a day for breathing in the Beauty and all the promise and possibility in the beginning of this Berry Moon Season. Strawberries, soon! Swimming, soon! Memories abounding. New possibilities ahead.

It’s the Sabbath and a day for reflection. Today among other things, I’ll be remembering an old family friend. Part of my parents’ crowd… fewer and fewer beloved elders. (as I become one despite my shock and surprise!). Jack. loved steam engines. Did the best corn on the cob. Funny, corny jokes. could fix anything. His wife and my mom shared a birthday on December 24, so we always lunched together that day. Making family every way we could.

Hope your day is grand. Hope you find some sweet Summer Peace to indulge in and some memories to make. Sweet blessings of the Berry Moon be with you…

To Live in Peace

Is it fleeing? Is it invasion?

Whatever it is, as hordes of people flee war torn countries, how is there a peaceful coming together of different cultures? (Sadly this is not one of those columns with an answer.)

I can imagine, if not understand, the desperation that causes you to flee your homeland. I can imagine that what you’re looking for is a safe landing place to be again the person you were.

That becomes so difficult, however, when you and an entire colony of people like, you, thank heavens there are people like you, arrive in a place that is so foreign with an established culture that is inimical to yours.

And then when you are the host country with a long established and beloved country what do you do when people show up and want to establish their country in the midst of yours?

And when chauvinism is a piece of where you come from and how can it not be, how do you mediate that to make space? Is the history of conquering nations illustrative here? Because that has pretty much been a disaster in terms of culture and acculturation?

When things are one way, and then they’re not, and everyone is uncomfortable and the way forward doesn’t seem clear, what does Peace look like? Is there a way for us all to fold into one another? Does Pollyanna’s “can’t we all just get along” cry have any use, or is she (I) just hopelessly optimistic and naive?

But whatever the answer is, it’s not letting would be immigrants drown or starve off shore or on the other side of a border wall. It’s not in killing those who think differently than you in the country in which you’re seeking safe haven. But shouldn’t there, in the vast gulf between those two places, be some way — or a lot of ways — forward?

It is so very hard to think about, isn’t it? But in the hard work, shouldn’t there be possibility?

Peace be with us all…

Rocky Moments in the Flower Moon

It was one of those days. Nothing majorly wrong, but filled with rocky moments where nothing was particularly right.

We have these. They come around. And our job is to relax into them and deal with things as they come up.

I think the key to days such as these is the exhale. You force out the stale breath you didn’t know you were holding and fresh air streams in.

And in the Flower Moon, that air is often sweetly scented. Sure, it’s filled with allergens… but still… Lilacs!

There are often appropriate actions to take and you take them, because life has responsibilities and is sometimes very hard work. And if you deal with them as they come up, there are fewer treacherous rapids to run. I’m a big fan of letting only the big problems be a big deal, the little problems can be dealt with.

When we let the little things become big things we move our attention away from our Peace Goal. We also forget Possibility. I mastered this art for a while, but, in the long run, it’s not really an art I want to be good at. So, I stopped. I mess it up once in a while, and then i get back to getting on with moving toward Peace. Exhale and breathe in that fresh lilac scented air.

Peace be with you on this lovely morning.

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

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