“What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
Shetland pony. Near Gloup, Yell, Shetland Isles. July 2023
A call to say “yes.” The power of possibility… what is it that pulls at you… to say yes! Not the dragging yes of responsilibility or the “ok, sure…” but the yes that seems to be dwelling deep in the eyes of the pony. Oh to the yes.
Did you know that there are over 158,000 5-letter words in the English dictionary with about 9,000 acceptable in the game of Scrabble. Yet this one word, “peace,” is so complex and multifaceted… so misunderstood… and oh so powerful, for better or for worse. Is there any other 5-letter word that is more well-known? There are dedicated scholars, programs, departments, centers, institutes devoted to this word… in the pursuit of…
Bog cotton. Eshaness, Shetland, UK. July 2023
I now look back and realize that in 2015, I entered into a relationship… with a word, “peace.” The irony… to be in relationship with a word about relationships… and while it hasn’t been all “peaceful,” which so many equate with “easy,” I have clung to this word through the ups and downs. Just like the bog cotton growing in the peaty, soggy ground of a cliff next to the North Sea… holding on in the intense summer wind. Finding beauty in adversity… as a result, the relationship has deepened.
A commitment to cultivating healthy relationships with self, others, and the Earth is my “yes!”
The land of rainbows. Reawick, Shetland. October 2023
The Summer Day by Mary Oliver
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
The question that Mary Oliver poses… what will you do with your life? She has such a way of removing the pressure of trying to “figure out,” “solve,” “make happen,” in regards to ones life’s plans. This poem highlights the beauty to be found in the simple… what matters seems to bubble to the surface.
Hello to here…
and yes to peace…
a potpouri of actions, birds, colors, doors, gates, here, islands, journeys, knitting, language, manifestos, nourishment, organizing, pauses, rememberances, understanding, and the letter “w”… yes to all of this and so much more.
Evidence of peace in our world exists in the most random places… we have only to look around us… even in a community of people connected through the “internet” gathering in the darkest of months (in the northern hemisphere) to contemplate and incorporate acts of peace into their daily lives.
“I am extraordinarily priviledged in nearly every way, but what I’m most grateful for now is my parents’ belief, passed down like any other inheritance, that there’s more beauty in the world than horror.
This optimism gives you license. It’s a kind of audacity and it can work like an all-purpose key to the locked doors of you dreams. “Why not you?” it whispers.”
An old kirk, Skeld, Shetland, UK. October 2023.
Peace nugget #20
A few reminders… hello to here… mending what is within our reach… what is your yes when it comes to “peace?”
Pick a line or phrase from today… what makes your heart sing?
Other
It’s been quite the adventure… 20 days thus far, exploring so many facets of peace. I am still amazed that I said “yes",” in response to an email nudging me to “do” Project Peace this year. What a powerful reminder… yes to the power of peace.
Have you noticed the pattern of the daily prompts? I’m so curious to know if and when you might have recognized the pattern. And what could tomorrow possibly be… have I saved the most challenging letter for last?
peace,
Christina