Peace Where You Find It

Oh, it was a magical day yesterday. The weather was perfect. Not right for the season, perhaps, but exactly right for what I wanted to do. Which was sit at the shoreline and perhaps, perhaps, to dive into the waves.

I ran away (and ran into people who had stayed with the fabulous artist who makes these mandalas) and had a chance to stop and a moment to reflect. My cousin and I could mourn together. We did that. We also laughed together and told stories and ate food both wonderful and ridiculous.

And in thinking about how perfect it was right here in this moment… I thought about how perfect it is right there where I live. That love and life is where you find it and where you make it. Yesterday was a gift… but today is reality. and Peace lives in both places… if only I’m willing to treasure it and build on it…

Wading in Peace

For me there is nothing like going to the ocean. This morning, the big sky bowl slowly filled up with light and beauty. Gorgeous. And walking at water’s edge… transformative. Once again, I wonder, is it the vastness of the sky and the ocean that makes problems real but somehow also puts them in a softer perspective?

The sea comes in over my feet and covers over, fills in, those holes in my soul, for just a little bit, until my heart can heal and scar tissue can hold me together again. And I guess I don’t need to spend too much time wondering why, I just need to accept the blessing. Simple. There it is. Take it in. Receive it.

Peace at the Edge

I’m running away to the Ocean for a couple of days, looking for Peace… for respite… for heart’s ease. I find the ceaseless in and out of the waves soothing. Oddly, this morning I’m thinking about what a strange Peace choice the Ocean is… because its power to take away is as great as its power to soothe. Power, raw, relentless and elemental.

And yet, even in heartbreak, perhaps it’s good to remember that we are small and somewhat insignificant. That our lives pale beside the grandeur of the sea.

And then, because my brain doesn’t stop… or at least continues to work in fits and starts… i think, how could we, tiny specks on the face of eternity, have managed to leave large continents of gunk in the middle of vast and dangerous beauty? Ah, a poem for another day.

But later today, I will set my feet in sand and let all those positive ions, fused with happy memories of family beach time, wash over me. I will wallow in the love of family and friends (whether close by or distant) and in the vast emptiness of the sea, and I will try to come to grips with the notion that Deb, my beloved vital Deb is really gone.

Mountain Stream Peace

For me, there’s something about water running over rocks. I think I inherited this gene from my family. Dancing, skipping, burbling water surging through a canyon that continues to change as the waters rise and fall.

This place is not just beautiful, it’s dangerous. It seems a ludicrous statement on a fall day when 8 inches of water cavort by you. But two years ago this stream rose 20 feet to eat that bridge. Every year some crazy college kids assume they can run the spring run off and too often one or two of them don’t make it. It is not just still water that runs deep.

The space in the canyon not taken by water and rock is filled with trees and sweet, sweet air. Air that tastes like a benison after what we’ve been breathing down in the valleys. Air that we should fret over as the frackers peer over our shoulders.

To many times in the last year, I have taken my grief to this stream and it has eased my burden. Back and back again, I’ll go this fall, because my heart will be heavy a long time. I’m thinking that Steve and I need to go, drum in his hand and simply sit to watch the leaves change and the water run. He’ll find the rhythm the creek dances to… maybe I’ll find some words. Maybe I’ll just find the silence broken only by the hawks who scream overhead. I’ll be present and the prayer the creek offers will soothe my soul.

This valley is beautiful in every season. Even when the water roils and rises, Peace runs through that valley and caresses me on its journey downstream. Over time perhaps it will tumble smooth the shards of my heart and I will focus more on the dancing memories and less on the painful grief… But the seasons come and the seasons go in this Valley and my heart will fill. The creek and my beloved will see to that.

Handwashing Peace

With all the cavalier decisions being made by politicians recently, all the violence in public and private, I’ve been feeling we’ve really missed the point. Life is sacred. and we’re treating it as if it were nothing. We’ve forgotten the awe. We’ve forgotten our responsibility to that awe.

