Category: Poetic PEACE Pilgrimage

Poetic Peace Pilgrimage – Year 9 – Day 144 – 5/9/2022

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as promised in yesterday’s mother’s day post when i broke my long standing tradition of featuring Julia Ward Howe that i would extend the celebration of mothers for at least another day and maybe more in these daily posts, so here goes… many countries around the world celebrate mother’s day on the second sunday of may; in the United States, the origins of the official holiday go back to 1870 when Julia Ward Howe – an abolitionist best remembered as the poet who wrote “Battle Hymn of the Republic” – worked to establish a Mother’s Peace Day. Howe dedicated the celebration to the eradication of war and organized festivities in Boston for years….

a hundred years later, i along with thousands of others would take up the same cause of tending the peace field holding the contention that it was the mothers who stopped the war known in the US as the Vietnam War and in Vietnam as the American War… so confirming to learn some decades ago that Julia had been planting the same seeds in the field a century earlier and that her call for women to arise remains electrifying one hundred and fifty-two years later… what an uplift that more and more of us are becoming aware of her proclamation for peace and the need to return to mother’s day’s original focus – that of promoting world peace…  on this Mother’s Day and every day is mother’s day, honor your mother by contributing to the “great and general interests of peace” both at home and abroad… when 1000 mothers come together calling for peace, harmony becomes the frequency of consciousness…

may all mothers of invention feeling divine feminine energy rising within, no matter our gender, come together being peace now with the power to heal, soothe suffering, conjure courage and be the transformation…

~

Poetic Peace Pilgrimage – Year 9 – Day 143 – 5/8/2022

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for this week’s installment of the astonishing light of being which falls on Mother’s Day, i am breaking my long standing tradition of posting Julia Ward Howe’s Mothering Peace Declaration for a different Mother of Peace on this very different Mother’s Day in this very different moment of eternity… on this mothering peace day, this feast of mother julian day, i feel a deep song arising foreshadowed by a lucid dream, a soul song of the many waves of the ocean, a song of peace passing all understanding and uniting us all in one murmuration, one frequency of harmony… let “all shall be well” breathe us all again and again as our one heart opens in the rhythm of the tides of ebb and flow with peace, thousand fold peace in this moment of eternity asking all our relations to be mothers of peace re-membering:

“Nothing could have prepared
Your heart to open like this.

From beyond the skies and the stars
This echo arrived inside you
And started to pulse with life,
Each beat a tiny act of growth,
Traversing all our ancient shapes
On its way home to itself.

Once it began, you were no longer your own.
A new, more courageous you, offering itself
In a new way to a presence you can sense
But you have not seen or known.

It has made you feel alone
In a way you never knew before;
Everyone else sees only from the outside
What you feel and feed
With every fiber of your being.

Never have you traveled farther inward
Where words and thoughts become half-light
Unable to reach the fund of brightness…


Like some primeval moon,
Your soul brightens
The tides of essence…


You know your life has changed forever,
For in all the days and years to come,
Distance will never be able to cut you off…

May you be blessed with quiet confidence
That destiny will guide you and mind you.

May the emerging spirit of your child
Imbibe encouragement and joy
From the continuous music of your heart,
So that it can grow with ease,
Expectant of wonder and welcome
When its form is fully filled

And it makes its journey out
To see you and settle at last
Relived, and glad in your arms.”

~ John O’Donohue ~

may we all give birth to a consciousness of peace real-eye-sing we are one interbeing interdependent on each imaginal cell to be a soul song of peace…

~

Poetic Peace Pilgrimage – Year 9 – Day 142 – 5/7/2022

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“To be whole, let yourself break.
To be straight, let yourself bend.
To be full, let yourself be empty.
To be new, let yourself wear out.
To have everything, give everything up.

Knowing others is a kind of knowledge;
knowing yourself is wisdom.

