Reclaiming Friday from Darkness

On this day that has become a celebration of consumerism and unbridled greed, we choose to buy nothing and to spend the day with our family. In this post, I include some poetry and writings that will hopefully remind us of what is true, what is real.

I begin with this wonderful prose poem from my friend and the amazing and talented director of our Seattle Peace Chorus, Fred West as his Thanksgiving reflection: What is Peace?

And so what is peace?

What do we sing for that is precious and strong like the beat of a baby’s heart and yet fragile
And often at risk?

Is it the Peace and Quiet we need to study, to read, to learn, to sing
Uninterrupted by a noisy world?

Is Peace simply the type of life where one is free to follow the deep calling of our life’s work
And not be obliged to work an exhausting job with little meaning or reward?
Is it a stillness of the spirit which seems to be tranquility itself, and if so
Would any artist feel the drive to chisel stone, any violinist the need to practice 6 hours a day, any inventor the urgency to develop something so basic and wonderful as a washing machine?
Would the genius of human invention be kindled if
Peace and tranquility reigned or is Peace a strand in the web of life only apparent in contrast to chaos and oppression.
Is it by definition a condition that will be
Imperiled by greed and oppression as the tendency of one human to rule over another will always create strife.

In the stories that come to us today about Mostar in Bosnia, the divisions of all basic services flow into certain zones that all people know are either Catholic of Muslim. The fire department from one area may not serve the opposition zone defined by the Yugoslav wars and before. Although there is not now war, we see the legacy of war and the many generations of division that war creates.
War is the ogre of life, it is the ogre that even monsters fear as there is no
Actual mind at work that can put the pieces back together, but rather mindless consuming paths of destruction.

We have just seen terrible destruction in the element of fire. Fire does not have a will to create misery but it obeys it’s own nature. the fire can warm us and it can humble the rich and powerful.
As Paradise California burned, one thing we know is that no firefighter would refuse to respond because of a religious affiliation of the residents.
We Take this for granted and yet it is not always so.
Is Peace then found in a certain unity where all people will pledge to help each other in times of upheaval and danger? should we then say to each other

“I will help you if your home burns down”

Does Peace include the vast world of animals who enchant our Planet and who are our teachers, our elders, and our inspiration? The Orca who fill us with awe and gratitude
Has now shown her dead calf to the world knowing that we, not she, is responsible for the PCB toxins in the water that find their way into her breast milk.

Do we extend our peace to the world of fish, birds and all creatures who walk the land?

Can the elephant, who shows us what size and might and lines of kinship,
and subsonic hearing,
And prodigious memory can be,
apart from humanity:
can this elephant find the same peace that we sing for?
In this world, an elephant is killed every 4 minutes for its ivory tusks.

We do not need statues of ivory. The keys on our piano play just as well with plastic Compounds and yet someone craves these things and the elephant is too far away to be of concern.

Does the tiger, who may be the most beautiful creature, full of grace and power, to ever walk the Earth, deserve the Peace that we desire, even as it must hunt for its next meal and will never be found sowing seeds for the next crop.
does the glorious bird who inspires us
To fly and to soar aloft deserve a sky with no pollution? can we make sure that there is a tree to nest in 
when we have a chainsaw in one hand and a bag of apple seeds in the other which do we reach for.

Is Peace a dream and the real world a rude awakening?
if so, it is like a dream of traveling to Mars and will take all the dedication of science and artists to inspire the quest. Where this dream may become real is where
We hold our children up to the warmth of the Spring sunlight and their minds and talents grow beyond what is now known.

Is the dream of peace so threatening to those who base their lives on arming for
War and guarding their families with weapons,from true and undeniable threat.

Aah, Peace cannot be a fantasy or a refuge of the lazy or those who are always afraid
Of the unknown.
The peaceful warrior does not offer to become a slave of the conqueror.
Peace can be carved only with arms of strength,
with hands that have swung a sword in graceful dances, that know the routes to high ground when the tsunami comes.
but the strongest arms which assure safety can also be a pillow for your rest
And chop the wood to kindle the hearth and gather the harvest for your Thanksgiving feast.
the strongest arms offer solace to those who are saddened and alone.

