Peace on the Threshold

Fall has been dancing back and forth between warm sunny beautiful fall and cool, damp appropriate fall.

This recent weather has been time out of time, completely outside the normal scheme of things, and glorious for all that.

Probably if we think closely about it, we realize it’s an indication of change that isn’t good. Why is it so warm in November? Why is there no rain in California? Why are there floods other places? Climate change.

And we don’t think about that when we’re rejoicing in what’s glorious or complaining about what’s usual. Why is it November. Because it is.

This is November. Time of the grey skies and the silver rains. Time to dive for those warm sweaters and just be comfortable with what is. Time for the leaves to litter the ground and lay like the mulch they are to make new soil for the year to come.

So that we have this weather means at the very least we must enjoy it. Rather than clutch it to our chest complaining that it might go away, let us throw open our hands and hearts and dance around, one last time.

And then let us welcome the Peace of the Silver Rains and let’s celebrate that!

Breezy, Leafy Peace

So many of the leaves are down, but plenty are still clinging to the trees. Enough that we’ll be raking for days to come.

Driving yesterday, the sun picked out color on the burnished hills. Here and there there were still a few golden spots although the color was darkening toward copper.

It’s November. Time for beautiful, empty, black branches upthrust against a cold, grey, rainy sky.

Although we don’t seem to have much rain, just beautiful, beautiful blue, blue skies and unseasonably warm temperatures. It’s the time of the Moon when you have to get up pretty late at night (or pretty early in the morning) to catch the moon resting in the embrace of those empty branches. But if you do… it’s worth it, and the skies have been clear and starry.

I’ll take the Beauty and say thank you. I’ll take the Beauty and say Peace on Earth.

Brisk and Beautiful Peace

Fall. It’s just lovely. And today’s as good an example of that as any day we’ve had.

This is one of those times I want to say to folks, slow down, be careful, don’t miss this.

People start to fret about winter. How cold it’s going to be, how dark. Yes (and i admit, I embrace that — and hey, we should maybe all examine the possibility of a little more vitamin d in our lives), but winter has a purpose. and it’s beautiful.

But right now. Right this very minute, it’s fall. and it’s gorgeous. Let’s be present right now. Count today’s blessings, worry about tomorrow, tomorrow.

Pretty soon they’re going to turn back time… and maybe I’ll start getting up in the morning!

Okay. Maybe not.

But today it is beautiful. Today, I look around and am overcome with the Beauty. Today I am at Peace where I am in space and time. I hope you are too.

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.

Crispy Fall Sabbath Peace

And here it is. That quick turn to coolness. No fooling ourselves any longer, the season has changed.

We’ll have a little sweet respite this week, but temperatures are living up to the (down to) the Frosty Moon name.

And it’s time. Life is moving on as it does, as its meant to.

Today’s Sabbath activity recommendation? Go see those leaves!

Me, I’m going to make myself some food I can gum for now and to take along to a meeting. After which I’ll go do a wedding in my sister’s old house for the young couple who lives there. If that’s not observing the change of the season, I don’t know what is.

Blessed Sabbath to you. Blessed Peace.

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.

Not So Perfect A Peace

And we’ll take it.

The perfection of something is the perspective we bring to it.

Yesterday was a day with a lot of wonderful facets. The weather, the scenery, the friends, the family. And if I’m counting, my religious community. I like us. A lot. It was all that a sabbath can be. I even got to read.

So the day was just grand. And it carried the sweet emotional residue of the day before.

The day was made more precious by the reminder of what had been lost in Selena’s life.

So, when we see sweetness, we have to notice it, and then embrace it. And then sit down with a piece of apple pie and a glass of cider to celebrate.

Peace is where we find it. And when we see it, then we can begin to help others find the Peace that allows them to breathe in the sweetness…

Peace on the Cusp

Today the Old Moon ends and the New Moon rises. Bye and large the harvest is finished. In Canada, tomorrow will be thanksgiving, which is much more in sync with the actual harvest.

Here in Pennsylvania, the leaves are taking their own sweet time to make decisions about changing. There are just the slightest hints of color starting. However, I just looked at the thermometer and for the first time i saw that the temps had dipped into the 30s.

No, Ann, really, time to dismantle the porch that gets no light (and by light I mean warmth) this year.

But I stood outside a barn yesterday (it was a wedding, relax, I wasn’t being rugged!) and looked down across the empty field toward the river. The late afternoon light was all Autumn, and everything was golden in the light. The air was clean.

The world had moved on even though many of us still clung to last season’s warmth. The Beauty on the cusp of changing Moon and changing season was lavish. Open your hands and hearts and let go. And what the heck, take the Sabbath to revel in it, why don’t you?

Notice the Beauty, my friends. We can’t move on to Peace, if we’re holding on to the joys and privileges of last season.

Peace Out of Time

It was just a sweet little caress in the grand scheme of things. But there it was, a beautiful little violet in grass that has not yet browned up for the winter.

All around it, the cooler weather is causing the trees to begin to burnish. There’s not been a freeze yet, but we’re all anticipating. All my gardener friends are busy putting their gardens to bed.

But in the meantime, one bold, and yes, foolhardy, violet is dancing in the grass.

“Look at ME!” she cries. And we do. Silly, we think, don’t you know you’ll be gone, soon.

And yet we look. and admire.

There is perhaps something to foolhardy declarations of Beauty and Possibility. After all Peace is not going to be won by our doing the same old thing. That as we have been told so many times, simply leads to insanity.

So Peace. Peace of the beautiful what is. and Peace of the wild, outrageous Violet. Peace. We’ll take whatever leads us in that direction!

Sky, Love, Peace

I am, and always have been, a concrete priestess. I’m not terribly comfortable with many things present in the out-of-doors… like bugs and slithering things.

But when you finally get me out there I have a great time. Because hey! Mother Earth. Nature.

And when Nature is at her most glorious, you have to just go with it, right?

I’m so glad i worked as hard as i did to get there on Sunday. And that I pried my beloved out his… oh, I’ll just stay home. Because this was the finest symphony of skies.

We live on this earth. we should be paying closer attention. I should be paying closer attention. It’s the explosive beauty of these moments that helps us grasp the importance of caring for creation.

This is the world we have and it’s wondrous. Why wouldn’t we take care of it? Why wouldn’t we spend a lot of our lives, pointing and gasping and saying, well, will you look at that? We should spend less time saying, well, would you look at that, gimme it its’ mine or oh, ho hum. another beautiful day, mountain, lake…

Peace. We need to be about the business of peace. Because a world this beautiful deserves nothing less.

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

Tag Archives: seasons