Conquering others requires strength;
conquering yourself is true power. “

~ Lao Tzu ~

welcome, well come to world labyrinth day of peace… if i had my druthers, i would always have a physical labyrinth wherever i live but as i don’t have access, i’ll in vite you to join me in an innergetic pilgrimage to the center of our interbeing…

let’s start at the beginning of the labyrinth imagining this meditation as a walking in nature, into our true nature… standing at the entrance, let’s go inside and greet the light centering on going to the still place  of our one heart and listening for intention, where we’ll place our attention as we walk this pilgrimage of the heart…

as a peace pilgrim, i love chanting peace with every step on the way in and thank you on the return and offering this prayer for the benefit of all our relations… now, three deep purifying breaths as we silently  say… make me an instrument of peace, peace, peace…

as we tread this path, be aware of the rhythmic ebb and flow of breath sounding like  ocean waves… letting go into the dance of the stillpoint, we are carried into the center, the heart, to pause and reflect on the deep peace of the running waves… letting go into the dance of the stillpoint, we are carried into the center, the heart, to pause and reflect on the deep peace of the running waves…

in this moment, this beautiful moment of eternity, let us echo the peace prayer for the benefit of all… make me an instrument of peace…  thousand fold thanks…

~

Poetic Peace Pilgrimage – Year 9 – Day 141 – 5/6/2022

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“Every leaf that grows will tell you: what you sow will bear fruit, so if you have any sense my friend, don’t plant anything but Love.”

– Rumi –

this is the murmuration month of may so the lenticular clouds hovering over this sacred apu looking like visitors from another world match the dreamtime world i,like uou, am being magnetically pulled into, a coming home to the heart, tahoma, the mountain feeling like divine mother, our first home…

what a joy and a wonder this ever deepening into the heart’s tiny space, a field of green, a field of love, a circle of timelessness in the center of the cosmic medicine wheel, the sacred space of stillness, the resonant place of silence where everything is music, the harmony of the cosmic hum…

gather with me here in wholey communion feeling the new world breathing us…

into being the world of the sixth sun, a gathering of lovers, a family of one, a world of peace founded in balance guided by compassion…

namaste’, beloved co-hearts of the one heart…

~

Poetic Peace Pilgrimage – Year 9 – Day 140 – 5/5/2022

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“We try to re-create ourselves when things fall apart. We return to the solid ground of our self-concept as quickly as possible. …When things fall apart, instead of struggling to regain our concept of who we are, we can use it as an opportunity to be open and inquisitive about what has just happened and what will happen next. That is how we turn this arrow into a flower.”

~ Pema Chödrön ~

i see cinco de mayo as a day of celebrating liberation, once again i honor this day by going on a re-treat inside of our collective re-treat and injoying it as an opportunity to be open and curious about what is going on the continued unfolding of this great mystery… this image is one of my favorites, i call it rainbow rebirth which seems LOVEly for this day of liberation in the eclipse portal when we are called to go deeply within to murmurate and change direction re-membering who we truly are…

like you, i’ve been feeling an ongoing seismic shift for so many moons, thirty years ago i began my daily mantra of being one of the ones to call in the new/old world and here she is and here i am with an emphatic calling to gather with imaginal cells, a starling murmuration, open to aligning with divine flow…

may we all come into a deeper and more expansive knowing of who we are… slowed down sound and light waves in a sea of love energy, the ocean of being, the flowering field of interconnection and may we take this extraordinary moment of eternity to do the deep work of radical (rooted) change by plugging into the taproot/umbilical cord in the core of our interbeing and aligning our antennae with the source antenna living like the river of life flowing in wonder with the mystery of the unfolding…

~

Poetic Peace Pilgrimage – Year 9 – Day 139 – 5/4/2022

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today marks the 52nd anniversary of  Kent State, a day when students all over were protesting the war, a day that turned tragic with four dead in Ohio, a day that would lead to a general strike four days later when four million of us gathered to wage peace…

 today, let us weave these threads together, the threads of coming home to the heart and re-membering all those who serve peace by sharing the sage wisdom of a woman named Mildred Norman Ryder who inspired this poetic peace pilgrimage and me along with hundreds of others… on a New Year’s Day many years ago, she left behind her home, her family and her name, to begin what would turn into a 28-year walk for a meaningful way of life. Peace Pilgrim’s fearlessness, love and simplicity continues to inspire people worldwide. Hear her words on the four relinquishments, or what we might call today surrenders or softenings, that powered her way of life…

“IF YOU REALIZED HOW POWERFUL YOUR THOUGHTS ARE, YOU WOULD NEVER THINK A NEGATIVE THOUGHT.”
~ PEACE PILGRIM ~

“Once you’ve made the first relinquishment, you have found inner peace because it’s the relinquishment of self-will. You can work on this by refraining from doing any not-good thing you may be motivated toward, but you never suppress it! If you are motivated to do or say a mean thing, you can always think of a good thing. You deliberately turn around and use that same energy to do or say a good thing instead. It works!

