Sometimes Peace is Silent, llvl

Peace isn’t always a loud and boisterous thing. And sometimes it moves glacially. For those of us who are let’s go now! kinda people, the measured progress can be tedious.

Other times, it feels pretty wonderful. Part of my lesson as spring comes around this year is about the depth of my grieving. On the one hand, my sister’s absence is becoming somewhat normalized — if normalized is what you mean when you begin to stop reaching for the phone to call her. On the other it’s an endless ache.

I’m beginning to realize that much of this winter I was just numb with the grief. I’m now unpacking it a bit and letting both the numbness and the grief recede. But part of the work of grieving is remembering. So this year as the flowers put on their Spring Show, I’ve been remembering Deb’s pride in her red bud tree. She received a sapling from a friend. It took a while to find a home where it was happy. (it did NOT like being close to the holly!) But eventually it did. It shot up. It flourished and come Spring, it showed Deb and the rest of us how happy it was to be alive.

Except for this year. This year it didn’t bloom. This year, the sapling my sister’s neighbor got from this tree didn’t bloom. Is it odd to find that soothing — to believe it a cosmic recognition that at least my life has tilted on its axis? It was a bitter winter, these two trees may simply not have survived… and I hope they did. But I confess I find Peace in the somewhat silly notion that the trees are mourning too.

Purple Peace-Seeing, llvl

This is Beauty in the local life, that’s for sure — all this glorious purple… I’m counting purple blessings as fast as I can!

Let’s all be one-eyed, one horned flying Purple Peace-Makers… (so could not resist!)

And I admit, I’ve been considering whether I might not start working to see if i can’t develop some, i don’t know, 89th sense that allows me to see the color of a word. What the heck, I learned to parallel park, I can do anything! Possibilities abound!

I’m also trying to train myself to see the Abundance as well as the deprivation as a call to Peace. There is so much that we must share, rather than there is so much that we must have it all to ourselves. To fill up and overflow… into Peace-Making. From Peace-Seeing into Peace-Making… Are you with me?

Changing Spring Sabbath Peace

Things are what they are, I suppose. Things change as they do. Sometimes as with wardrobes and flowerbeds, we’re the change agents. Sometimes we’re the acted upon. Sometimes we’re just the observers.

All of those things require decisions on our part. Do we choose to pull out the Spring clothes now? Are we willing to be sidelined by history and simply maneuvered? When does what we see require us to act? These are all good questions.

But some days, they’re good questions for another day, and today is for celebrating what is and enjoying the changes as they develop. The lilacs are in bloom and there are still, still!, some violets on lawns. Pretty heavenly.

Today, in my household, I’m hauling off yard sale donations and reclaiming space, fighting fracking with music, (how great is that?) and eating with a friend. Sweet Sabbath Peace in a Changing Spring. Next year will be different delight. But that’s for next year. Today this is what we have, let’s enjoy it.

I hope there’s space for delight in your day as well! Enjoy!

Spring Parade Peace, llvl

Whether its from the attic to the bedroom, or from one bedroom to the next or even just front of the closet to back, the parade of clothes from Spring to Summer has a special place. (And i like it the other way, as well, but now is the time of Spring!)

Don’t know that there’s lots of important things to be said about it, but the change of mindset that’s needed… slowly moves us to a different place. Sorting out, seeing what you thought last year. Seeing what favorite thing really needs to be retired. Seeing what really never flattered… and releasing it so it can make someone really happy.

Even the flowers were being changed. I walked by this wonderful stand of tulips, who were going off to some other garden group in another town, making way for “gorgeous geraniums.” And oh, we hate to see them go, but the almost 3 inches of rain gave them a thrashing, so some other beauty is now coming to please. Nature! Having her way with us!

Don’t forget to cull, it’s always a good idea. And yard sales are waiting for your bounty. Our church yard sale is about 20% of our budget. (That’s some yard sale!) Let me know if you want to drop things off! We pay our rent, people get good deals… what’s not to like?

Enjoy Spring!

Glorious Spring Peace

OK: Downtown Lewisburg is beautiful. It’s just gorgeous. Whoever the master gardeners have been over time have done an amazing job. When all the flowering pears are out lining Market Street, it’s hard not to swoon. And there are lovely lawns and people who carefully tend their flowers. Luckily we live in a part of the world where when you stick bulbs and plants in the ground they do what they’re supposed to and flower and fruit. We’ve (usually) got the water to keep them satisfied, enough sun and good soil.

And Deb Slade knows how to show it to us. Thanks, Deb, this pic is just glorious and, folks, go see the flowers, before they don’t look like this!

