On Bringing the Peace You Can

It’s really about presence and showing up, isn’t it? And doing the best you can.

You seek to say the things you know will bring them comfort. You work to be as grounded as you can be, as open-hearted, open-souled… open minded, because even here, where it’s about the very stuff of life, there’s so much that’s going on around and as part of it… as you can be.

Even when you have spiritual comfort to offer, it’s often your ability to be comfortable where you are, to be with friends and strangers alike, to let people know they are seen and in the deepest sense of the word, loved.

It’s such a privilege to do this sacred work… and you bump along, sometimes doing it better than others. Doing your best… and showing up. Hoping you can help this family in the midst of what is so hard, hoping there can be Peace and dignity… hoping that you’re helping to create a memory they will always grieve but maybe not regret the way it went.

I knew and liked the woman who died yesterday. It was a hard death for her. She labored to let go. Don’t let ’em fool you, death, is rarely easy. I knew her husband a little, enough that he trusted me. and the same with her mother. Her poor daughter, poor sweet Katy, I had seen only as a baby. This woman was never as proud of anything in her life as of her daughter and of being Katy’s mom.

But there you are struggling for your own grounding in the midst of people you know and those you don’t at the doorway of something huge. Life-not-this-Life.

I believe Peace really lies in open hands and open hearts. I believe it also lies in Presence. And so, I’ll keep trying to show up. I’m grateful to be called and give thanks when i can be of service. And it’s hard work.

Blessings, Peace, Love.

Peace, Good Deeds, & a Flower Moon

It’s good to do things for one another. It’s good to gather together as a group and do things for one another. It gathers us into community and makes us feel good that we’re doing important things.

It’s also good when what we’re doing isn’t necessary because there is no healthcare. That makes me so sad. I believe so strongly in healthcare for everyone. Yes. I know it’s expensive. And everyone needs health care.

I don’t mind paying taxes so that our children aren’t the most endangered and the hungriest. In fact, I want that. I want our corporations stepping up and paying their fair share. I want rich people to do the same.

And in the meantime, I want people kicking in the money they have to send people to Key West before they die. It makes us feel good about ourselves. And the person that’s dying gets to have a little slice of life and make one last set of memories with her friends.

That means everything, doesn’t it…

There’s Peacemaking in this… And so we gather under the Flower Moon and watch Love and Friendship blossom between strangers helping one another down the road. It’s a good thing. Creating community is good work. Sometimes it’s hard work. Sometimes it just feels good to do what’s right.

Choosing Love & Peace in the Flower Moon

As always when I’m in one place with a bunch of people I love, I get confused because all the other bunches of people I love aren’t there.

Love is a wonderful and mixed up thing… and creating family is so important. The Flower Moon is also known as the Mother Moon, it’s about figuring this stuff out. Who do we love? Who do we Mother? Who do we Family?

Love is a deliberate choice. It’s fraught with knowledge and boundaries and it’s hard work. It seems so easy at first, but it requires attention and awareness.

Peace is like that too. It’s not just the honeymoon, it’s the careful and deliberate intention to be at Peace, in Peace, in love with Peace demands.

We need more Love. We need to create more Family. We need more Peace. And oh, right, it’s on us. It’s important work.

Relax for Pink Moon Peace

Doesn’t it seem there are lots of things to DO this time of year? I’m particularly stuck on my taxes at the moment… but there’s lots of culling to get to. Paper, because, of course, taxes release you from paper. shred and recycle! It’s not just wild phlox that the Pink Moon brings!

Clothing, what do you never need to wear again? Laundry, gotta wash the things you’re going to get rid of AND the things you’re going to put away. (and since you don’t want to iron, you should probably wash the things you put away last summer, or at least throw them in the dryer with a wet wash cloth.) Books, because you probably just spent the winter reading. time for them to go!

The list gets pretty overwhelming and that’s just at home.

And everything has a deadline. oh, my goodness.

And relax. because you know what? you can only do what you can do.

And you’re driving yourself crazy. (and probably your friends.)

I get nuts about this stuff. I make doing my taxes SOOOOOOO hard. It takes two days. I go through stacks of paper and add things up. oh, my gosh, oh, my gosh! I whine.

And why?

Because at the end of it, it’s done. I have all the papers, not precisely neatly filed, but available. and i can use a calculator.

But I missed the mark this year. And then I spent a lot of time beating myself up about it. What a useful employment of time, eh? And a great way not to get the job done. And partially, i planned wrong. I should never do things on a Monday. I’m too worn out from the weekend. I’m good a small chores on Mondays. Not monumental projects. And quite frankly the end of the week is usually a dash toward Sundays. so Ann, make a note.

So today, hysteria’s over, my taxes will be done shortly, and I will reschedule my meeting.

And Peace will reign at my house. What was good this year was that I (eventually) made the space to do it differently. Let’s see if I can continue to apply this wisdom to the daily living of life and completing of chores. (i wouldn’t hold my breath, i’m an old dog!)

And as a prize, today, i get to take out the recycling! Hurrah! Peace takes many forms in our lives.

Needed: Pink Moon Sabbath Peace

The world needs a Peace that’s pregnant with possibilities. It needs a Peace that holds that Life is sacred and stops for a moment just to be present to it.

