Peace of Tomatoes Past

A ripe tomato may well be my favorite food of all — but there are raspberries… and corn on the cob… and blueberries… and of course strawberries… and don’t fail to mention clementines… and, and, and.

The fact is that the perfect food is what’s ripe and good in that moment and perfect for the moment. You may have a raspberry in February, straight from the freezer, and they’re good, but they’re not, that perfect raspberry. I’ve finally found a tomato to eat in the winter that enhances that grilled cheese sammich, but it’s not THE PERFECT tomato; it’s an okay substitute.

Things are right when they are. And Peace is a whole list of things that are right when they are. (OLIVES, I forgot to mention olives!!!!!) You may favor one piece of it more than another, but you can’t deny the existence of the others and the rightness of them. All that is what makes the season wonderful. That kind of variety is what makes Peace possible. Everything has to go into Peace so that Peace isn’t a sterile ideal, but a warm, messy, wonderful thing. (sorta like watermelon!!!)

When one season ends, we must open our hearts and minds and tastebuds to the next round of deliciousness. Nature is filled with abundance. There is plenty for all. We give thanks by enjoying what is offered. Count your blessings and dig in.

I hope you enjoyed your last summer tomato — or whatever it is you enjoy, leftover from last season, ready for the next…

Hunter Moon Peace

Once again I stood with a friend at a sorting table heaped high with the gleanings from several life-times.

In the morning, we sorted clothes into piles: Yes, no, maybes. The yeses were put back into the closet. Today they’ll be sorted into summer, all season, winter (the table — my bed — wasn’t big enough for all the piles.) The nos were then sorted into tops, bottoms, pjs, winter, and then the really big pile: “nobody will ever want to wear that throw it out!” Laughing at the memories, counting my blessings, giving thanks, remembering, releasing…

An hour later, there was room in my closet! After such support, at the end of today there will be summer clothes disappeared and winter clothes appeared, which is a good thing given that the Hunter Moon has drawn all the heat from the land. Ah, seasons change.

Out to lunch and we did the same things with paper. Six feet of paper became six inches and two bags: shred and recycle and 3 items to throw away.

It was age-old work with a new theme. We were certainly readying the house for the long cold winter. (and speaking of which I think I should turn the heat on, it’s cold in here). We did it side by side making it a community transaction. I’ve done it for her. She’s done it for me. We’ve done it for someone else. It’s not the last time it will happen.

Maybe it was clearing out the emotional and physical underbrush yesterday that allowed me to stop worrying about what I might trip and actually look up to see the moon. It certainly eased some of the anxiety that is my constant companion these days. Lovely to move from my little world to the grandeur of Nature. I had a wonderful night out with friends that included food and theater, and that was lovely. And there we were, riding back home along the river after a productive, enjoyable day, looking at the Moon and enjoying the evening.

Softening Peace

We’re getting deeper and deeper into Autumn. Even though the temps are lolling around in September ranges, Mother Earth keeps changing and preparing for winter. The hours of daylight are lessening. Pretty soon, there’s going to be that unnatural jolt into darkness… wow, maybe the government won’t change to standard time if they’re out lolling about.

But change or not, there are still more hours of darkness… and a lot more slow dawn and twilight. And that’s the beauty of Fall.

I know. I’ve been whining a lot because I’m caught in that place in between. Everything requires two or three steps to be done before it. It’s very hard for me. I’m a charge ahead kinda woman and this is a slog through it time… outside and in… and by in let’s include both my heart and my house.

My house will be lovely. It’s unlovely now. My heart will be patched over. It’s still got draining wounds.

But this process of healing is not to be wished away. This is time too. This is what it takes to merge the stuff of generations. This is what it takes for a heart to hold love. That I can’t do what i’ve always done, think the way I’ve always thought, laugh the way I so often do, is what’s true. And in that truth is a wretched beauty.

