Standing for peace after Zap! Bam! Pow!

San Francisco City Hall
Our sixth stand for peace
© L Kathryn Grace - All rights reserved

Okay, it wasn't exactly Zap! Bam! Pow! We had words. Saturday, the last day of 2011, in our mini version of The Great Silent Grandmother Gathering, Sharon and I  stood for peace in front of City Hall for the sixth week in a row. We'd had a rough morning.

The phone rang early--one of those calls that pushes buttons. "I can't talk about this now," she said. "I need to feel peaceful before our stand."

One of the things that makes our relationship work, always has, is our willingness to talk through whatever comes up.

My 7-year-old rears her rebellious head

It never fails to amaze me how quickly I can revert to a hurt seven year old mentality and want to lash out in anger and frustration. Sometimes I do.

Saturday morning, getting that phone call as we prepared for our stand, I felt the flush and rush of blood to my head. Not wanting to start something big, I chose my words carefully. Not carefully enough.

I wanted to take care of the issue right now. She wanted to wait. I get a strong physiological response when I feel I have to squelch feelings. I know very well what the term "my blood boiled" means. Sometimes I stomp around, muttering obscenities. Sometimes I remember in time, before I've said things I'll regret, to put certain coping mechanisms to use. It's a kind of litany.

Breathe.
Breathe again.
What am I feeling?
Mad? Okay. Yeah, I'm mad. Arrrrrggggghhhh.
What do I want to feel?
Calm. Peace.
Breathe.
What can I do about this?
Breathe.
Breathe.
Let answers come.
Urnnnggghhhh! Don't want to be adult and peaceful. Rrrggggg.
Breathe.
Still mad.
Okay.
Breathe.
How is she feeling? Mm-hmmm. Okay. But what about ... ?

Breathe.
I love her.
Breathe.
How can I support her in this while acknowledging my own feelings? (Yeah, I tend to get cerebral.)

Breathe.

And so it goes. We've known each other for nearly a quarter century.. We know each other's patterns. We trust, each, the other to return and talk through whatever our issue, when the time is right. Saturday morning, we didn't have enough time. We left the house, shoulders a bit high, tension in our steps. Breathing.

Then there's 'righteous' anger

Street Person on a far warmer morning than last Saturday
Image Credit: Puravida
A morgueFile Free Photo

A few minutes later, we walked from the train, past far too many homeless people curled in their sleeping bags and blankets against the bitter cold, some up already, stamping their feet, hugging their sides.

I never walk past these folks without being aware how precarious our own financial situation, how easily we might find ourselves among them, should our economy take another protracted nose dive in 2012.

That morning, having breathed and calmed myself, having reached a state of equilibrium on the train, I felt anger seething under my skin again as I walked past an overturned wheelchair, it's occupant cocooned in a sleeping bag on the hard pavement, a small backpack at his feet.

How easily my anger bubbles, not only at home when triggered at just the wrong moment, but at injustice, the pervasive injustice that is homelessness, that is lack of medical care, that is hunger in the richest country in the world.

Walking past an upright, blanket-shrouded man, his face and hands black with street dirt, his eyes red and a little crazed, I recognized the faces I put on my anger. The Koch Brothers. Dick Cheney. The Bush family. Icons of the uber wealthy and the people who serve their purposes in Washington, D.C., our state capitols, San Francisco City Hall.

As we approached that gilded dome, once glowing, now fading to bird-streaked charcoal in this economy that fills the coffers of the rich while feeding and housing ever fewer, this faded poorly kept  monument to capitalism and tenacity, whose dome is the fifth largest in the world, taller than the US Capitol, I felt the anger I carry in my body, anger I face each day.

Being peace when I might choose rage

Every single day I struggle for balance between being the peace I want to see in the world and fuming  at one atrocity after another, at my failure to meet the need to find some way to mitigate and change the suffering caused by human greed and carelessness. Each day, throughout the day, I stop and breathe.