Life is brief and beautiful. And when we touch it, we should do so with reverence. Creation is an astonishing gift, however you believe it came about and whatever/whoever you believe was the genesis of that beauty. It too needs our care and respect.

And if our world-weary hands are soiled with greed and anger and disdain, we must wash them… and begin again. I’ve always believed the notion of baptism had it backward. Babies, new things are precious and sweet… it is we who must get busy with the soap and water before taking life into our embrace.

We’d all like to point at the other and relieve ourselves of responsibility by proclaiming it is they who besmirch Life and Creation. But, if we’re honest, we all have responsibilities we’ve been shirking. All have satisfactions we’ve been harboring about our righteousness. But if people are without what they need; if Creation is being despoiled… we cannot point fingers. We must roll up our sleeves, pour living water from the ewer into the basin, wash our hands (and cleanse our hearts) and set to work with a will. Because, whether you believe this quote is by the Hopi Elders or June Jordan, we are the ones we have been waiting for. Others are waiting for us as well. So, lets get busy.

Uncertain Waters, Complex Peace

I lean toward Pollyanna, I know that. Even when I’m prostrate with grief, I know that somewhere someone is singing: “The sun will come out, tomorrow…” and yet, as I know only too well, you can’t rush past the truth of grief… and not everything is beautiful.

Not every body of water is navigable and many are treacherous. To deny that, to defy that is dangerous; in some cases even stupid. That’s true with floods, and it’s true with simple water on stone…

So, as I look for metaphors for peace, i realize they have to include the way beautiful things have the potential to be dangerously overwhelming… All our movements toward peace need to be carefully considered, because Peace is both wildly abundant and quite carefully measured. Our job, as always, dammit, is discernment — and then adjustment.

Flooding, Frightening Peace

I puzzled before I wrote this musing and this post whether or not I could really combine Peace and Flooding. But after looking at the way neighbors responded two years ago, particularly in places like my hometown Bloomsburg, there is Peace to be marveled at. These are the moments in history where people really move beyond their societally limiting boundaries and offer hands and hearts and help.

But poor Boulder. Twelve inches of rain, in an area that almost never sees that much, would have been frightening enough. But the resultant floods and the incredible damage are overwhelming. Communication has been wiped out in many places, but at this point: Eight are known dead, hundreds are missing. Best estimate at the moment is 19,000 homes lost.

In addition, this non-historically flooding area is home to a good deal of fracking. What have the waters boiled up and spread over the land. We won’t know for a while. This adds a level of long-term fear to what’s already overwhelming.

We don’t know if this flood is a result of global climate, but there are plenty of things that say this can’t be completely discounted.

There are places to offer money… check the web. Money’s what’s needed, not goods. From other parts of the country, money makes good neighbors.

I’m trying to focus my energies on places where I can have impact. I’m not a good fracking activist or a good climatologist. I can point others towards those issues. I am good at helping people reach out and at motivating folk to do that. I will do what I can where I can. But this is another choice point where we get to ask ourselves, how much, really do we want Peace? Do we want it enough to reach out? And having reached out, understanding that that extension of the hand and heart is Peacemaking?

Can you personally do something about Boulder, other than sending money? I don’t know, I don’t know your skills. I don’t know how close you are or what kind of hard work you can provide. But can you as a result of Boulder, or whatever stirs/spurs you to action, extend your support in your community where you can do a great deal of good? I think we all can do that. It’s not always easy. It’s sometimes tedious. But it’s the practicing of Peace on a daily basis that makes the practicing of it in difficult times second nature. Stepping up when the steps are little makes climbing the big stairs easier.

So, yes. Peace. even in the floods. And perhaps, in the aftermath, some activism.

Fakin’ Peace

Since yesterday, I’ve been mulling over what it means when your teacher… and your ritual maker misrepresents herself… and realizing how meaningful her rituals were despite her claiming them as something else.

I now am fairly convinced that even the “teachings” were hers and not as represented.

There’s something so sad about having good work and not feeling confident enough about yourself that you can claim it as yours. There’s something awful about grabbing someone else’s traditions and pasting yours on top. Things have their own integrity, and we should acknowledge boundaries and take responsibility.