This is the cost of having a sweet sister. This is the price of having familial history. You pay the price that the silver might shine and the wood might gleam and the glassware sparkle. All that shining, gleaming and sparkling is your past. hmmm… maybe there’s a poem in this, I should stop!

But living here, now, being present, is the only way to get to ‘way over yonder…. whether that’s ‘way, ‘way, ‘way over yonder or simply tomorrow. It’s also the only way of making memories to make our futures sweet. Peace is where we are, or it isn’t anywhere.

Wisps of Peace

Driving across the bridge yesterday, I was ambushed by the beauty. Sweet wisps of fog dancing on the river’s surface as the sun rose.

One of the challenges of mourning is making space for beauty. To some extent you live in a fog. One foot in front of the other, doing what needs to be done. Staring into space, occasionally curling into a ball.

I have gotten by with a great deal of help from my friends. One of the odd things about grief is that you’re very muzzy-headed, so to have to make loads of decisions is hard. But the ending of a life brings nothing but decisions. and stuff. it brings lots of stuff. and I am so easily overwhelmed by stuff and details in the best of times. so you can imagine how it is now.

There have been angels. People who swoop into my life and in an hour or two, make it different. People who offer. People who write or call. people who prop you up. People who surround you because your boundaries are about as fuzzy as your brain. I’ve recently taken to describing this brain as acid etched. Whole pieces are missing.

I’ve partnered with grief enough to know that your brain eventually rebuilds, the holes reconnect — but in the meantime. sheesh. It’s the silly things, you know. A book in the series of a favorite author came out and I fell on it joyfully. Distraction. But I found myself really annoyed that she was referring to a period in this character’s life as if I should know it. Why would I know this? I was almost finished with the book when I realized, oh, I should know this because the last book was about this. But I’d completely forgotten. When I finally fished the book out of my shelves, I remembered, but it was gone.

If grief had not been a frequent companion in my past, I might have panicked. As it was, I thought, “Ann, pay attention, because you’re not working with a full brain. Keep your expectations low… and be safe.”

So to have beauty pierce the fog of mourning is delightful. And what was lovely was that it wasn’t only my fog that beauty was piercing. It was also piercing the fog of the morning, no “u.” And while all the heavy fog had fled, there remained small columns of vapors drifting together across the water. It was exquisite. Last week I drove through the Poconos and the colors were changing. Every once in a while a tree would scream color and beauty and dare me to ignore the bounty. I was about to talk how Autumn is particularly beautiful, but perhaps what I need to say is that each season has a particular beauty that opens us, and helps us remember that this will end.

Wisps of Peace. All I can appreciate; all I can withstand at the moment. But still, Beauty is. Hope is. Peace is. Even in the fog of mourning.

Paradise, Peace and Ugly Reality

There I was, reveling in the beauty, focused on my own sweet task. The weather was unbelievable, out of season fabulous. The beach was clear and wide and clean. Impossible to tell there’d been a horrible hurricane just last year. And the water? September sweet. Warm and clean. No better place, it seemed, to lay my burden down.

And there was my cousin along with me. Her first step out into the world after a summer of back surgeries and setbacks remembering that she is a woman who travels. We have fun together, we laughed at the inconveniences. We both worked. (I worked, I read, it felt like old times. There was my brain, processing information, in what felt like forever. What was not to like?)

Well, of course, even in the midst of euphoria, reality intrudes. We’re not the only ones who came to this waterline. And not everyone came to worship.

Many came to gamble. Many came to party. Many came to work so that others can do those things. This is a town of gritty realities. I live tucked away a rural landscape where our gritty realities are spread out. Easily avoided. There’s no town square. Homeless people don’t “sleep rough in the woods.” They live right there, waking or sleeping. They panhandle.

People who gamble here do it on line, in the privacy of their homes. If they wander downstairs, dazed by their addictions or their losses, whose to see. Who’s to hear them through their thin walls, calling, begging for more money.

