Water is Life and Peace

Water is Life. We must care for it.

There’s no way around that. We come from water, are born from it. It is 60 percent of us. If we can’t process water, we die. If we don’t have clean water, we die.

My troubles dissolve in water. It brings me Peace. Clean water is necessary to me in ways far beyond the physical.

We must care for water. It is not an endless source… We have the water we have and we keep polluting it. It must stop. We must stop. We must demand that greed is not more important than our water. Water is sacred and belongs to the people. Let us bless the water. Let us be a blessing to the water. Even as it brings us Peace, may we bring Peace as well.

Water is Life. Water is Peace. Blessed Be.

Spring Equinox! Sabbath Peace!

It was a dark and stormy day… never you mind, it’s still the Vernal Equinox! It’s still Spring.It is, as is every day, a sacred gift to be unwrapped and celebrated. Stand still and be amazed!

It’s my Sabbath, day to gather with my community, day of rest and reflection.

While it may not be the day that I do the most for Peace, it is the day I focus the most on it.

I love this sunrise pic because it’s such an everyday picture. It’s a reminder that every day matters. A new day dawns. What will we do with it? Every day arrives to be filled up with Peace or Sweetness, according to our whims.

We have such freedom here to do that. We’re not waking up in a war zone. We’re not waking up under someone else’s thumb. And yet we’re allowing our world to be filled up with such ugliness. Ugly rhetoric. Ugly actions. So let us make whatever small stands we can.

Every day. Everyday matters. Every day matters. Everyday Peace. Every day, Peace.

Peace of the Dark Sacred Night

There is such beauty in the night. Too often we ignore it, brush by it, try and light it up.

What is most wonderful to do is to linger in it. To go out into its silence and breathe it in. To honor the Dark as well as the Light. To honor the traditions that celebrate this dark Beauty.

The night is also a gift. Particularly here in the country, where we don’t worry as much about the violence that hides in the night. But we cannot let them steal it from us. There is a movement dedicated to safety for women in the dark: Take Back the Night. Yes! Let us do that very thing. Honoring the very holy Dark. Honoring the Women and Men who have always honored the flow of time. Finding my place in that long river of souls that know that nature is a thing of balance and that balance is to respected.

And this night? this is a dark, dark night. No moon. The sun is late to rise and early to bed. Winternight. The Earth is getting ready for rebirth. But that’s a time away from now. Right now we have Beauty and Abundance and this Dark and Sacred Beauty.

Let us go out into the Dark in the winter and breathe in that crystalline air, rejoice in the stars. Let us simply be at Peace in the night.

Alternative Advent, December 11: 2¢ for every bar or dispenser of soap in your life. Don’t forget all the stuff under the sink, in your linen closet or in the laundry room… You thought, oh, two cents. Hah! it adds up.

Thanksgiving Peace

It’s a pretty miraculous thing. A whole day dedicated to giving thanks. A sacred holiday. A sacred season.

Which means being aware of just how lucky, how blessed we are.

It feels so luxurious, so delicious.

Which, I guess is part of the reason that I don’t get the whole shopping thing. Here’s a day to be dedicated to just being. MMMMMM. Well, being and being aware.

There’s a long and luxurious list of things and people for which I am grateful. For my love. For my family and friends — for each and every one of you. For music. For fun. For my work. Oh, I’m so grateful for my work. All of it.

Today, in particular, I’m grateful to be the family priestess, grateful I’ve honed this craft so that the wedding I’m about do will reflect the Love this couple feels for one another.

I’m a bit grateful that the mourning is far enough back that I can think about how happy i am that those people were part of my life. Grateful for the love of so many.

And so I give thanks. I hope you have a wonderful time doing the same thing. I hope you’re engaged in making many lovely memories! Happy Thanksgiving. Blessed Peace.

Goblins, Ghosties, Memories, Peace

For some it’s about the mad or the weird, for me it’s about remembering.

I have a pretty full altar, The past 20 years have been hard on my heart. A lot of beloved friends have gone on before.

In several traditions this is the time of year that the veil between this world and the next is seen to be the thinnest. Souls are thought to be able to slip back and forth, to visit those they loved with a touch.

For me, it’s an opportunity to commemorate those lives. And to just be present.

I’m a zoomy kinda woman, so it’s hard to give myself that space. It’s hard to give my loved ones that attention. So, today, I will just take this one Sacred Day.

The rest of you will be out being wee goblins and ghosties and looking for sweet loot. I hope you have a great time.

Peace , we need to remember, looks different for different folks! Hope you’re living into yours… Happy Halloween! Happy Peace.

Busy Weekend (Sabbath) Peace!

What a rich weekend. Friday night at King Street Coffee House and great friends playing. Doing ceremony — a sad tribute to a lovely woman. An evening all about friends and listening to a dear friend who just gets better and better.

Today is jam-packed. Church (preceded by choir!). A friend in a play (and the reviews have been great.) And then more friends in another short road trip to hear EG Kight sing again.

A couple years ago EG Kight came very close to dying. And did not. But they didn’t know if she would ever sing again, let alone write, let alone tour. She’s back, her voice is better than ever, and although the touring is hard work, she packed a three hour show. Never less than her best.

