Lingering Peace

I forget, until it happens again, how absolutely wonderful it is to dine outside in a quiet courtyard as dusk moves in on a summer evening. It can be the most indulgent, sybaritic experience.

I had that experience the other night, and I wonder, why don’t I do more of it. The food doesn’t cost any more, but it always seems to taste better. We all had our little islands of light and conversation in the dusk, but were pulled together by the music… It was a marvelous experience.

And here it is the beginning of August, and I’ve still not set up my porch. Too busy, too hot, too… and yet, some of the best porch sitting is ahead of us… so I’m off to accomplish at least some little part of that today!

It’s good to have lovely indulgences in our lives that take advantage of the beauty of nature, the gifts of the seasons (and of our senses), and the sweetness of good companionship. And it’s important, now and again, to give ourselves the gift of simply being present.

There on Friday night, in a little courtyard off a busy street in Williamsport, over plates of good food, in the company of friends, to the accompaniment of wonderful music, I did that. I hope you find the time to do the same… You are all the reason you need to indulge yourself in Peace.

Lemon Peace

Yummmm. Sounds like pie, doesn’t it. Lemon Chiffon? Lemon Meringue? I’m beginning to wonder if August isn’t going to be the month of foods in celebration of the harvest. I could probably do a week on tomatoes! Nature and the seasons keep delivering bounty, what can I do but wonder and write odes!

My friend Susan Willm taught me to make the best lemonade (using the lowly Joy of Cooking Cookbook), although her lemonade was made from, drum roll, Meyers Lemons. Oh, yeah. That raises the bar more than a notch!

I don’t drink lemonade often, but when I do, I’m transported to childhood and delight. It’s one of the few sugary drink treats that Mom ever had in the house. (she must have liked it a lot!) And let’s not forget limeade — swoon.

But lemons… those tart beauties are the beginnings of many favorite things in my life and the transformers of other favorite things. Pour a glass for a friend! Pour a glass for yourself! Drink deeply! Savor the sweet taste of Peace. Consider how sharing increases the delight. Ah, August! Summer!

Eternal Sabbath Peace

On a very hot summer day in plain view of the majestic mountain we released a small bit of our parents’ “till.” They were always sorry the mountain was wrapped in clouds when they had traveled there 20 years ago. Today the mountain was in full glory under a cloudless sky. Here their spirits will linger and rejoice in the beauty and the Peace and quiet. Gilead is many places, but the balm is constant.

Lingering on a beautiful day and rejoicing in the bounty is a pretty good idea. Resting in Peace is not something to be confined to the afterlife. We might do well to occasionally put our burdens down and rest in the Peace of Possibility. Wishing you a blessed Sabbath.

Peace? Mostly a Pest

Mosquitoes are part of Nature. I have to keep saying that. I keep trying to find healthy keep aways for them and sometimes resort to the horrible stuff. In Alaska? Horrible stuff. “All day, all night, sucking blood…” (If you’re old enough, you’ll have trouble getting that earworm outta your mind!) My One with Nature philosophy gets completely disrupted by that high pitched whining in your ear. Although these are the basso profundo o mosquitoes! It’s a wonder these puppies fly. BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

One of the ways you knew you had begun to see your fellow travelers as your village — as folk waited for the bus to go to the train, those who had had enough foresight (and had believed the rumors) to bring their bug spray along, ritually handed off their deep woods off on the veranda as they left. People were practically weeping. “How can I repay you?” they asked. “Share the wealth!” was always the answer.

But they were the only downside to this incredible park. Somehow the magic of sitting on a deck at 10 pm in the midst of incredible beauty wasn’t tainted by the darned bugs (at least if you shared liberally in the magic potion). The golden light in the season of the midnight sun is an astonishing gift. (Just make sure you make sure the bugs have left the room before you go to bed. They are not fun overnight guests!)

A Cool Peace

Those of us on the East Coast, or at least here in Central PA are a leetle tetchy about the weather. It’s downright chilly. 7am my computer told me it was 29˚. brrr. and a fair amount of grrrrring as well. (where is that warm jacket?)