It was time to go home and start thinking about it all. Because that’s the irony, isn’t it. These things live side by side. We were finding Peace in this place because the price for sitting on the beach was right… and of course it was… because money was being made on folks whose seeking was so very different. But the magic of the water was there. The possibility of being present, there as well. All the tawdry tinsel in the world couldn’t change that. The couple in their 80s he in his wheelchair, she frail thing that she was, sat in the same spot every day, soaking in the wonder. The shoreline… so much happens there. Self-reflection… self-indulgence … immersion, in the water, and in the greater wonder.

Fall Fair Peace

I live in a beautiful, agricultural valley and count myself lucky to do so. Every fall, (except the fall of the devastating Hurricane Lee) my hometown hosts a Fair. Everything good and bad that fairs have, this fair has in abundance.

It’s Fall, after all, and fall is all about the abundance. People compete: they knit, and stitch and sew. They can and bake and grow. They raise livestock large and small. They show their pet chickens, dogs, bunnies and burros. This year you didn’t see horses as big as houses because those horses went to live on my classmates farm. Lady and Duke are lazin’ it up, retired from show biz. Folks get on their tractors, ancient and new, and drag large weights around to burn out their engines… huh? There are rides. Sadly there are side shows. There are bands. You can win the ugliest plush toys in the world if only your aim is good enough and your money lasts. People guess your weight (you want to see that person at the beginning of your trip by the vendors). People guess your age (you want to avoid them altogether.).

And then you eat. You taste the first cider of the season and eat something fried that later you really wish you hadn’t. You have food that you eat every year at Fair. You consider all sorts of odd foods, but you avoid the fudge/bacon. ‘Cause what the heck it’s Fair week. You walk for hours! Kids are bedazzled and so are the adults. You always see someone you went to high school with even if you lived a half hour away, because EVERYONE comes to Fair. You run into people from where live now which is also a half hour away, staying with the theme above.

You remember that food is grown, not just processed. And that that is an earthy messy process. You realize that some families are making a portion of their living from the food that’s grown. Others are proudly showing of skills that have kept their families fed for generations. Other people are making cakes that look like spaghetti and meatballs, and you can only figure they have too much time on their hands.

Fair. It’s a great way to celebrate the Fall… and Fall is worth celebrating! Fall, Peace!

Foggy Peace

Luckily for me (and for you if you’re following me!) the world is willing to remind me why we keep working for the good. There is so much in life that is challenging, desperate and sad… that serves as a reminder of the many ways we can we work to make life better.

At the same time, there is Beauty that reminds us to pay attention. No matter how cynical we get about the “system” there is beauty to pull us back. Whatever else we pray/acknowledge/express… Thank you should be our first prayer and our last of the day. Giving thanks for what is opens us to see more Beauty. Seeing the Beauty and drinking it in fuels us for the work to be done… If Gratitude is not one of the direct routes to Peace, it certainly smooths the path.

Every time I cross it, or watch it, or sense it, I’m grateful for this incredible river.

Back to Work Peace

I think of Fall as the season of thanksgiving. If you follow the Northern European Pagan calendar, Fall started August 1. I have a mixed relationship to that notion. I’m all about giving thanks and deep gratitude any time you want. The sun really does change, and that’s what guides those designation, and yet, and yet, and yet… it’s my favorite time of summer, dog days or no. Swimming pools, skinny dipping under August moons, corn on the cob and tomatoes until you cry for respite. (haven’t reached that point yet. hallelujah!) Easy enough to give thanks, but ask any farmer, these are deep summer activities. They don’t give way until the frost comes. So Fall is sort of a moving target.

But whether we like it or not, we’re back to work. When the Sun isn’t quite as hot as it’s been, when there is some pleasant shade, it’s time they tell us, to get back to work. Even in my grief, when I have long moments when nothing other than staring into space can grab my attention, there’s a place at the back clamoring for attention. I have a service and a sermon I’ve been waiting all summer to write. So what if my brain feels like one of those extra large pocket book that’s filled to the brim with miscellany? I know the stuff is in there. I’ll sort it out.