The second relinquishment is the relinquishment of the feeling of separateness. We begin feeling very separate and judging everything as it relates to us, as though we were the center of the universe. Even after we know better intellectually, we still judge things that way. In reality, of course, we are all cells in the body of humanity. We are not separate from our fellow humans. The whole thing is a totality. It’s only from that higher viewpoint that you can know what it is to love your neighbor as yourself. From that higher viewpoint there becomes just one realistic way to work, and that is for the good of the whole. As long as you work for your selfish little self, you’re just one cell against all those other cells, and you’re way out of harmony. But as soon as you begin working for the good of the whole, you find yourself in harmony with all of your fellow human beings. You see, it’s the easy, harmonious way to live.

Then there is the third relinquishment, and that is the relinquishment of all attachments. Material things must be put into their proper place. They are there for use. It’s all right to use them; that’s what they’re there for. But when they’ve outlived their usefulness, be ready to relinquish them and perhaps pass them on to someone who does need them. Anything that you cannot relinquish when it has outlived its usefulness possesses you, and in this materialistic age a great many of us are possessed by our possessions. We are not free.

Now the last: the relinquishment of all negative feelings. I want to mention just one negative feeling which the nicest people still experience, and that negative feeling is worry. Worry is not concern which would motivate you to do everything possible in a situation. Worry is a useless mulling over of things we cannot change. Let me mention just one technique. Seldom do you worry about the present moment; it’s usually all right. If you worry, you agonize over the past which you should have forgotten long ago, or you’re apprehensive over the future which hasn’t even come yet. We tend to skim right over the present time. Since this is the only moment that one can live, if you don’t live it you never really get around to living at all. If you do live this present moment, you tend not to worry. For me, every moment is a new opportunity to be of service.”

may we all empty ourselves to create a vast spaciousness, a field out beyond for planting seeds of peace within and service dedicated for the benefit of all…

~

Poetic Peace Pilgrimage – Year 9 – Day 138 – 5/3/2022

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You were born with potential.
You were born with goodness and trust. You were born with ideals and dreams. You were born with greatness.
You were born with wings.
You are not meant for crawling, so don’t.
You have wings.
Learn to use them and fly.

~ Rumi ~

welcome, well come to murmuration may, a moon of such potency so that as days ago i mused upon what this moon would be named, murmuration came across my consciousness and the more i comtemplated it, the more right on it seemed to be… this eclipse season, this bright fire moment offer such a portal for composting the unsustainable and imagining and regenerating a cosmos that works for all… today when i awoke, i heard the glad tidings that for the first time in 130 years, california condors were flying over the redwoods again and that seemed to be a lovely nudge from the multiverse to write in this moment of eternity of us as the starling beings we are, imaginal cells who love to cooperatively cluster together to change direction in such dazzling flowing fluid dances and who flock together in solidarity to meet the challenges of life…

and such challenges we face in this moment with the news of the probable overturning of women’s rights and today is the 80th anniversary of the internment of the Japanese in the usa and the unthinkable action of nuclear weapons being deployed again is actually being discussed while our living out of harmony continues to escalate…

so, let us take this moment to slow down and breathe and flutter our wings together in warm embrace re-membering who we truly are: dreamweaving starling beings of astonishing light shining luminously…

~

Poetic Peace Pilgrimage – Year 9 – Day 137 – 5/2/2022

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“Instead of resisting to changes, surrender. Let life be with you, not against you. If you think ‘My life will be upside down’ don’t worry. How do you know down is not better than upside?”

~ Shams of Tabriz ~

in the days of Rumi, when you traveled, you traveled in a caravan and spent the night in a guesthouse, Rumi asks us to look at our own heart like a guesthouse graciously entertaining all emotions while not identifying with or attaching to them… Rumi would have us ask, “What is the state of your heart, what are you entertaining this moment of eternity?”

and so when joy comes to visit, we welcome joy warmly knowing joy will be moving on with the caravan, this beautiful guest will pass onward… when the next guest knocks at the door, can we welcome sadness as graciously, as an old companion who has visited many times re-membering that sadness like joy does not stay and does pass on as well…

are you able to be this magnanimous with your own heart? know you are a solid, rooted tree of life with arms outstretched to the heavens… we are made in the image of love and this is our work to be and become more and more radical love, rooted love grounded in the deep earth and reaching into the ever expanding vast skysea… my intention more emphatic than ever is to live like the river of life flows carried by the mystery of unfolding…