Breathe.
I have been here before, many times. I acknowledge these feelings. I fold my hands and bow to them. Namaste.
Breathe.

I ask for guidance, if only for the next step.
Breathe.

It works. On Saturday it worked. Peace entered my heart, a warmth starting at the core of my heart, and spreading outward.

Image Credit: Sharon L Richardson
From Re-Imagining Peace
All rights reserved - Used with permission

Breathing, I acknowledged again the anger, the suffering.
Breathing, I accepted what is.
Breathing, I knew there was--is--a better way.
Breathing, I asked for guidance.

Making peace

All the while, as we walked, we talked quietly of our altercation earlier and how our stand informs our responses and is informed by our feelings and actions. Breathing, I gave gratitude for this mini-eruption, this opportunity to practice our intention to bring peace into the world.

We do not stand for peace merely to make a visible, public stand. We stand for peace to change our own hearts.

Standing for peace is not only a ritual, it is a way of becoming peace.

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We make peace in a million small ways every day.

All text and images, unless otherwise noted, copyright L. Kathryn Grace. All rights reserved.

Imaginal cells, nutrient soup and the Summer of Peace

Caterpillar image by beamish
A morgueFile Free Photo

Imaginal cells. Microbiologist and philosopher Elisabet Sahtouris tells of imaginal cells, biologists' term for the cells in a mutating pupa that feed on the caterpillar's body, now a "nutrient soup," and transform into a totally different organism, a butterfly.

Sahtouris likens our current human state to that of the caterpillar, consuming everything in sight in preparation for its long sleep and transformation.

The caterpillar is focused only on survival until, bloated, it hangs itself from a branch and falls asleep. Its skin hardens into a protective covering, and the imaginal cells that have been accumulating for some time burgeon.

You and I, Sahtouris says, are imaginal cells. As we waken, become more and more aware, we feed off the nutrients of our culture even as we transform it to something new and utterly beautiful.

Enter the Summer of Peace 2012

Butterfly image by mrmac04
A morgueFile Free Photo

One way we imaginal cells are transforming our world is through a vast, worldwide network of peace builders. The Shift Network hopes to expand and amplify this network through its Summer of Peace 2012 initiative.

In a talk last night at the Red Victorian Peace Cafe on Haight Street here in San Francisco, Shift Network Program Director Philip Hellmich spoke on plans for the Summer of Peace.

The Summer of Peace begins on the solstice, June 22, and concludes on the fall equinox, September 21. If you haven't heard of it, here's a synopsis of the vision from the web site.

The Summer of Peace 2012 is a global celebration of and call to action for inner and outer Peace ... and will feature media campaigns, online actions, conferences, music concerts, film festivals and grassroots activities around the world. All the activities will be designed to accelerate humanity’s shift to a culture of Peace.

The Summer of Peace 2012 aims to involve leaders from many sectors ranging from Nobel Peace Prize laureates to business, education, media, religious, military, and non-profit leaders.

Our overarching goal is to activate the largest global commitment to Peace in one season in the history of humankind mobilizing grassroots participation of people worldwide

Summer of Peace 2012 Vision

Did you catch that reference to including military leaders in the mix? We need to stop fear-based ideology, Hellmich says, and replace it with acknowledging and celebrating what works. Even the world's military, like every other human enterprise, is evolving, he says.

People within the military establishment are learning new, non-violent ways of making and preserving peace, and they're training others. Hellmich witnessed such peacekeeping and peace building activities when he worked in Sierra Leone during the civil war and genocide there some years ago. Without the military peacekeepers, he says, there would be no peace there today.

Of course, he doesn't give all credit to the military. They were just one part of the peacemaking process. He cited a complex and sometimes disarmingly simple set of strategies and individuals that resulted, ultimately, in the end of unspeakable violence.

I wish you could have heard his talk. There is so much more I'ld like to share. I'll leave you with just one nugget. You may have seen in the first line of the quotation above that the Summer of Peace calls for action for both inner and outer peace. Hellmich's first call to action was that we implement a daily peace practice, if we don't already have one--meditation, prayer, whatever works to strengthen our inner peace.