The world won’t wither for lack of my attention, but it is time. There are many things wrong. There is war. There is bullying. There is pollution and global warming. There are people doing without, whether that’s food, shelter, health care… or even simple kindness.

At the beginning of the year, we started dreaming dreams of peace. We cleared out the undergrowth in our lives, prepared the fields, sowed and tended those dreams. It’s now time to begin to reap the harvest and put it to work. Do you have a project to create? Take the sweet breath of these cool mornings and get to work. Are you simply going to be a kinder person? Get going. Are you picking up trash and enlisting others. bend and stoop. Let’s figure out how many bonus points on Weight Watchers you get for picking up trash…

There’s much to stand in the way of dreaming. I thought I had a pretty solid handle on where I would be building way stations of Peace. But grief is a miasma that clouds our minds. And yet I know I’m dreaming still. The moments of clarity I have can be used for more than washing blankets.

And this is my world. Your world. Our World. We have work to do… We have people to connect with. We have Peace to make. There is no one else. And while we simply gnash our teeth, little pieces of our world die… people, animals, ecosystems, great forests. So, upsadaisy! here we go. Peace, my sisters and brothers. It’s what we’re about.

Labor Peace

I’ve been using labor so differently these last few days. Thinking about the labor that leads to death, which is surely as hard as any labor that leads to birth. I’ve also been thanking my lucky stars that I get one more swim in the town pool before summer’s officially ended in the school calendar. Labor Day has always been one of the saddest days of the year for me when I live on the East Coast simply because the pool closes. I’d been able to forget that while living in Oakland… Outdoor pools are open all year. Put a cap on and swim in the heated pool all year long. but whooo, in 20˚ it’s a long dash from winter clothes in an unheated locker room to a heated pool… and even longer back. but the joy was always there!

But, of course, Labor Day is not about my pool habits and the end of a season. And it’s not about the labor of birth or death, although they are good labor indeed. It’s not about the laborious reclamation of life after loss, although this may be the hardest labor I ever do.

Labor Day is about good work, safe work, good and fair wages that secure a life, adequate leisure time in which to explore that which makes us fully human. Somewhere in the midst of the picnics and the swimming, somewhere even in my grieving I must remember this. And even as part of my grieving. My sister lived as well as she did because Wayne was a member of the teacher’s union. They had a pension. They had health care. Sometimes in this country we act as if those were radical and ridiculous ideas. No, not so much.

So Labor Day, for those who labor and are weary, for those who labor and would eat, for those who labor and would be paid, for those who would Labor. It’s time, it seems for us to get to work for Labor. In my thealogy, the right to good work is a sacred one, and it is not just a cobblestone, but a whole stretch of the road on the path to Peace.

Foggy Sabbath Peace

Mornings have been gentle lately, which is all to the good for me. I’m slower to embrace the day since it brings unwelcome realities. But the intensity of this time has also awakened in me the desire to sit quietly together under the arbor (bees buzzing overhead — the bees, oh, the precious bees), with a glass of cool mint tea, and consider how we might move forward in peace. The pages of the calendar turn, the seasons change, and Sabbath comes around again, with any luck, bringing with it peace and quiet.

So many of us have worked so hard, and now is the time to press the issue, to stand together. The next month and more will find our Jewish friends celebrating many holidays… peace, repentance, a new year, the harvest. The rest of the world would do well to pay attention… With my mind occasionally able to refocus, this is my prayer, that we make Peace, that we, each and every one, become Peacemakers.

But let us be gentle with ourselves today as the morning is gentle with the day. Enjoy September’s Mandala, Peace Arbor, about which Nanso (Nancy Cleaver, the artist) says: “Where are you standing in the arbor of peace? A tiny bird’s flitting view of light, of which it is made, was my inspiration for the squared spiral.”

Peace be with you. Peace be with us all. Peace be with us all because we make it so.

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

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