Pivoting Into Autumn

Our Ancestors

The wise leader solves the problem of water first. Lao Tzu

The question before us, then, is not only how we will mobilize to redress the immediate harm done by the current militarism and violence. The question is also how we will plant the seeds of a peaceable economy. There is no more fundamental place to start than with how we grow food, how we feed ourselves and one another, how we relate to and care for the land. Woody Tasch – A Call to Farms

You’ll learn how to be a good ancestor. The answer is in the land, in the mountains, which are the sources of life. Dr. John Hausdoerffer

Tomorrow, September 21 is the International Day of Peace and day 1 of Campaign Nonviolence 12 Action Days (check it out here). I think of this as I reflect on the threads woven into this week past, threads that carry forward from last week’s post about living into a desired future (find it here).

Last week we were approaching a new moon, a time to set and renew intentions. In the wake of that new moon, I experienced two long-held intentions stepping forward with opportunities for attention and action.

The opportunities rose perfectly timed to redirect me from stepping into a commitment of time and energy that was interesting, but around which I felt little excitement or passion, and which, in hindsight, was only minimally aligned with my values.

Food and water. Now we’re talking passion and alignment. Both water and food are ingredients for building a culture of peace. They go hand in hand as elements of Nature that our culture all too often views as resources to be tapped.

The desired future that I want my daily choices to create includes sustainable, just, and accessible to all food systems, along with clean, pure water that sustains ALL Life. I believe that future will rise as we repair and restore our relationship with Nature, as we listen to that which sources Life and align our choices with our planet home.

Ancestry is a related thread in the fabric of life this week, inspired by Dr. John Hausdoerffer in his webinar, Kinship with Mountains, (enjoy it here). If you’ve been with me for a while, the title alone clues you into why I was drawn to the event. Hausdoerffer speaks beautifully, questioning how Life could look when we “recognize Earth as our kin and Mountains as our ancestors.” I wonder, as does Hausdoerffer in his forthcoming book, What Kind of Ancestor Do I Want to Be?

Are my choices aligned with that? What pivots are indicated?

As summer gives way to fall here in the northern hemisphere and we approach the autumnal equinox with equal hours of daylight and darkness, I feel myself musing these heady questions from a deep, heart-centered place. What do I value and what actions align with that? As my priorities shift what old habits, beliefs, ways need to fall away?

It seems a different pattern to be in these questions in the season of harvest. Perhaps my harvest of opportunities this week is nourishment for navigating what lies ahead and the questions are integral to receiving that nourishment. Perhaps they will linger and be the focus of winter morning musings by the fire.

Perhaps I’m experiencing the speeding up of time in a changing world, on a changing planet. Perhaps I feel an age-related urgency.

I pause to observe Zadie Bryd licking her paws, then rubbing her face, as she lays nearby. I wonder what she’s experiencing in her body and whether there’s something I need to know or to do to support her.

The observation and questioning in that pause brings clarity that, no matter the project or priority, my prayer is that I step into the flow of Life with heart-felt love and care, being the kind of ancestor that will leave this world a better place.

Our Kin

Nurturing Compassion

A Road Less Travelled - No Speedsters and Dust Here

Be kind and forgiving to everything and everyone, including yourself, at all times without exception. Dr. David R. Hawkins (Power vs. Force)

One morning earlier this week as I sat by a warming fire in the pre-dawn quiet, a single word eased into my awareness:  compassion.

Wondering if Muse was aiming for an early start on the blog, I was curious that nothing framed the word. No question. No thought about it. No instruction or idea that I ‘should’ feel compassion for someone or something. Simply the word, compassion.

As I sat with the word for a bit, I began to wonder how compassion feels in the body. Putting attention on my heart, I began to imagine each breath coming from my heart. I frequently practice this heart coherence breathing, summoning feelings of gratitude, appreciation, care, each of which generate their own sense of peace, calm, and inner warmth.

Mind (‘not to be confused with me’, chimes in Muse) said ‘surely compassion should feel like these.’ But no feeling came. Nothing good or bad. Just emptiness, an opening for discovery.

On our morning walk a short while later, I was (‘yet again!’ chimes in Muse once more) triggered by someone speeding along the dirt road, kicking up clouds of dust. Guiding Zadie Byrd and myself off the road, I released my automatic outburst – a ‘what’s your rush? snarl’, then admonished myself for not being more patient. Done with that, we continued our walk, my attention on Zadie Byrd and the morning’s exquisite autumn beauty.

