Companionable Sabbath Peace, llvl

Mmmmmmmm. Here we are, it’s mid-week Sabbath in my whacky world of calculations. Having started the year on a Wednesday, I’ve continued to start the weeks on Wednesday, introducing Deb Slade’s new pic, and thus my new week every Wednesday. It makes Tuesday a special day of anticipation, because Deb’s pic is coming and Wednesday a day of pleasure, because I’m introducing it and having to think differently in response to it… which brings us to Sunday, smack dab in the middle of the week. Yay.

So, I’m not sure whether I’m only mid-week or also mid-life (technically, i know probably past midlife by a good 10-15 years!), or whether it’s just that we’ve been snowbound, but I’m really appreciating the remembrance that we’re not on this journey alone.

It’s been wonderful to start working on Love Flows: The LOVE project, which involves our gathering money to feed hungry kids on the weekend. And it’s been even more wonderful to gather people who are willing not only to think about the project in different ways, but to do something about making a really big dream a possibility.

Being in community makes big dreams achievable and companionable. And on the Sabbath, you get not only to celebrate the dream but also appreciate the community. Well, you do, if you want to. This week, I’m feeling particularly grateful and counting blessings.

and You? are numbered among those blessings.

I’m also enjoying winter, and although I’m not going along… i’m happy that a whole bunch of folks from the church are going off ice skating this afternoon. This is one of the things I remember from my happy little childhood… have a great time guys!

And yikes! because Sabbath to me also means church, I’d better stop sitting around smiling and get ready to go sit around and sing and smile and not be responsible today, because one of my companions on the journey is responsible today!

Blessed Sabbath. Celebrate the Dreams. Imagine the Peace. and do something that’s not work!

Neighborly Winter Peace, llvl

It’s a lovely thing, living in a town that’s small enough, at a pace that’s slow enough, that you can come to know your neighbors and what they’re really up to.

Suzanne is collecting coats to send to a reservation out West. The winter has been so cold and the poverty there is so extreme. And as she says, who doesn’t have a coat in their closet that they don’t wear all that often. She’s sent five boxes so far. She’s thinking about books next, because they don’t have enough books in their school libraries. And we have books by the truckload. Oh, said someone, they’ll be expensive to ship. Could they be more expensive than hungry minds? Probably not.

It was wonderful to talk to her and to hear not only what she’s doing, but why. To begin to understand what moved her heart and then moved her to action. It is good to sit with someone who is moved to action, even when they’re actions very different from ours, you understand the movement and it encourages your own. Hearts on the move toward Peace. However small the movement, however small the Peace. It’s what we need.

But living la vida local is also about the dailiness of life. And so, in Suzanne’s beautiful room, on a bluff high above the river, we sat as the day lengthened into evening talking about Big Hopes and little ones, her painting and my writing, people we knew and loved… just two women, living la vida local, doing the best we can, loving the community, and enjoying our lives to the fullest.

There we were: finding the moments, enjoying the Peace and the connections that’s already here, and then going back to work.

Winter Beauty and Peace, llvl

It’s difficult not to talk about the weather. It’s very cold and there’s snow coming. Snow!

And yet, it’s so beautiful. The icy clarity of a day like today — well, there’s really nothing to compare it to. The focus is so sharp, there’s such precision to the world this morning. No sense wasting breath whining about the cold, might as well just admire!

Gotta drive across the river today, it’s as close as it’s going to come to iced over. Have to leave the pipes dripping because they are indeed iced over. It’s a good day to have lunch with some friends and listen to music tonight in a warm tavern and sweet community.

The weather is what it is, might as well enjoy it. Being dissatisfied with you life doesn’t help anyone — and mostly it doesn’t help you.

Now while the sky is bright and blue, give thanks — and allow yourself to be astounded by the beauty (what’s outside your door and the magic Deb Slade caught in this picture!)! And then consider how making Peace with what is helps us to make Peace in the direction of what should be.

Lovely Village Peace — Disturbed, llvl

So there I am, waxing eloquent as I often do, about the lovely safety of my little town, two blocks away my friends’ car was being boosted. Nice. Safe enough for snow shovels, but not so great for cars.

Blech, you know? And it could have been kids… they obviously couldn’t drive very well, because they got into some drifted snow… and had to abandon the car. Winter works it’s magic, foiling the getaway…

And joy riding has always been part of “these kids these days” whenever the days happened to be. But still?

When you live in trust and the trust is broken, when the agreements you thought you lived under turn out not to be the agreements you’re actually living under, it’s more than disconcerting, it’s disappointing.

I’m sure tomorrow’s poem lies in this somewhere. argh. I like believing I live in Paradise. But even Paradise has issues. As I keep reminding myself, it’s a road to Peace, and there are places we stumble along the way. Peace is harder work than we like to believe.

Thankfully, my neighbors got their car back.

A Neighborly Sabbath Peace, LLVL

It was going to happen sometime. Someone I knew who lived alone was going to get hurt or sick and we’d have to figure things out.

When a friend of mine in California got sick, her community, from all over the country rallied around. Her husband suddenly died about a month before she did and friends started flying in, a week at a time. People showed up. She was that kind of friend. You did that. She was part of a culture that moved about for business. Luckily for everyone, she was part of a culture that made enough money that people could fly about.

But this accident happened in the village. You step outside to snap a rug and that quickly you’re on the ground with your foot going the wrong way. Our friend somehow managed to get back inside to call 911 but then she called a friend, and they came to take care of the dogs and to remind her how very loved she was.

By the time I found out the next morning, there was a place for her (and her little dogs, too!) to stay when she got out of the hospital. One little dog got sick and it turned out Wilma needed an operation too. That was being handled. Friends, on the job. The interwebs were alight with news. If you ever wondered whether FB has value, wonder no longer. Email would have connected a few of us. FB connected many more.