I can attest that something as simple as standing for peace in silence five minutes each day changes the heart, changes how I relate to others. Another useful strategy, especially in times of stress, is to take ten to meditate. You can do it any where, any time with no one the wiser to quickly reduce stress and calm frazzled nerves.

With regular inner peace practice, Hellmich contends, and I agree wholeheartedly, heck, I've said it here plenty of times, we facilitate peace building in our lives, rippling out to the world.

One tiny example: How often has a friendly smile and kind remark lifted your spirits at the end of a long day and sent you on your way smiling too? People smile back when they see a happy person walking down the street. When their spirits are lifted, they smile at others.

Smiling at our neighbors as we encounter them on the street is an act of both inner and outer peace. Could we really kill each other once we got in the habit of smiling genuinely each time we met? I wonder.

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We make peace in a million small ways every day.

All text and images, unless otherwise noted, copyright L. Kathryn Grace. All rights reserved.

Standing for peace, we are as stones

San Francisco City Hall from our standing
point November 26, 2011
© L Kathryn Grace

We stood for peace again this Saturday. I have to tell you, even though we are only two, I feel empowered.

When we stand before an edifice dedicated to assuring that the economic interests of a city are served, we stand at the seat of power. Here the influential, and those who do their bidding, make decisions that bring peace--or violence--to our lives.

In this world-class city, those decisions affect the lives not only of San Franciscans, but of people throughout the state and around the world. Whether we're banning plastic bags in supermarkets or shipping our collected "recyclables" overseas where the poorest of the poor sort our mountains of trash to salvage what can be melted down and remade, the impact of our city is felt near and far. Decisions made in this building ripple across the planet, like a skipping stone on water.

Let's face it. Making peace is about economics. All war, all injustice comes down to economics and greed. "You have what I want. If you won't give it to me, won't sell it to me for the price I'm willing to pay, I will take it from you."

Yet, because individuals stood up over the years in this town, walked and marched and stood in the halls of this building, many decisions made here reflect a concern for the well-being of our people. Not only the wealthy are served; but also those of us who serve the wealthy; and the thousands of immigrants who grow, harvest, prepare and serve our food, clean our homes and offices, cut our hair, and who work tirelessly to achieve a better life for themselves, their families and friends.

Green Vehicle Showcase
© L Kathryn Grace

Individuals made and continue to make calls, set up committees, and take action to lessen our collective impact on the environment as well. One example, immediately in front of me as I stand: nearly half a block of  recharging stations for electric cars, several of which bear the city seal on their doors. That sign in the background of the image to the right says "Green Vehicle Showcase," and in a small way, it is.

Of course, we are also a city known to house some of the most shameless--and shameful--human trafficking and sex trafficking rings in the country, for just one example of the other side, and a homeless population larger than the town my children called home for eighteen years, for another. All is not charm and beauty here.

These thoughts flow as I stand, at first flushed with the rush to get here, the too hot tea in my thermos burning my tongue and throat, watching tourists dance toward the shining glass and brass doors below the rotunda, fifth largest in the world, with a dome higher than that of the US Capitol building. They take pictures of one another posing first on this side of the street, then again on the steps of the building, under the great frieze of naked and partially clothed mythical figures.

We do not speak, my standing partner and I. We shift our bodies, arching our complaining backs and relaxing them, rocking on our feet to keep the blood flowing and the stiffness at bay.

Soon, my body settles into the rhythm, my mind quiets, the calm of standing in peace fills me, seems to grow and surround us. A white haired woman arrives, across the street, stands against a concrete pillar for nearly the entire hour. We wonder if she is the woman who told us she would stand with us today.

The longer the hour stretches, the more comfortable I am. The longer I stand, the more I feel what it would mean, what might happen if hundreds stood with us, thousands around the world. Though I gently return my focus to my breathing whenever my mind wanders, inevitably it fills with this image again and again and again: Grandmothers all over the world, standing in front of their city halls, their churches, mosques and synagogues, whatever symbols of power in their towns and villages, standing in silence, hearts open to the possibility of peace.