This weekend, which is the weekend of the first Sabbaths in the Pink Moon is just such a weekend to contemplate that Peace. Spring is, snow notwithstanding, burgeoning. This is a moment in time where everything seems possible.

Maybe we need to take a pause, relax and refresh ourselves… and as the song says: start all over again.

Right now, we’re watching one jihadist who grew from a basketball-loving kid — but there are thousands of them. The fault is not just in them, it is in a world that fosters that need for structured hate.

In moments when I feel most hopeless when I see what’s going on “over there,” I have to remember that some of that started here. I can’t do much about over there. I can do something, no matter how small about over here. Because today it’s Minneapolis, tomorrow it could be the Susquehanna Valley. Despair has made itself at home in a lot of people. And lest we point fingers at one religious group, let us remember our white supremacy groups of which my home state has so many. It’s the same hate, it just dresses differently.

We then, are the answer, the antidote, we and the inspiration of this beautiful spreading Spring and a new Moon of Possibilities. Let us pray… and then let us get to work!

Honoring Snow Moon Peace

“My Sacred Honor.”

I think that I take myself, my calling and my goals seriously and then I hear this phrase.

Do I consider myself to have Sacred Honor? And even if I can wring a quiet equivocating yes from myself, do I carry that as a central tenet of my work and being?

Or do I dismiss that as fanatical? Is it? Must it be so?

Do I underestimate the importance of what I do and believe if I don’t see this as Sacred Duty and that my Honor is dependent upon my steadfastness to the task? If I don’t do this work, am I daily spending those important moments in self-reflection?

How does it change how I work and speak about my Work if I accept that my remaining true not only to myself but to my Work and my Belief in that work — and in myself?

I think I’m going to have to poke at this a while… In the meantime, Peace be with us. And may we be Peace. We’re winding down, just a few days left in the Sugar Moon, soon the Pink moon will start spreading its carpet of blossoms across our lives. It’s important to be patient for the last few days of the boiling down to nectar of this Moon. Peace is sometimes called upon to be a Patient and exacting Peace.

Cold Snow Moon Lunacy and Peace

What is it about bright, cold, sunshiny days that spark us to flurries of good work?

I don’t know, but i’ll take it!

I tend to work on many projects which is a mixed blessing. I love it, but whoo, sometimes i get a bit confused and a bit distracted!

But then there’s a day like yesterday and I’m off!

Hard sometimes to keep all the plates spinning at once, or in the image i used in the musing, to keep the right spices in the right soups and to keep them on simmer rather than boil!

And yet, who knows what magic can happen in the midst of the luncacy…

You have to be open. But you also need to be deliberate and occasionally careful… you need some structure to support the wildness.

So… Play to your strengths. Plan. Get your ingredients laid out in their appropriate groups. Then turn on some great chants or a loud and defiant aria; and go wild. Lunacy and Magic are not happenstantial occurrences! They’re very hard work

Create! It’s what you were born to do… It can lead to astonishing feats of Peace. what more could you ask?

Indulging in Snow Moon Sabbath Peace

All the beauty of winter was on display yesterday. And here’s it’s message: We have to get out in it while it’s here.

It’s a challenge, it seems to take advantage of the beauty of something as fleeting as snow. But part of snow’s Beauty is the temporary nature of it. Those sweet, beautiful flakes. those blanketing drifts.

It’s so easy to dash toward the cold and wet and the icy. But the Beauty is real.

If we don’t indulge the wonder, we lose so much of life. And the complications are real. You’re going to be late when it snows. There’s going to be extra work. You’re likely to have to pit your strength against its implacable presence. It’s slippery. It’s Winter. It’s snow. Yet another sacred manifestation of a sacred season…

But the slippery part leads to sledding and tobogganing and hot cocoa and laughter. Such different fun that any other season of the year.

And it’s unbelievably beautiful. So mind where you walk and get out there and be amazed and amused. Happy Sabbath! Happy Snow Moon! Happy Peace!

They’re all ours to enjoy and indulge. What are we waiting for?

Little Pieces of Peace Lunacy

There is so much sadness in the world. Huge, sad reflections of violence and greed. There’s no question that we must address these as we can.

But at the same time, we must keep our spirits strong for the journey. One way to do that is to notice what’s working and to celebrate. Let’s encourage ourselves to then take the little pieces we can and set them to rights.

Is it crazy to believe we can make a difference?

I don’t believe so.

I do believe we often set our sights too high, too big and then when we fail, we walk away altogether. We’re better seeing what little steps can be taken and begin to make those advances toward our bigger goal of Peace.

But on the way, let’s tell one another the small joys that make a life rich. When the baby learns something new, when our kid succeeds after months of trying, when we have a wonderful date with our partner or our friends, when we have communion with our elderly parent or a giggle with a sibling. Life has so much sweetness in it, let us savor that.

And full of love, let us turn gentle eyes on the bigger problems and begin to consider where we might have impact.

Because although we might not have what’s needed to change the big picture, by changing the little pictures we begin to build up evidence that Peace is possible. It’s a sweet kind of lunacy this belief in a better world… but why not? Let us be as serene and joyful as the Moon, let us reflect Love on the world…

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

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