Small towns, even ones as prosperous as this one, have things that don’t work and aren’t beautiful. Child hunger on the weekends is less in this town than in some of the neighboring towns, but that there’s any is atrocious. There’s unemployment and under-employment. Yesterday a picture flashed across FB, one of our children has gone missing. No story, just no boy/man/child.

We’re needed to be gardeners in our villages. We need the flowers in our ground to make us delirious with joy come Spring. we need good infrastructures so all our people are happy and healthy, well-fed and educated. There’s a lot of work to be done tending the gardens. But we’re community so we can do what’s needed, each one doing her or his part.

Enjoy the beauty of these proud tulips. May they give us courage for the work to be done.

That Keep-Trying Spring Peace, llvl

When you’re in the depths of winter, you think about Spring and you think you know what it means. (Substitute any seasons here. I think longing clouds your vision.) I know I don’t remember the allergens (achoo!), but I don’t think you remember Spring’s long and sustained beauty. There are too many wonderful flowers blooming, too many trees bursting with color; the scent of all the unfolding dances on the breeze — oh right the breezes and the gales.

There’s a rail trail in our area and a girlfriend and I strolled down it at dusk, talking about life and its challenges. It’s hard to decide whether the setting was simply antithetical to our conversation or a balm! Life is very hard and life is very beautiful. There we were, all in one splash. The trail cuts through people’s back yards, farmers fields and wooded copses. It does that all in rapid succession, lest you think i walked for miles and miles and miles. Violets, bulbs, trees, new plantings, birds and barking dogs soothed conversations of loss and challenging presents and subsequent futures.

As we were walking for clarity and health, the earth was offering Beauty. Maybe the conundrum of Spring that I was poking at earlier is that it is so ephemeral and short-lived, in such an exuberant and sustained way. That’s good to remember when life is confusing. Peace comes in many guises, doesn’t it, and it keeps opening new ways to walk. Filled up with beauty and gratitude and searching for Peace in the midst of the chaos. We’ll make it the weather and the rest of us… Our lives depend on it.

Peace Advisory, llvl

I couldn’t resist. It came into my head and out my mouth. I wrote about our own personal advisory boards. I didn’t think about this until later.

I keep saying this… you should have a listing of the people who counsel you and in what areas. We need our own Wisdom keepers.

That said. what it would be like if we had a daily Peace Advisory… I’d have to say today, globally it looks a little glum. But maybe, in this village, or in yours, it could be cheerier as we begin to do work that brings folks together.

“All we are saying, is give Peace a chance.”

I’ll be singing Pete Seeger songs with my friend Larry. I’ll be asking the question, who’s writing the anthems for Peace? and who’s singing them? as we answer that, the Advisory gets more optimistic…

Today’s Peace Advisory: Warming Trends?

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.

Spring Peace from Another Home, llvl

To have lived somewhere else long enough to know the seasons is to discover the peculiarities and particularities of that place. Spring in California is a slow unfolding, it starts early and proceeds in haphazard fashion, one lovely flower at a time.

Living in places where the weather is warmer often means richly scented trees. To be out walking at night (a city pleasure) and have Jasmine and Mock-Orange dofting… it’s heaven. And it holds my heart. It will never be my only home… but it will always hold a part of me and those memories smell as sweetly as the trees… Peace enters us in so many ways. And we can offer it in as many. Sweet Peace. Sweet home away from home. Sweet local life wherever you find it, wherever you make it.

Spring Sabbath Peace, llvl

Oh, another beautiful Spring Day — clear and cool and sunny. Having “weathered” Winter, it’s lovely to have Spring linger and not just toss us into Summer.

The longer it’s cool, the longer my beloved violets will hang out. And that makes me happy. Sometime today, whatever else i do, I’m finding time to cram a neighborhood walk in to admire the violets dancing in the lawns.

I’ve had a particularly busy week. It’s been fraught with emotional ups and downs and loaded with things to do. They’re finished, they were mostly successful! and me? I’m exhaustipated! So today, I’m claiming the rest the sabbath offers. despite the beauty, there’s a nap in my future, I’ll eat things that are good for me, and maybe, even, pick up my room so it doesn’t make me crazy. Maybe later, I’ll read a book — if I can find one that asks nothing of me. Because nothing is just what I have to offer!

We don’t have a lot of days when the weather is so delightfully comfortable; so take advantage. I plan to indulge myself in the Sabbath. I’ll be pushing the pause button — ahhhhhhhh. relaxed. I wish you the same Joy and a full measure of Sabbath Peace.

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

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