Changed, as we are changed standing here, they--we--just may begin to influence those within our sphere, who in turn may influence others, rippling, rippling, rippling. We are as stones.

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We stand for peace as part of Grandmothers for Peace Occupy SF, which we initiated after an OccupySF peace meditation. You can read about our experience and why we started Grandmothers for Peace Occupy SF on Yes, we did Sit4Change.

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We make peace in a million small ways every day.

All text and images, unless otherwise noted, copyright L. Kathryn Grace. All rights reserved.

Making peace--About that national telephone conference call on the Tucson shooting

Yes, we did it, my sweetie and I. Last night we attended the national conference call, hosted by The Peace Alliance. We sat down with an untold number of other Americans, to share our feelings about the seemingly out-of-control violence in our country and to discuss ways we can make peace in our lives and in our nation.

A teacher tells of nine year olds wreaking havoc in the school room

I was surprised by what one caller said. He's a middle school teacher of forty years, who told of ever escalating classroom violence. Several times a week, he is called on by the principal and other teachers to help restrain a child who is acting out with violence. They throw desks and chairs across their class room. They refuse to be calmed. To prevent them harming themselves and others, they must be physically restrained. After years of working with parents of unruly and violent children, he is convinced that, if we want peace in the world, we need to train parents how to be the parents, how to regain control in their households and how to teach their children social skills. Others echoed his viewpoint.

Listening, I couldn't help wondering if the violence our children see every day on television, masquerading as entertainment, contributes to their social dysfunction.

This morning, with these thoughts and voices echoing in my mind, I ran across the five minute video, below, from the Pachamama Alliance. According to the narrator, "The typical American child in his or her lifetime will witness 8,000 murders and a hundred thousand acts of violence on television, and by age eighteen will have spent more time in front of the television than in school."


Where are we? Theme: Spiritual Fulfillment from Pachamama Alliance on Vimeo.

A social justice worker calls on neighborhood churches to reach out block-by-block

The teacher and the story in the video above discuss the deep need for belonging. A social justice worker, citing the extreme violence in Oakland--the fourth most dangerous city in the United States-- suggested that our youth, lacking structure and family, find that sense of belonging in gangs. She called on churches everywhere to begin developing block-by-block programs to draw people from the streets and into activities and resources that support them. Most of all, she called on adults to listen to our children and respond to their needs.

Those are just two examples of the voices and passion we heard.

Vibrant technology brings us together

So often we decry the isolation and loss of community that our electronic devices foster. Hours spent flitting from one brief encounter of the e-kind to another substitute for the long, meaty conversations we shared face-to-face in the past, lingering over a sumptuous home-cooked meal, or delighting in brandies and exquisite desserts after sharing a live-and-in-person concert.

But this call, and others like it, give us an opportunity to reach each other in ways scarcely possible in the past. Live and in person, we speak, listen, are heard. When fortunate to have a skilled facilitator, as we did last night in John B. Kinyon, a trainer with the Center for Nonviolent Communication, the listening is amplified with care and attention to the heart of the words of each speaker. So even when a speaker is difficult to hear--because of technical issues, not speaking into the microphone, or because our attention wanders, we hear John's tender reflection and understand the parts we may have missed.

Yesterday I wrote of seeking hope in this call. In the Pachamama Alliance video above, Thich Nhat Hanh says it is impossible to be ourselves, alone, that we must "inter-be" with everyone else. While I chose not to speak last night, what I heard encouraged me deeply. Today I feel the pulse of the living organism we are, collectively, that "inter-being." This call delivered.

Image above, courtesy The Peace Alliance (pdf file)

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We make peace in a million small ways every day.

All text and images, unless otherwise noted, copyright L. Kathryn Grace. All rights reserved.