~

Poetic Peace Pilgrimage – Year 9 – Day 136 – 5/1/2022

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well come, welcome to the first day of may, to may day, to global love day, to international workers day, to this high holy day of  bealltainn (the gaelic spelling) which means bright fire…

in days long ago, the people would light bonfires and shepherd sheep and cows through the night to green pastures… halfway between equinox and solstice, this day has been celebrated as a time of fertility and abundance heralding the start of summer in the northern hemisphere and winter in the southern…

what better way to start the merry merry moonth of may than by seeding our fertile, creative imaginations in the transformative field with three quest ions, three charged particles, sending us on a quest for the metaphorical holy grail, the sacred cup of the beloved overflowing with love…

what enlivens me wildly in this moment?

what is my soul longing deeply for now?

what’s wanting to flower?

as we dance around the maypole, the tree of abundant life, may we dance these quests and deepen our earth grounding with every breath until we arrive in the core of our being, sacred space of honoring all our relations…

here in the watery womb of divine mother earth, the stillpoint of creation, we saunter along the transformational pathway of changing consciousness, transmuting the microcosmic mystory into the ever-expanding macrocosmic mystery, source of all being…

may we be filled with more and more love and connection and union throughout this alchemical portal, this gateway of bright fire and may we be filled to overflowing throughout the merry, merry month of may and the magical mystery tour of life with divine love and light emanating from great mystery’s wellspring… the ever flowing river below the river of joy, ocean of peace, sea of love energy calls us to re-member we all come from the goddess and to her we shall re-turn…

deep bows and boundless gratitude for the beauty of the earth and for all the children of the earth dan-sing into sacred balance and union within the one heart…

blessed bee, beloveds…

~

Poetic Peace Pilgrimage – Year 9 – Day 135 – 4/30/2022

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what a potent day with so much happening… the new moon in taurus with partial soular eclipse, it’s walpurgis eve, a night to go wild before celebrating bealltaine tomorrow, the fire festival and so much more but what stands out for me having been on regeneration re-treat to initiate a new cycle is just that – this broken record sings of starting anew, embracing our inner knowing and putting the old consciousness to rest in service to the true reality of living from love grounded in balance with the soul animated by spirit guiding the way on this the day we bless the space between us as we close the circle on another moonth (and, what a chaotic/creative moonth!) of turning around the sun…

we began this moon with the sun shining on aries, the start of the zodiacal year, as the ultimate pilgrim, the holy fool, set off on a new adventure, of coming home ever more deeply to the present moment by contemplating what’s been quietly forming in the background, what’s emerging now…

for me, at the end of this moon, the pathless path continues to be more and more mysterious in proportion with letting go to flow… this living more and more in the now takes heart, courage, it is a defying of gravity and moving into levity… and more and more, this pivotal moment of transition, of planetary initiation feels like a pregnancy coming to full term when the body so swollen finds it harder and harder to feel comfortable and it is the heart and the imagination that encourage with feelings and images of the beautiful birth following the quickening…

so, more than ever, let us all take this moment, this beautiful moment to bless this space between us we share… this deep space of mutation and transformation as we collectively journey in the dark, into the unknown and uncertain to gestate in the core of being, the womb of earthmother and listen, listen listen for her heart song, el canto hondo, the deep soul song of the cosmos calling us to reflect as we midwife an old/new heart consciousness to meet the crises, the dangers and opportunities of this extraordinary moment of eternity…

as great mystery hums our soul song through us, may we echo it to each other… to return, return, return to love by opening our one heart to divine flow’s breathing us, dreaming us,  singing us, praying us, dancing us, comforting us, supporting us, freeing us, animating us, blessing us, consecrating us rather than falling back or staying stuck in a reality of dominance that no longer exists…

yes, we are in transition with the old world collapsed and the new still forming, the caterpillar dissolved and the butterfly wings still wet in the womb… i feel more and more inarticulate in this moment when our language of the past does not meet the present now moment… it is as if it’s on the tip of consciousness and why it’s such balm to gather in the deep space between us with imaginal cells attenuated to el canto hondo, the deep impeded soul song singing us…

let us, meet this moment of uncertainty, of not knowing wholeheartedly and take up the cosmic call to transform our defense system into a sacred immune system supporting, regenerating a world of PEACE where we…

pick up our thread of the unraveled tapestry and dance rainbow mystery devotedly

love unconditionally more than ever before for the well being of all/ the wellbeing of our one heart…

enact revolutionary change so that justice rolls down like waters in a mighty stream that sings for the benefit of all…

come home to true refuge dwelling in our one heart with every breath and every step…

~