But awareness of my habitual reaction didn’t fade as such incidents usually do. Perhaps ‘compassion’ had something to say… (‘Ya think?’ says Muse whose humor is in high gear today.)

‘Just what is compassion?’, I wondered settling in to explore. Merriam-Webster tells me that compassion is sympathetic consciousness (awareness) of others’ distress with a desire to alleviate it (“Compassion.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/compassion.).

Exploring further I learned that compassion is a 14th century word that shares some of its etymology with the word ‘patient’. Hmmm…patience as an element of compassion. ‘Now we’re getting to it,’ Muse suggests: a path to nurturing compassion, to inviting her to live more fully in and express through me.

Compassion beyond the shared sense of concern for a friend’s health or wellbeing. Compassion beyond the care that comes forth when someone close is grieving a loss. Compassion beyond caring for those in the path of war, violence, poverty, and social injustice. These are the places we are likely to feel compassion even when we don’t see the ‘how’ of alleviating the distress we witness. Compassion that flows so naturally that perhaps I take it for granted, assuming that I truly know enough to care.

As I write this, I feel the superficiality that may sometimes rest in my so-called compassion. I’m challenged to look beyond, to explore compassion (or its absence) in those domains where I find myself annoyed, impatient. Compassion for those with whom I disagree. How can compassion coexist with our differences? How does judgement get in the way of true compassion?

For isn’t this the ultimate nature of Oneness, of living in the nonduality that is the true nature of our Being? Of the Universe? And wouldn’t living in and from THAT reality generate the kind of world we would choose to live in?

Like gratitude and other higher states of being, compassion strengthens from nurturing over time with the practice of principles such as this suggested by Dr. David R. Hawkins in his seminal book Power vs. Force:

Be kind and forgiving to everything and everyone, including yourself, at all times without exception.

Thinking back to the speeding motorist and other ‘annoyances’, I’m reminded of these words from His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama:

A truly compassionate attitude toward others does not change even if they behave negatively or hurt you.

As I prepare for an afternoon walk, I’m guessing that I’ll have the opportunity to practice calling forth a truly compassionate attitude.

Webs of Life in the Woods Out Back

BEING: The Work Within

Fall Beauty in the Neighborhood

Our greatest contributions to life are not found in what we do, but rather in who and how we BE in the walk of our doing.

I feel winter slowing creeping in here in the Sangres. Cooler temperatures brought the turning of leaves, some now beginning to let go and make their way to the ground in gentle autumn breezes. The season’s first freezing temperature was felt this week. The abundant harvests of summer fruits and vegetables shifts to the harvests of fall: apples, potatoes, winter squash, the makings of warm, nourishing soups.

Although I begin to feel the pull within to the slow, quiet, inward time that winter brings, there are tasks to complete before winter weather settles in. She’s only flirting with us now, gently reminding me that it is time for the baskets of geraniums to be tended and prepared to come inside and for the kindling box to be filled. There are shutters to paint and reinstall and winter supplies to be purchased and stored. Yes, there are tasks to do.

Sidelined from those tasks for several days last week, my energy was redirected to healing a shoulder that called for my attention using the language of pain. As I engaged in the process my first actions were directed toward relief, then to correcting whatever was out of alignment and opening the flow of any blocked energy.

I felt deep gratitude for the Chinese herbs I have on hand and for the local healing professionals who worked me into their schedules. As the pain eased energy was freed up to engage curiosity. I’d noticed a pattern – same pain, same time last year. Hmm…what might I need to see, to explore, to understand? In the questioning I was opened to an exploration of old ancestral habits and patterns of the women in my lineage – mother, grandmothers, great grands, and beyond. The insights brought some understanding and a desire to more deeply explore. That will be part of my winter’s ‘work’.

Right on time the information found its way to me and Muse to support the process. Cycles cycle in just that way when I am open, observant, curious, and allow them to emerge. I was reminded yet again of the importance of tending to who and how I BE in the process of doing whatever is before me. Muse suggests that the choices of Being are ultimately far more important that what we choose to do.

The work of Being is an inside job that reflects wide and deep into the world. I was reminded of this by the words I read last night shortly before making my way to dreamtime, words from a book that I pulled off the shelf as the result of a conversation earlier this week. Curiosity, synchronicity, allowing, cycles, life.

The outer work can never be small

if the inner work is great.

And the outer work can never be great

if the inner work is small.