Making peace in the face of unspeakable violence

© L Kathryn Grace

Please bear with me. This, my first post of the year, begins with tragedy and ends with faint rays of hope, rays of hope I pray will brighten and grow into a steady, unending glow that permeates every heart and soul on Earth.

What is

Yesterday I learned that a woman I admire and who has been wonderfully supportive of this blog, had lost two family members to violence within a few very short weeks of each other.

These separate, enormous tragedies are horrendous in themselves. While they preceded the Tucson shootings last Saturday, I learned of them after the fact, while still weeping for the families of the dead and injured there, where a young man carried a gun to a supermarket and killed six people, injured fourteen others. One eye witness reported that the man, before being hauled away in cuffs, smiled with apparent satisfaction as he viewed the carnage around him. Sadly, this scene is far too familiar. Here in the United States, pick any impoverished neighborhood, and likely there has been a shooting or stabbing death in the last week. In some cities, such deaths occur almost daily; and for some of our young people, killing another human being is a rite of passage; the tell-tale tattoos they sport, badges of honor.

A father weeps

So prevalent is the violence in this country that one father, Van Jones--whom you may remember as the short-lived Green Jobs Czar of the Obama administration, and before that, one of my Ordinary Heroes--breaks down in this audio recording of a 2005 talk with The Peace Alliance. He is speaking of his then seven-month-old son and his son's chances to reach old age intact, well-educated, and free of incarceration. You've seen the statistics on young, Black male survival rates to adulthood, right? How many of them die through violence, how many of them end up in prison?

Addicted to violence

© L Kathryn Grace

Should we be surprised? Under the guise of patriotism, we as a nation extol the virtues of combat. We celebrate the most horrific acts as entertainment. Heck, when Van Jones was growing up, our president glowingly glorified the fictional Rambo as his personal hero.

That's not all. Our country is constantly in a state of war somewhere in the world, has been almost continuously throughout my lifetime. Many in our country consider unpatriotic those who oppose these wars.

Given the hero worship we give to perpetrators of violence, fictional and real, why shouldn't young men of color, disenfranchised at every turn, not emulate the terrible scenes they grow up watching on television and in the movies? Those who want out of their gang-infested neighborhoods have few avenues of egress. One of the most open to them: War, sponsored by our government.

Exploiting, degrading, defiling and destroying human life

Then there are the underground, unofficial wars. Under siege from the drug cartels, Mexico reels from day to day, counting the bodies and burying the dead. In Afghanistan and Pakistan, The Taliban and Al-Qaeda bomb children in schools because they believe girls should not be taught to read and write and spell their own name, let alone learn about the world. Here in San Francisco, our police department periodically raids one "home" or another where children and women have been held in sexual slavery--in residential neighborhoods. Do you know your neighbor? They pull out not just one or two, but dozens of victims, usually brought into this country illegally, and often as not, quickly deported upon being "freed" to bear their shame and find a way to seek their living in a country that no longer wants them. San Francisco is just one small piece of that ugly puzzle.The list of human-on-human degradation and violence is unending. Or is it?

Dare we hope?

Image courtesy
The Peace Alliance (pdf file)

In the face of deep and unrelenting sorrow, dare we hope?

It may not be much. It may be the start of something big, possibly world changing. Tonight, I'm giving myself a big dose of hope, because tonight, in the wake of the Tucson shootings, and fully conscious of all the individual tragedies people face around the country, The Peace Alliance is hosting a national conference call. The call will be facilitated by John B. Kinyon, a trainer with the Center for Nonviolent Communication. They call it a national soul searching moment. Here's what Aaron Voldman, director of the Student Peace Alliance, has to say about it in an email I received this morning:

This attack [the Tucson shootings] is a wake-up call for America, challenging us to step into our potential for compassion, for right relationships, and for a far more healthy political discourse. ... Now, more than ever, we must ask the questions that will stir each others' souls, and listen attentively to what emerges. Our role, as peacemakers, is a crucial one.