Unusual? Well, we like to think so… but I certainly remember walking off to school on May mornings in a little cardigan only to get down town and see 32˚ on the bank’s digital display. Mommmmmmmm! What were you thinking? There’s a reason they tell us not to plant until after Mother’s Day, and then to keep a (get it?) weather eye out for any new seedlings.

This is life, just being unpredictable. This is us, Peacegardeners and Earthwalkers, having to roll with it. We can moan and groan, or we can celebrate that the storm that drove in the cold front eliminated two thirds of the rain deficit we were running. Weather isn’t really dependable, it just is what it is. And whether we’re gardening or making Peace, we need to work with it and around it. So, slip back into the fleece and figure out what you’re going to do when the sun warms things up later today.

Sneaky, Squealing, Silver Peace

There are many things that enable Peace-building. We make it perhaps because of our similarities and across our differences. Both attract, both interest. For me it took going to another culture to realize I came from a culture. At 17, what I experienced in my little world seemed to be the norm. It was shocking to find out that the Swedes, outwardly so similar, had a distinct culture. And I was off…

But I also think it’s the laughter at ourselves and life’s predicaments that can unite us. We all have some equivalent Nature stories. One may come from the desert and one from Pennsylvania’s verdant Spring, but everywhere Nature sneaks up on you. Many of us who live here have brushed against a lilac tree on a day after a rain and had a lovely lavender blossom dump a flower-full of rain on us. I remember a time as a child, all unwary, I pulled a flower to my nose for a sniff of Spring and got a faceful. I squealed and laughed and looked around shamefacedly hoping no one else had noticed. If someone did/does, in that laughing is the rueful acknowledgement that they too have been caught by Nature’s natural sneakiness. We’re always making memories… and if we’re smart, we’re finding ways to take Joy from them. Stories like this are great to tell and open to all sorts of sly embellishment.

And so, my friends, I wish you the Peace of rueful self-laughter while caught in Nature’s embrace. Laugh kindly when you notice someone else’s predicament and share your story. That’s one simple form of Peace-building. There are many more.

Peace on the Water Sabbath

Yesterday, my sweet drummer and the two guys he plays with, serenaded the people returning from a successful trash picking in and along the river. He said there was a tractor trailer’s load of junk piled up by returning folk. People were so pleased and excited to have removed so much debris. And we’re so grateful.

We all need to get out on our waterways more. And where they aren’t what they should be, we should get involved and take some responsibility about that. Our land and our water are precious gifts. Now as the weather becomes outdoor weather, and we’re all going walkabout again, remember to shove that trash bag in your pocket. (I’m talking to you, Ann!)

Get outside, enjoy the community, enjoy the weather, enjoy this beautiful Earth and its life-giving, life-saving water.

Invading Peace and Beauty

Hmmm. I realized only as I was sending out my enraptured piece about the tiny, beautiful, blue grape hyacinth this year, and its stealthy overtaking of a local field, that I was waxing poetically about one more invasive species. I feel fairly strongly about invasive species and how thoughtless and harmful we are to introduce them.

Now, we can certainly excuse a farm wife from 200 years ago, because people didn’t know then what we know now. And I don’t know that this little blue creeper has done any harm. But many beautiful transplants have taken over whole continents and crowded out the local plants. And let’s not even talk about rabbits. (I never realized quite how furious this invasive species thing made me until I found myself in a rather heated conversation with a vegan who was sad about a rabbit slaughter in New Zealand. In all the years that rabbits have been NZ and Australia, nothing has evolved as a predator. So they go on doing what bunnies love to do — eating and reproducing — and devastating the countryside.)

So here I was writing a paean to another. sigh. It’s so hard to put all the pieces together. And a field of blue is hard not to admire, even to gasp in awe at. On the West Coast, blue and purple are frequent wildflower colors… here they are rare. hmmm. That might have been a tip off… But still, here is this field that looks like an impressionistic painting. This is a field my parents drove up on River Hill to look at every year. They took their parents. Dad took his sister. Deb and I do the same and drag along those we love, spreading the tradition. I have taken Steve when the hyacinths are in bloom. The hyacinths constitute an Evans Hajj, a family rite of holy obligation and joy. Admire. Wonder. Give thanks. Remember the Farm Wife.