And she is so encouraging. She’s played with one local musician before, and she brought him up. But she’d heard about a young man called him out of the audience and handed him her guitar. And then coaxed the best out of him and let him coax the best out of her. It was lovely. Such generosity.

So you know me. I’m a bide-at-home kinda girl. But once in a while, you have to make the effort to enjoy the bounty. And doesn’t that seem ridiculous.

I know this area is rich. But every area is. Feast and give thanks.

You can’t help but be at Peace when you’re sitting in a crowd listening to someone belting out the blues. (Most of the time I could even let the young talking kids in the front off my indignant that’s-no-way-to-listen-to-a-concert fuddiduddiness!) Music. Theater. Ceremony. Community. Faith. It’s a weekend worth celebrating and a Sabbath worth indulging, and making sacred. Oh, and there were moments of sublime beauty. It’s Peace if we give it a chance.

Something Beautiful, Something Peace

“I will set my bow in the sky as a promise…” Of all the biblical pieces that have stuck, this is one. Every time I see one, I’m happy.

So to see this one, on this day…when my heart was feeling so many things — so many things that in fact I blew past my exit and took the long drive to the next exit. It was only as I was turned around, coming home, that I saw the promise.

And it was gorgeous, hidden there behind the curtain of rain.

Such a gift of beauty. And I often think of rainbows as summer pleasures part of the joy of thundershowers. Yet not an hour before, we’d had snow.

But you take Beauty and heart’s ease where you find it. You find the holy, the sacred, in the ordinary. You count those blessings when they’re there to be counted.

Peace comes in so many little gifts. Let us celebrate. Let us Peace.

Sweet/Bittersweet Peace

It’s what happens in small towns. Your life changes, people die, but life goes on in the place you once thought of as home.

Twice now, I’ve had the privilege of being in the homes of the people who bought the homes my family owned.

Yesterday I stood looking for the doorbell at what was once my sister’s home. It turns out they’d taken it down because it malfunctioned. But the fact was I didn’t know where the doorbell was because of course I never had used it. That almost derailed my ability to go in that house — thanks for the reminder, reality.

But once inside, it was all warmth and sweetness. The house does look great. It’s fine that it’s familiar. Or it was yesterday.

I could tell them the story of Jack and Jane — a great love story — who married in what is now their dining room. We could sit around the table that they obviously sit around a lot. and she’s as silly a decorator for seasons as Deb was.

They talked very seriously to me about their plans to love the house… as if I had to be assured they would do right by it and i told them how deb and nan and i all planned to rock on that porch with sippy cups in our old age… and laughed that I’d be over. They laughed too.

And so they were married.

And it was bittersweet. But, it’s the season of bittersweet isn’t it? And it is bright and glossy orange. And sacred, it seems.

And the sweetness is still there. And there is a great deal of Peace in that. (And did you see that Frosty Moon last night? It was beautiful.

Beautiful Fall Peace

Autumn: warm days, cool nights. Color: blue skies, startling red, orange, gold leaves.

This part of fall, when the pumpkin fields are full, when the leaves turn, before the rains come is so invigorating and wonderful.

Time to take advantage of this sacred season! (hint, they’re all sacred!)

I realized this morning as I was waking, how little I knew about my parents’ honeymoon, how little I thought to ask about them and their early days. Children are self centered little monsters aren’t we? and Parents are probably not as forthcoming as they might be. Great time to wonder, eh? Long after the parents are gone without even my sister to call and say, huh. i didn’t know about this. Life. you never know what you’re going to want to know.

But looking back, i think, well no wonder Fall was a big deal at our house. First, it’s beautiful and my artist Mom and appreciative Dad would have loved the color. But second, it reminded them of a very sweet time in their life.

But however you came to appreciate Autumn, I wish you the Peace of beautiful days and a glorious Frosty Moon in a black and starry sky.

Life Is Precious. Sabbath. Peace.

Oh, the weather is beautiful. Noisy in the neighborhood, however. Last night it was cackling with loads of college students; this morning the geese are running practice flights for their trip south.

It’s a wonderful time of year. At the beginning of every season, it seems, there’s a washing clean of the old… There’s a burst before the settling in. We’re having that right now. I always feel more alive during those passages. (I’ve always been a fan of the places in between!)

Today, I really want to hold on to that sense of being alive, to hold it up.

My friend, by no means a close friend, just a man I like, is alive. So easily things might have gone the other way. It’s always the little things that cause the accidents… says the woman who tripped over an acorn yesterday and went flying.

Life is precious. All life. My friend’s life. It’s too short, really to complain. But not too short to celebrate. Not too short to give thanks. Not too short to pack every single minute with joy and awareness of its abundance. We’re busy we think — we think until something makes us remember… right, show up, be present: now is the time.

My friends, about those Syrian refugees. They could use some support. Their lives are precious as well…

My last two decades have been shaped by deaths. This year, two years away from the last huge, significant death, I’m feeling a little steadier on my feet. I understand, all too well, that death happens. But it’s better when it doesn’t.

So look around your circle and celebrate. Life is here. That’s really what observing the Sabbath, keeping it holy, is all about — Life is right here. There is a wild and outrageous Peace in that. Celebrate fiercely. And let’s use that to fuel the work we have to do with others whose lives are not so lucky at the moment. Because we can.

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

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