Dialing in is better than sitting on my puhtoodie

I'll be on this call. I need to join with others round the country to discuss ways to bring peace to our hearts, to our country and to our world. If you would like to lend your voice and your thoughts, join us at 9 pm Eastern, 6 pm Pacific. The presenters strongly recommend that you pre-register for the call, which is free, apart from any telephone charges you may incur. After you register to join the national conference call, you will be sent a phone number and unique access pin. If you can’t register, join the call at 916.235.1003, Code: 590543, again at 9 pm Eastern, 6 pm Pacific.

It's still up to us

Peace bed
© L Kathryn Grace

Neither you nor I can control what another human being chooses to do, but we do have the power to make peace an active force in our lives and in our nation. If you join the call tonight, I'd like to know what you think of it. This is one way we can stand for peace today.

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We make peace in a million small ways every day.

All text and images, unless otherwise noted, copyright L. Kathryn Grace. All rights reserved.

Good news Friday: ‘Nirvana! I found Nirvana!’

Jill Bolte Taylor was thirty-seven years old, a brilliant neuroscientist, when she woke one morning with a strange pain in her head. This is her story.

In case you would like to see her words as well as hear them, following are the last few minutes of her talk, transcribed. She is speaking here of the moment when she surrendered to the change in her body, when she realized she was “no longer the choreographer of my life.”

My spirit soared free, like a great whale gliding through a sea of silent euphoria. Nirvana! I found Nirvana!

And I remember thinking there was no way I would be able to squeeze the enormousness of myself back into this tiny little body. But then I realized, I’m still alive! I’m still alive, and I have found Nirvana, and if I have found Nirvana and I’m still alive, then everyone who is alive can find Nirvana, and I pictured a world full of beautiful, peaceful, compassionate, loving people, who knew that they could come to this space at any time, and that they could purposely choose to step to the right of their left hemisphere, and find this peace.

I realized what a tremendous gift this experience could be, what a source of insight this could be to how we live our lives. And it motivated me to recover.

...

So who are we?

We are the life force power of the universe, with manual dexterity and two cognitive minds. We have the power to choose, moment by moment, who and how we want to be in the world.

Right here, right now, I can step into the consciousness of my right hemisphere where we are, I am: the life force power of the universe. I am the life force power of the fifty trillion beautiful molecular geniuses that make up my form, at one with All That Is.

Or, I can choose to step into the consciousness of my left hemisphere, where I become a single individual, a solid, separate from the flow, separate from you. I am Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, intellectual, neuroanatomist. These are the we inside of me.

Which would you choose? Which do you choose? And when?

I believe that the more time we spend choosing to run the deep inner peace circuitry of our right hemispheres, the more peace we will project into the world, and the more peaceful our planet will be

I thought that was an idea worth spreading.

May each of you be well and deeply blessed, as deeply and as well as you desire.

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We make peace in a million small ways every day.
All text and images, unless otherwise noted, copyright L. Kathryn Grace. All rights reserved.

Open forum: What do you need? Ask here!

Posie against a hard, stone wall
© Kathryn Grace

As I read your blogs and stories, I am so often keenly aware of the suffering many of you have encountered in life, personally, in your work, and in the world.

If I could wiggle my nose and get anything I want right now, it would be an end to suffering. All suffering. So I open my blog to each of you (wiggle wiggle), and urge you to ask for what you need. While there is no guarantee I or another will be able to meet that need, there is no guarantee we won't. Whether it is for yourself or for another--Ask!

What do you need right now? For yourself, for someone you know?

As you go about your week and become aware of suffering, yours and others, think about ways we who read your words and have come to care about your work online and the person we believe you to be, might mitigate that suffering.

Through the comment form below, ASK us to help. Tell us about your encounter with suffering, how we might learn from your experience, how we might be of use, what you need. Who knows who might see the request and know exactly the individual, the organization, the link, the word that might help?

Take courage and ask your own readers about the need, and don't forget to come back here and put a link to the post so the rest of us can find it and support you. Encourage your readers to do the same.