And I wondered… could we make this work for us in some way. Is it possible that Peace is an invasive species? No one really expects Peace to break out. Can we be subversive and teach children to love? Can we plant Peace in out of the way nooks and corners and watch it slowly take over? The people who say it isn’t possible are far more numerous than those who work actively against Peace. So what if we were to convince them, bit by bit, Peace by Peace.

And then we could begin to make a quiet pilgrimage, year after year, to encourage its spread and to laud its growth. We could take more Peace with us. We could take our Peaceful friends. Eventually we could take our friends who have not been believers and let the gasp in admiration and conviction. Soon they would bring their friends. And then we who believe in Peace would so many more than those who work for their own gains… and we could quietly, stubbornly invade even their hardened hearts. Just a dream you say? Well, Disney told us: A dream is a wish your heart makes… This is a wide-awake dream, not a fast asleep one, but a wish of my heart nonetheless…

Back to Peace Work

Well, today’s poem was indicative of the work-a-day nature of Peacemaking. I send this poem out to three different groups and each version of the poem was different as I would read the poem again before sending and think… oh, no, I have to tweak that.

Which is odd, so often the poems are written and that’s that. But I had to keep weeding this. And that’s the thing with Peace. You make a bunch of progress, but it’s never finished. There’s always work to be doing, tending to happen. The best gardens are well-tended. The best relationships are, as well.

When you’re moving across differences, which are both the delight and the dilemma of Peace, it’s so easy to fall back into old prejudices and then to mispeak. Then there are fences to mend and the fox to be chased from the chicken coop. (my goodness all this quaint farming analogy, you’d think I had the slightest inkling about what you do with dirt, other than use a Tide stick on it!)

We’ve been thinking about Peace for 4 months now. We’ve been making plans letting them work on us even as we work on them. Small, tender Peace shoots are now making themselves visible. Even though we will continue to dream, we’re now cultivating and tending our Peace gardens. April, with her luxurious blossoming is finished. Time to stop standing in awe and start weeding, separating, replanting, (But do take a couple moments to simply bask in the sun! It feels so good after all these months.)

Beltane Peace

Moving to Sweden as an exchange student in 1969-70 (oooh, so long ago) was a game changer for me. At that point, it was a mostly mono-culture with traditions that went back hundreds of years. I was astonished and delighted. It was the start of my love affair with sociology and anthropology. It was (although I didn’t realize it then) an introduction to Earth-based traditions. And it was the beginning of life-long relationships that would transform how I thought of myself and how I had friends. (and how i would spend my summer vacations!)

So, yep, I liked it. Hurrah for Rotary and all the wonderful things they do. Their International Exchange Program is just one of their many world-changing programs.

I’d never lived someplace where the weather was such a force in the social fabric of the country. Christmas and Mid-Winter are dark, for years, people worried that spring would never return… fears left over from the ice ages… and so they would light its way back. Spring comes late, and in a rush. Around April 30, people would defy the usually still frigid temps and burn off the fields to ready them for planting. They took off winter clothes (and in some cases burnt them, i can only imagine that this piece has something to do with bug infestations, it’s much more romantic in theory!) and put on their spring clothes. Calling Spring Weather. Today, towns still have Valborgmassoafton fires. The name is linked to a German Saint, but those fires are far more primal!

When I tied the date together with the gathering and distributing of lilies of the valley during my youth … I began to understand the pattern. To this day, my spirit is lifted by this marking, whether I’m lighting fires and burning off restrictions as I have so often done, or peering into a neighbor’s backyard to see whether the white flowers are yet blooming. For me, now it’s Spring! Up until now the Earth has been cooking things underground, now they’re becoming visible. You and I have been focusing on Peace for 4 months now. It’s time to bring our work out into the open. And indeed, just as we’ve been working it, it’s been working us. Peace is changing our lives, even as we work to change and soften the world. Spring! Peace! Merry May! Let us Dance! (And look at Nanso’s Peace wreath, isn’t it a beauty?)

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

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