Meister Eckhart 

Our world – humanity and our precious planet home – need the best of our Being now. We need to not simply understand, but to know and live the interconnectedness, the Oneness of all that is. I’ll be tuning in to several sessions of Humanity’s Team’s 2022 Global Oneness Summit, Birthing a New World. Because indeed we are birthing a new world and her nature will be determined by who we BE. https://www.humanitysteam.org/Global-Oneness-Summit

And Beauty in the Mountains

A World of Peace. A World of Gratitude. A World of Harmony.

Grateful for the Peace and Harmony of Mountain Mornings

It’s up to us to create the more beautiful world we want to live in.

The today is the International Day of Peace established in 1981 by the United Nations General Assembly. Today is also World Gratitude Day, an idea birthed at a Thanksgiving Day dinner in the meditation room of the United Nations building (yes, there is a meditation room in the place where world leaders and representatives gather) by Spiritual leader Sri Chinmoy suggesting that there be a day of thanks the whole world could celebrate together. And today is the eve of the Autumnal Equinox.

A trifecta of opportunity to be grateful and express our gratitude, to create peace within and be that peace as we walk in the world, and to consider what this day of balance when light and dark are equal holds as summer fades and autumn steps forth. A day to consider that it is ‘we’, individually and collectively, who are creating the future and to reflect upon our vision for that more beautiful world.

It’s cloudy here as I wake before dawn, the waning crescent moon visible for a moment as clouds move about. Fall is in the air. Crisp mornings. The first hint of changing leaves a appears high in the mountain aspen groves, the promise of that beauty soon to behold and a signal to begin in earnest preparing for winter.

Muse smiles, sensing my urge to ‘get going’, a smile that gently reminds me of how I want to walk this labyrinth of life: at peace in a world of peace, with awareness and expression of a grateful heart, in harmony with all of life.

I hold this not as a goal to achieve, but as a contribution to, as Charles Eisenstein says, “the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible.

And so, I’m drawn to acknowledge and share days and events such as this that can grow to become wholly days for all of humanity. Days for recognition and for reset. Acknowledging the potentiality in each of us for peace, gratitude, harmony. Adjusting course to align with that potentiality. Each in our way for there is no ‘one size fits all’ formal that so many desperately try to find or create. Everyone has their story; we are all different, we are all the same.

As I go about the tasks of this day, I do so with awareness that days like this offer up the opportunity to heal separation and become whole, indeed, to live into the wholeness that is the truth of this world and the world beyond. Having experience the power of gratitude up close and personal over many years as a part of my personal practices, I’ll be watching the world premiere of Louie Schwartzberg’s new film Gratitude Revealed with a grateful heart and vision of all that IS possible in our world.

How will celebrate the wholly holiness of this day?

And Abundant Pine Nuts to Harvest

After the Pause: Pivot

Light, Shadow, Grasses in the Morning Sunlight

If you do not change direction, you may end where you are heading. Lao Tzu

You must unlearn what you have learned.  Yoda

The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking. Albert Einstein

A crisp, fall-like morning drew me into the woods and then to the deck to enjoy the rays of morning sun. The Muse was there with me along with the unseen elementals that thrive in these woods. Zadie Byrd rested nearby. No other creatures or critters were about.

Quiet. Deep Quiet in the woods.

In that quiet, mind wandered to several activities, projects, and possibilities asking for attention. Setting them aside, I heard a gentle nudge: the Muse reminding me of stories and how our stories create our reality.

I was drawn back to a couple of posts about just that, one of them when The Zone pivoted to become The Pivot in April 2020 [you can find it here]. Much of that post feels apropos for where we find ourselves today and the fundamental shifts that we need to continue to make, individually and collectively. In our shifts we create the possibility for new stories.

From new stories a new future rises, a future that Charles Eisenstein calls “the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible.”  Perhaps that’s what Albert Einstein had in mind when he said, “The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.”

It is as sobering and humbling today as it was 18 months ago to consider that ‘we’ created ‘this’. We’ve ‘ended up’ where we have been heading for quite some time living in our world created from the underlying stories of competition, right/wrong, good/bad, win/loose, have/have not. Language that separates and generates fear in humanity. That fear has led us to plunder the planet to a point that she proclaims, “Enough!” It has led we humans to injustice, polarization, and war over points of view different from ours.