What need might you help to fill?

While you're writing, consider the requests others have made. You can track the requests by subscribing to the comments for this post. You will receive an email each time someone has posted. That way you know who needs help. I don't have tons of readers, so your inbox is unlikely to be flooded.

If you have the means to be of use to another who has posted a need, tell us about that too, that we may all take heart in the generosity and goodness of this world.

Next time I run a Good News Friday post, I hope to tell some of your stories of need and response.

A prayer for you, a prayer for all of us

My prayer for each of you is this: Whenever you find yourselves against a hard stone wall, may someone have left a posie in just that spot to brighten the moment, may others have paved a path towards a safe haven, and may a door or gate open and a welcoming hand extend. When you see another in a hard place, may you have the wisdom and the resources to extend a hand, to open a door, or to smooth a path, and may peace be with you always.

Note: I have limited online access this week, and this may be my only post. I will be reading your blogs as usual, but my iGadgets don't seem to work well with Google posting, and I may not be able to comment until I'm back at my desk sometime next week. I look forward to hearing from you all week long as you respond to this open discussion.

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We make peace in a million small ways every day.

All text and images, unless otherwise noted, copyright L. Kathryn Grace. All rights reserved.

People with trucks stand for peace

Sure would like to shake this driver's hand.
Image: © L. Kathryn Grace

Every time I question the value of standing for peace five minutes (almost) every day, I run smack dab into something like this truck, reminding me there are other people who feel so strongly about peace, they've taken a stand.

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We make peace in a million
small ways every day.

All text and images, unless otherwise noted, copyright L. Kathryn Grace. All rights reserved.

Meal-plan our way to world peace?

Touchy, funny, quirky or cogent, it's the Quote of the Week:

Let’s meal-plan our way to world peace.

Abbey Quillan
New Urban Habitat

Meal planning may seem a tad pedestrian as a peace maker, but you'll see why it's one way to lower your carbon footprint and build peace in your life at the same time. Enjoy the layers in Quillan's post, The Art of Meal Planning.

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We make peace in a million small ways every day.

All text and images, unless otherwise noted, copyright L. Kathryn Grace. All rights reserved.

Do your morning rituals nurture your body and soul?

Returning to the first few posts in the Village of Ordinary, we share Rose's morning rituals: Waking with her to stretches and Reiki, a morning cup of tea, and precious moments with her drawing journal; then sitting with her to greet the dawn with some of her village companions who gather for Yoga and meditation.

Some mornings, Rose works out alone. This first morning, we jog with her and her neighbor Ralph on their way to the kitchens where they pull breakfast duty, and where she stoops to pluck and sniff a sprig of thyme and to bow to her friend in the ancient way of acknowledging the spirit in him as in herself.

Rose's day begins peacefully, with a feast for her senses and with attention to and care for her physical, spiritual, mental and emotional needs.

This week, I am treating myself to a minimum of two days in which I waken early enough to stretch, do my usual Reiki, meditate or write for at least fifteen minutes, enjoy a cup of tea and walk a few blocks, stopping to admire the flowers and, perhaps, crush a geranium leaf between my fingers and inhale the sweet pungency. That's my objective. The goal is to build up to a daily routine of self care and sensory (Dare I say it? Yes!) indulgence.

What are your morning rituals? How do you nurture yourself? These are the ways we build harmony in our life. These are the first steps to making peace.

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We make peace in a million small ways every day.

All text and images, unless otherwise noted, copyright L. Kathryn Grace. All rights reserved.

A visit to the Village of Ordinary

For the first time in ages today, I read Wake, the first post in Village of Ordinary. I am comforted by the stillness and softness of Rose's morning ritual and ablutions. Delicious!

Years ago, when I began writing Rose's journal, I too woke early, listening for the sweet morning sounds as I channeled warm Reiki heat throughout my body. Like Rose, immediately on rising, I journaled. Unlike Rose, who draws in her journal, I scribble as many words as will fit on the page. No margins. No censoring. Pure stream of consciousness clearing.