And what is that Peace but in fact not quiet, not tranquility, not a life without disturbances, not a life without problems or challenges,
But a world where violent death does not occur. assault and murder do not enter into the mind of anyone, and the most extreme form of violence, the
Feared dogs of war, do not roam the land for we know that when once unleashed, these creatures do not obey any master.
Only in exhaustion do they return to the cage.
these do not exist in our world of peace because all people and animals belong, and all are fed, all are loved and all are seen and lifted up.
Our peace is when every conflict is answered by negotiation and dialogue.
Plato tells us that all ideas must be tested in dialogue. let us hear what is in everyone,s hearts even as we struggle to understand a different view.
our peace is when conflict is prevented by bonds of friendship and mutually beneficial trade which have always been the glue of the most peaceful agreements.
Call for gifts and prepare a feast to stay the trigger.
Do not pull the pin of the grenade but pull the cork of the bottle for your guest.

do not fire the rocket of robotic and blind destruction but send up the rocket bearing the color and delight of firework displays.
.Carve your wood for the gun barrel to hunt your food and for the harp and the fiddle, not for the gun barrel alone.
Guard against those that urge isolation for it is in our cultural diversity that we find
The answers pondered by our wisest and most distant ancestors.
Do not follow those that pull away from the agreements that keep the Peace and protect the environment. We do not have our own bubble which protects this latitude and longitude,
As pollution and destruction will cross borders.

the child is sacred.
Our peace is revered because all good things flow from the child who is nourished and loved. The Mother and Father, friends, Grandparents, siblings, and all those pledged to raise the child, guard and protect, nourish and defend their child and the children around them. What is good for your child is also good for the child in Yemen.
As we feed our children, we are called to open our hearts to any child without food or clothing, medicine or education.

If one wonders
How do I serve in the cause of peace, there is much work to do.

What then is the language of Peace?

Nature
And all the divine spirits and energies of Creation have given us
Songs to sing. Songs to gladden the heart, songs to celebrate freedom, songs to mourn and songs to honor the dead. songs for birth and songs for love, songs to
Inspire the struggle for justice and equality, lullabies to sing with one voice which give solace to the child, and Cantatas to sing for the choirs of each land to gladden the soul and cause us to open our hearts to each other.

No one small group of people can protect that precious child from a missile, or
From radioactivity, from toxins in the water or pesticides on the food.

It is only a mighty voice that can create this demand, that can create the clamor that is now needed to create Peace, and it is only in
Raising our freedoms that we have the power needed.
Never before has
So much of life as we know it been
In the balance.

A mighty voice can
Find wisdom in the common ground that we all walk on.

That common ground is not a barren strip between barbed wire,
It is a garden, it is a place of life and color, flower and fruit, honey bee and Monarch butterfly.
The mighty voice will sing in many languages
And always welcome the new people to our shores. the welcome song is our special
Talent.
it is this that
We
Are
Thankful
For

And then my reply to Fred of my thoughts on Peace:

What is Peace to Me?

I think of peace as that still small voice that lives in each of our hearts,
That guides and moves our passion, laughter, creativity, and tears,
That reminds us we are not separate.

And that – when we are blessed – breaks into song:
The whisper of leaves in the autumn breezes,
The whoosh of Raven’s wing,
The rattle of stones in the rolling waves of the Salish seashore,
The delighted laughter of a tumbling brook,
The excited whoop of a playing child,
The passionate sigh of a deeply loved friend,
The perfect resolving chord at the end of a choral masterpiece.

We are truly blessed

And finally, this beautiful poem:

This Is How I Voted Today

by Fred LaMotte with thanks to Monica Winsor

This is how I voted today.

I went to the woods and dug a hole

under fern in leaf rot and luminous fungi

into which I pressed my mouth and screamed

a long hot uncreated vowel containing

the first and last letters of every alphabet.

I signed my vote with my tears,

it was ratified by planetary silence

groans of Adam’s first wife from far below

heaved out of the groundlessness

where she is gowned in seamless glistening mycellia.

Only then did I realize what I’d voted for

the abolition of Republicans and Democrats,

the downfall of spires and hierarchies,

the dissolution of superpacs and

$50,000 a plate dinner parties

in Hollywood and the Hamptons,

the deconstruction of the Constitution into a single

proto-Hebraic rune,

inscribed on a cavern wall somewhere under

the vast and indecipherable border

between Mexico and Arizona.

The overthrow of male and female hegemony,

the annihilation of both capitalism and socialism,

the eradication of black and white by a rainbow of tears,

the renaissance of family farms and local small-business collectives

spawning an exquisite tapestry of bio-regional economies where

no mention is ever made of “government.”

Where politics evaporates into folk music story-telling

fermented cabbage useful tools

and the gentle heroics of mere listening.

I voted for the mule that Jesus rode into the city

proclaiming forgiveness of all debts

which is the same mule Laotzu rode out

beyond the wall of China.

Which is also the mule that Rumi sat backwards on

stumbling Westward into exile

gazing Eastward toward eternal loss–

that mule I tell you will be president!

I voted to compost and manure the floor of the Senate

entangling every politician in a web of hemp moss

mushrooms and deer pellets.

I voted to turn the dome of Congress all abuzz

into a giant hummingbird feeder.

I voted for the reclamation of all human skin

with musky forests of golden fur.

My vote was the sound of Yes in every tongue

the co-whispering of all leaves

the council of trees

the un-clink of gold and emeralds returning to veins in stone the echo of a primal Sigh

that meant to sing the color green

but accidentally created the stars.