As Yoda so wisely suggests, “You must unlearn what you have learned.” I can imagine Yoda observing our world today and advising us from his deep wisdom to create new stories.  Our stories come from our thoughts and our beliefs. Stories strengthen our beliefs, even those that don’t serve us. Then, we wake up to find ourselves mired in difficult challenges, worry, or fear and looking outside for the cause.  But when we have the courage to look within, we create an opportunity to find the real cause and, if we choose, to shift it.

Over the past year of change, personally and globally, I’ve tossed much of what I learned and what so many of the systems of our world continue to perpetuate (or would that be perpetrate?). I’ve shifted my thinking with more attention to how to align what’s good for me with what’s good for all, the human collective AND the planet to which I belong.

Although I hold ownership of the property where my home is, I can create different stories and make new choices when I embrace the true perspective that I belong to the land more than it belongs to me. When I embrace the earth as the source of the food that nourishes my body, I can seek to do business with those whose practices honor mother nature.

From our pivots, new possibilities emerge, and new stories can be crafted. Revisiting my ‘pivot’ to The Pivot this morning has renewed and strengthened my intention to inspire my own personal change and to plant seeds of change beyond.

To that end, I invite you to pause for a moment and ask your heart ‘what pivot do I need to make?’ Yep, it’s the thought that’s been niggling you for a while, perhaps a prickly place you know is ripe for change. What new story is possible?

Get your juices flowing with this song from the amazing singer/songwriter Jenny Bird. Put a joyful tempo in your heart and share it all around!

Gazing into the Woods Out Back

Power and Possibility

Hints of Autumn on a Hazy Day in the Sangres

Power over is not true power nor is power over a lasting condition. Real, lasting power is the power within.

These words came this morning as I engaged the muse, reflecting and stirring the pot of this week’s soup curious about what would emerge. I’ve felt the world try to pull me into its power struggle. Through my revolving door a wide range of emotions paid me visits.

Dancing the dance of ‘staying informed’ I watched a bit of news and the documentary the social dilemma (find it here). I listened to Shelly Acorn’s talk on the emergence of fascism  (click here) offered by Humanity Rising’s Global Solutions Summit (info here).

I felt the heaviness of the world while recognizing that ignoring current conditions was not a wise option. Seeking to restore my sense of balance and being grounded, I stepped away. Zadie Byrd and I walked. I walked the labyrinth. I took in the beautiful evidence of the changing season just up the road and on the vast expanse of the steep slopes of the Sangres. I watched a squirrel playing, magpies flitting and listened to jays squawking in the woods.

I let the tears welling inside flow forth.

I wept for the pain of the world, for the planet, for humanity. I wept for those who are suffering illness, fires, hunger, oppression, fear and so much more. I wept for our sleepiness, the lack of awareness on which the world’s agenda thrives. I wept for the gap between the world that could be and the world as it seems. And, I shed tears of personal grief, missing my dear cousin’s physical presence.

In the pause that followed, I began to remember that change necessitates letting go …

Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing. Arundhati Roy

I saw power (true, lasting power) and possibility dancing together. I saw humanity rising to meet the challenges and opportunities of a crumbling world. Step by step. Minute by minute. Day to day. Person to person. I remembered my deep knowing that the Universe in its infinite wisdom offers a bigger stage on which to dance than the petty power struggles which capture headlines. I remembered that we are on this planet to learn from the events before us. I remembered Gregge Tiffen’s wise words:

We are constantly in a situation of applying the condition of re-adjustment. Our Earth is one of the most difficult laboratories in the vast Universe because of the utilization of three levels of energy. We know them as physical, mental, and spiritual. Gregge Tiffen (The Journey Continues: Mysterious Investigations – October 2010)

Let us know beyond a shadow of doubt, that Power over is not true power nor is power over a lasting condition. Real, lasting power is the power within. Let us embrace that change is upon us, a new world is not only possible she is birthing as we speak. Let us hear the peaceful breathing of a new day by standing tall in our personal power and guiding that change to unfold a world that works for all. Let us dance the dance of bringing light to the darkness.

A Pause in the Afternoon Glory of Autumn

Nature's Extremes

SNOW - September 9, 2020

You are to live here with a sense of the planet and you as a vital unit because, in effect, you are that vitality. Nature will not sit back and allow you to set it aside like a poor relation with you living in isolation from it. Pay Attention! … Your body is nature, and nature is you. Your consciousness is the Universe, and the Universe is you. There is no separation between nature and you. Gregge Tiffen (The Language of a Mystic: Completion – September 2009)

Zadie Byrd and I have been back home in the mountains for six days. Weather records have been broken on four of those days. On two days record high temperatures were recorded. Yesterday nine records were broken here: low temperature, lowest high temperature, most snow, earliest snow and more. A note on our local weather website, indicated that as of 3 a.m. today, two records had already been broken.