The writing cleared my mind and heart of the ordinary pains and anxieties of daily living--the faux pas of a shy and clumsy klutz, the aches and pains of an aging body too long taken for granted, the intentional hurts foisted by the office crank, the horrors of wars abroad and at home, my country (land of the free) breaking its own and international laws to imprison and torture people, many of whom later proved to be innocent. More, the writing transcended evil, springing to visions of peace among peoples of vastly differing beliefs and cultures, peace with that crank at the office, and most especially, peace in my heart.

In it I could imagine a world of people loving one another, always showing to one another the kindness my dearest friend routinely shows to every person she meets, and in her line of work, she meets some of the bottom feeders of society. Yet she treats each person with dignity and compassion. I don't know how she does it.

In the writing, too, I tried on creative ideas, posited solutions to sticky problems both personal and grand, and delved into the vast, varied and sometimes viscous pool of information with which I had fed my voracious mind in the previous twenty-four hours.

Back then, at the time I wrote this first Village post, after Reiki and journaling, I began each day with a few minutes Yoga as well. Not much, just enough to get the blood flowing. Somewhere along the way, I let go of these rituals. Instead, I gave more and more time to writing and research. Obsessed with creating a viable vision that could one day become reality, I gave up sleep, staying up till two or three in the morning, and at least one night a week, pulling an all-nighter.

Eventually, exhausted, I posted more and more infrequently, months passing at times with no words at all. Oh, the writing in me hadn't stopped. My body had. Worse. It seemed my mind had. I could not focus. Could no longer do the razor editing. Could not, in fact, absorb the articles I read to keep current on politics, green-living innovations, peace work. I took comfort in the writing of other bloggers whose posts fed my soul and nourished my heart.

Determined to recover, I began writing again, this time hunting down and sharing with my dedicated readers the people, events and technologies I discovered that pointed to the possibility of building a more Ordinary-like world right now. Once again, I burned the lights into the wee hours of the morning, frequently waking in my desk chair, head tossed back at an awkward angle, mouth wide open, slogging unconscionable sounds for a woman reared in the Fifties, when self-respecting ladies still wore hats and gloves to town.

This obsessive compulsion doesn't work for me. Being driven is a wonderful trait we artists possess that helps us create fabulous (and, alas, not so fabulous) works. Without it, how can we possibly get to the beauty and nut of a piece? We start with an idea, like a chunk of marble, seeing completely the David hidden inside, and chip painstakingly away to expose the power and beauty, whatever the cost in time and discomfort. One slip, and the piece may be ruined, so we focus every atom of our being on placing the chisel just so in this present moment, and again, and again, and again.

Inevitably the timer goes off. Without it we might not remember to lay down our tools, shower, dress, and get ourselves out the door to our "real" job. Michelangelo himself felt the pressure of society's call on him. Without the patronage of the Pope, he had no living. Without a living, he had no marble. Without marble, he could not sculpt. So he sculpted for the Pope, pieces the Pope commissioned, not the pieces burning in him to carve, aching in his bones to pull from the stone. Not only the sculpting, though. The Pope wanted his churches decorated. And so we have the Sistine Chapel, as beautiful a work as anything on earth, perhaps, but not what Michelangelo might have chosen had he had his way.

This is the way of the world. Artists work with what we have, given the time we have. So I begin again. Building Ordinary this time, as well as visioning it. Will I return to Rose's journal? Yes, absolutely yes. If somehow breath and time permit. But first, because I cannot vision Ordinary without knowledge, I renew my commitment to researching and writing every day. This does not mean a post a day, but writing until a post is ready, or as my dear friend Dorris used to say, until I abandon it. My immediate objective is two posts a week. We'll see how it goes.

Coming up: Morning rituals and narrowing the field of research

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We make peace in a million small ways every day.

All text and images, unless otherwise noted, copyright L. Kathryn Grace. All rights reserved.