So here are all these great metaphors and small rituals and well-tested ritual actions and they’re besmirched a bit by falsehoods.

And yet, they led me to Peace. So maybe there is growth for the other in that. The problem is that if you’re the fraud, maybe not so much growth and a bigger wall between you and Peace.

And I looked just a bit, there might have been a water monster, who wasn’t so kind, but there were Water Little People who were helpers…

But I love the notion of a monster who thrives on problems. Bring ’em. And so we do. And leave ’em. Peace and water are often joined in a metaphor… and How fun that there might be a Peace Monster. I might have to divine what that might look like… But here’s one thing I’ll tell you… I’m not about to attach him to another tradition.

If you and I can become Peacemakers by dreaming and doing, why not dream a Peace Monster companion to gobble up the pains of the world? In the meantime, we’ll keep practicing Peace. Is that faking it until we make it? who knows… But we do what we can, as June Jordan reminds us “more than that, what can anyone ask?”

Water Monster Peace

What if some of your most profound experiences were scams? I was just doing a little research about the teacher I mention in this musing. I have kept up over the years, but never seen these notices. Oh! the blessings of the internet…

And now the question emerges… if it was a scam and it worked, does that mean it has no value. Absolutely not… Was it merely suggestive healing? Is that different from spiritual healing? If you spend a week sitting on the ground doing meditation, dreaming and rituals, even if someone made them up, does it matter? Oh, that’s great. Ya gotta laugh you know.

But I love the notion of a benign Water Monster who thrives on my problems and burps back Peace … And today, I’m longing for a 10 day sit/walk/swim/peace and quiet by some beach somewhere with warm water and a benign monster to eat my problems… Oh, there’s work to be done… so I’ll get back to it, laughing all the way…

But not about the fact this woman didn’t have the courage to say she’d thought long and hard and that these were rituals she’d designed to work on these issues. Nothing wrong with designing rituals (says the ritualist), I do it all the time. I just haven’t usurped anyone’s heritage or claimed a tribal name (I don’t think Sister Fluff and the Goddess Gospel Hour comes from any other tradition…)

But again… pack up all your cares and woes, there you go, singing low, hey ho, monster!

Teary Peace

Last night a group of my sister’s friends had a gathering at a local restaurant that Deb had loved. They all sat around and told stories about her, fun stories, stories that showed what a character she was. The fact that the staff donated their time says a lot about who Deb was. Celebration and remembrance… it’s what we require…

And I did what I hadn’t allowed myself to do up to that point, or at least in public — cried me a river… Losing Deb is world shaking. I know we lose our siblings. I know Deb was sick and not going to live a whole lot longer. It’s a good thing that she slipped away easily. I hope it’s one bright morning over yonder.

But I hate that she’s gone. She was a sweet and easy part of my daily life. One of the ironies of people’s dying is that as they become weaker, you care more for them physically and so the bonds are even more tender and close and then they leave. I honored my mantra, and kept my hands and heart open so she could leave, but now, until the cracks men in my heart and it holds love again, I’m left feeling pretty empty-handed and -hearted.

It’d be nice to think that my musings weren’t always reflective of my inner churnings, but that’s what musings are I guess. I’m aware of the importance of writing about Peace as I mourn Deb’s loss.

So, since I’ve been thinking a lot about water in the September Peace musings, it seemed inevitable that I draw the connection to life-changing tears. If the chemical composition is really different for tears of heartbreak, (can anyone help me here???) then it seems to me that they must leach the sadness out of our bodies and dilute the grief somewhat. Is there a chemical compound for grief? Do we really require 35 hours of story telling to begin to heal? What if we stop up the outpouring of our hearts and souls… how do we pollute ourselves? And then, Ann being Ann, I have to ask, how do we find the balance… because some of us certainly continue long beyond what helps us… and some of us never let loose…

But the water of Peace, sweet and refreshing… I have to believe it’s richer for the bitter tears we shed. Certainly our Love deepens…

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

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