Extreme? Yes. Extreme change? Most certainly.

I look out on the eight or so inches of snow that fell overnight recalling that in the pre-dawn hours just yesterday I wrote in my journal Life is not ‘me and nature’ or ‘nature and I’. Rather nature is ‘we’ in this cycle of life. I am Nature. Nature is me. Yesterday, I was reflecting on the changing season and on how I the darkness and deep quiet of winter call me to rest deeply as nature rests.

Today I’m aware that underneath the snow, leaves on the trees are still green. Summer is barely beginning to give way to autumn. And yet, the landscape is a winter wonderland. What is nature saying? What does she want us to ‘pay attention’ to?

What I’m witnessing here at home is not an isolated weather event. Extreme weather in multiple forms is responsible for vast devastation and suffering all over the globe. What is nature saying? What does she want us to ‘pay attention’ to?

Could it be that she is reflecting the extremes in our own thoughts, our words, our deeds? Is she inviting us to look anew at our fractured culture and our reactions to one another, especially those who are different from us? Is she saying ‘Enough ready! I’m mad as hell and I can’t take it anymore’?

She is wise our Mother, our Nature. Is she calling for us to fall in love with her, recognizing that as we do so we are loving ourselves and reconnecting to the deep knowing we share about the oneness of all life?

Is She reminding us that every thought we think matters in the grand plan of life? Is she inviting us to awaken to the reality that each choice we make and every action we take contributes to, indeed determines, the quality of nature, her health, her vitality, AND to ours, collectively and individually in the whole that is Nature?

In how we see, reflect, and respond to today’s extremes, both natural and man-made, we are co-creating the future. May we see with clarity. May we reflect with deep awareness. May we respond with love. For surely those – clarity, awareness, and love – can bring some balance to the extremes.

We Are HOME!

All Hallows' Eve - 2018 Edition

Autumn Fades …

Life is an enormous power to be understood and used as energy. Gregge Tiffen (Open Secrets: Ancient Rituals – October, 2011)

This week, as mild autumn weather begins to give way to winter’s cold, I’m shifting my morning quiet/reflection/reading/writing time to the living room where I build and enjoy the warmth of a fire in the woodstove. Such will be my ritual each morning for months, beyond the calendar’s turn to a new year and until winter finally breaks to bring forth spring.

This first musing by the fire finds me thinking about rituals, particularly ancient ones.  I’ve caught my falling leaf for luck (more about that ritual here - http://cindyreinhardt.com/blog/catch-a-falling-leaf). After a day of blessed, gentle rain and with the energy of yesterday’s full moon in Taurus, my attention turns to rituals celebrating the connection between the incarnate and discarnate sides of life on our planet and those who have made the transition from their earthly incarnate form.

All Hallows’ Eve (http://cindyreinhardt.com/blog/all-hallows-eve) was celebrated long before churches existed, and despite religious institutions’ objections, Day of the Dead continues to be celebrated in many forms worldwide. Last year’s award winning animated film Coco beautifully depicts the celebration and family conflicts about it in Mexico. The song ‘Remember Me’ is one of my favorites (you can hear it here  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iDxU9eNQ_0)

Coco and ‘Remember Me’ are reminders of Gregge Tiffen’s teaching that “Each of us is a living spirit. … When you’re dead, you’re not dead. You are very much alive.”

In his informative, fun booklet Ancient Rituals Tiffen encourages us to take time to remember those who are no longer with us in their incarnate form and to know that “they are attached to the planet in a discarnate format.” In a world so fearful of death, the knowledge that I’m simply using this form temporarily reminds me that each of us - you, me, and EVERY-one - is but a tiny drop in an infinite universe. And, each drop lives forever.

I find it helpful to remember and honor the connection of close family and friends who have made their transition to the discarnate. Next week on Halloween evening I plan to do just that. Gregge suggests candles, fresh flowers, perhaps something symbolic of your connection, along with quiet time to reflect. He continues, “You’re meant to feel very comfortable about participating with the use of things that are special to you as a way to be in touch with life as you know it and death as you conjure it up to be in your mind, or as you know it from your own experience. Don’t be reluctant to participate.”