It’s a nice thought to savor on a frosty Winter Sabbath morn. Yes, the ice is treacherous; but hearts are sweet and warm. If you’re present to life, there are so many ways for that to be true.

If you move off the couch today, you might want to call a friend and weave the web tighter. You might want to thank a couple friends for being so important to you. You might just sit, gratefully appreciating how sweet life can be, how grace-filled, even in the moments that just seem scarey. But when you make a life where you are, live la vida local, people can respond.

Peace is in the cracks of life… what is it Cohen says, they let the light in — and the Peace, they let in Peace.

Neighbors in Peace, LLVL

When I lived in New York, right after college, I had interesting glimpses of my neighbors’ lives through their windows. I would see people cooking, or getting ready for bed. There was the naked lady, the man with his little boy, the woman with the three barking dogs. But I didn’t know anyone except the people in my building. We were an exception to the rule because we were all small town girls and boys in a small walk up building.

I later found out that my Swedish sister and I lived on the same block for two or three years and we never ran into each other. (and there was no email and fb!)

Oakland was a little different. Aileen Street was a real neighborhood. As renters Jenn and I were part and not part of what went on. But Jenn had Legos, so she was pretty much Aunt Central. And we wormed our way in since we were willing to sit on the stoop and nod and chat as neighbors walked by. All these years later, she’s still there.

And then back home to little Pennsylvania towns where you wake up and the guy down the street is snow blowing the 8 inches of heavy snow off the entire block and walking the machine around our cars that had just been plowed in. That left me to dig out what he didn’t get. Participating in one another’s lives. Being kind. I’d gone out that morning expecting to spend several hours digging through to the street. I was back in within 1 1/2 hours. It was a lovely gesture. Most mornings I love the shoveling — snow as prayer. But so far this year the snow has been light and easy to push around. This was not. This was not meditative snow. Gratitude abounds.

When you live where you are, live in the moment and in your village, you live next door to your neighbors. Being a good neighbor is part of the job. It’s part of the Joy. It’s part of the Peace. and beside that? Snow! Happy Winter, my friends.

And we can’t forget that while I’m reveling in the sweet white stuff, 800,000 people are without power in the cold (and dark). Prayers for them and for the folks working on the downed lines and non-functional equipment.

Silent, Sacred Footsteps for Peace, LLVL

Quick this morning, shoveling awaits… want to get at it while the snow’s still dry.

Nothing like a lazy morning waking up to silence. And white, unbroken expanses of snow.

My neighborhood is old, much of it built around the time of the just post civil war era. On days like this up a few steps from the street, you can believe that there have never been cars here.

Peace be with you my friends. Let go the frustration, nothing to do but live with the weather. Might as well enjoy it. Soon enough the cycle will turn and winter’s beauty will disappear. Consider living each day where you are. Too much? Consider living this morning where you are and finding it just right. And make a few footsteps for Peace.

Sabbath Peace for Phil, LLVL

It’s going to be a Peaceful Sunday for Phil the groundhog after being rudely awakened this morning at 7:28. He saw his shadow and is headed back for another six-week snooze. Living la vida local in Pennsylvania, you pay attention to Phil. They’re now attributing atrocious poetry to him as well. Although, goodness, he IS a groundhog, so I’m not sure how well developed his poetic functions are!

A Superbowl winner I will not predict,

But my weather forecast you cannot contradict

That’s not a football lying beside me, that’s my shadow that you see.

Six more weeks of winter, it shall be.

Sorry Phil, had to redact a little. We’re having a little break in the weather, which was good for the 200 who plunged into the 39˚ river yesterday. After they broke the ice on the shore, there wasn’t much ice in the river to worry about. But it’s a pretty bleak day. Cozy in with a good book! Do something that’s your version of down-time.

Beloved husband is playing music today, I’m off to work. As always anniversary celebrations will wait and get fitted in to some leisure time. We’re not postponing joy, we’re extending it!

This day has become the most significant in my life in many ways. I may need to think a bit about that. It’s the stirring awake metaphor and reality that catches me. And maybe the beginning again. I said that I liked Chinese New Year because it was a beginning again, but I think perhaps it’s the beginning of sap rising in the trees that catches me. I see this as the beginning of the cycle, the actual new year. The end of the year is about rest for me, and this is about waking up. For me this is a natural break in the year.

Let us recommit at the beginning of the cycle to creating the new possibilities for the year. Let us be the awakening light… after a bit of snoozing around!

And as for Phil, my sister must be sighing the big sigh of relief that she won’t be chasing his cousin from under the flagstones around her pool. I doubt we remembered to warn the new owners about the groundhog. Ah well, you live on land, you live in nature! So Happy many anniversaries to me (and to Steve) and burrow in, at least for today. Peace may lie in getting enough rest. But watch out when we wake up.

New New Year New Moon Peace, LLVL

I’ll take it. I’ll take the restart. Rebooting 2014.

Am I the only person for whom things seem to linger like this? Where the new year begins with the old year spilling over. In my case there was still letting go to finish. And for aching hearts there’s a journey between doing what needs to be doing, standing firm and present, and beginning to heal. First you sleep and then you can face what’s ahead.

So, it’s a wonderful gift of a month for sorrowing hearts, and slow ones, and even sloppy ones.

An auspicious new Moon… and the second in a month, a phenomenon called the Black Moon. I love the Dark of the Moon… a time of reflection, time to consider what seed will take root in your heart for the month, and in this case, the year, ahead.

And tomorrow? Candlemas and more dawning. Hooray! May Peace take root in your heart and grow in your neighborhood. And Love. and what the heck, why not, and Understanding!

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.

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

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