Perhaps I’ll pour a shot of bourbon for Marge, my beloved mom who left this life 39 years ago.

What about you? Will you take time remember and connect at this sacred time when the veil between this plane and the discarnate invites us to explore and discover the journey that continues?

… and Snow Falls on the Sacred Sangres

Energy Management: Our Inside Job

Season's first snow on the peaks

Energy management has to issue forth from the inner you before you can do anything about the outer conditions in your life. Gregge Tiffen (Deeds Are Fruit, Words Are Leaves – October, 2008)

It’s late this Thursday, hours after my weekly musings are usually drafted. By this time most Thursdays, my blog is written, posted on my website, and I’ve hit the ‘send’ button to my email list. Luke has taken me for my second doggie walk of the day, and I’m ready to engage in the day’s other tasks.

Each week has its own unfolding. Sometimes I wake knowing what wants to be said. Sometimes more reflection time and/or reading are needed before clarity comes, an idea forms and the words follow. That’s how it is this day.

Over the past couple weeks, I’ve paid attention to my energy with a particular focus on my physical energy. I haven’t felt up to par (whatever the heck ‘par’ is – I’m sure that I expect mine to be high). I haven’t felt that I was getting things done efficiently or that I was getting the support needed to do so. (Woe is me L)

So, it was no surprise when the quote above finally leapt off the page, bringing clarity for this week’s post.  Gregge’s words offered clarity about my sub-par energy AND how to address it: look within to discover what’s going on. In reading further, I was reminded that my thought patterns are feeding my cells 24/7.

This year, this autumn, this time feels different. I’ve felt different – more weary than energized, more dull than curious, more grudging than grateful. And, I feel more sad than hopeful for my fellow humans and the planet. And, all those thought patterns have been dragging me down. No wonder I felt pooped!

Time for a shift!

Often I experience that simply remembering to look inside and discover what’s going on there is an adventure that turns the tide. At least it begins the process. This day I didn’t find a cesspool of dark, smelly muck at the root (Whew!), and the internal click of awareness lifted my spirits.  I’m lighter and more energetic than when the day began. I’m curious how several ‘balls in the air’ will unfold and what I need to do to direct that unfoldment. I’m grateful for the guest who departed earlier today and for those that will arrive tomorrow and over the weekend. And, I’m looking forward to the satisfaction of completing the array of many winter preparation tasks yet to be done before winter weather arrives to stay.

Beyond the end of my nose, with so much chaos on the planet and discord among we humans, these days may be the most important time for us to look within, to be clear about our individual paths, our bodies, our health, ourselves, and to care about all of that from the inside out.

The turning of the leaves is in full swing here on our daily path.

Autumnal Celebrations

The planet does not need more successful people. The planet needs more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers and lovers of all kinds. Dalai Lama

One of the first keys of learning how to get along here unusually well is to remember, whether you like it or not, manifestation is going to occur. Gregge Tiffen (Learning Without Experience Is A Bell Without A Clapper – September, 2008)

Autumn, the season of harvest, is upon us. Fall arrives around 4 pm Eastern time here in the U.S. tomorrow, September 22.  My heart is heavy that much of our harvest is that of natural disasters. When will we come to understand that every thought, word, deed matters in ways far beyond our immediate reach?

What chaff do I need to release in order to contribute only peace to our planet? That is the question I take into my quiet reflection as I welcome the new season. ‘What habits do I carry forward?’ I ask as I walk the labyrinth as the sun rises over the mountains this early morning.

Today is International Peace Day, a day to celebrate the possibility of peace, and first declared by the United Nations in 1981. This year’s theme: Together for Peace: Respect, Safety, Dignity for All. May we harvest peace whenever we can and may we daily plant seeds of peace in our thoughts, our words, our actions. On Tuesday the moon entered a new phase in the sign of Libra, a sign that emphasizes greater cooperation and graciousness. Each new moon represents a time of new beginnings. In the midst of threats of destruction by world leaders, I found the irony of this timing stunning.

This week also finds two of the world’s religions beginning celebrations.  Navrati, the nine-day Hindu celebration of the Goddess Durga, the divine feminine, begins today as does Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, celebrating ‘the head of the year’ with the belief that “just as the head controls the body, our actions on Rosh Hashanah have a tremendous impact on the rest of the year” (Chabad.org).

Religious and spiritual celebrations are important times of reflection. What reflections will you bring to this time of harvest?