A tea and conversation,
letter-writing moment between friends…
I’ve decided to try this style today after a wonderful conversation with a good friend.
It somehow captured so much in the space between us and within our words of exploration and discovery and convictions.
World Hearth for Peace and Friendship’s wordship: Where there is genuine interest, friendship can unfold. Where there is friendship, love can be born into the world. Where there is true love, peace prevails.
Our conversation…
She sent
Hi, Merry Christmas to you two! I’ve been thinking of you these past days, and your warm Christmas location. Hope you have enjoyed being in Mexico at this time. It’s cold here, no snow, yet, where we are. It was just us here this year, so, it was quiet and low key. We went for an afternoon walk for some fresh air. I’m finding it impossible to feel merry, considering the world events, the pointless and horrific deaths. Anyway. I hope you are both keeping well, and that you have recovered completely from the dengue fever (which I’ve only ever heard of in novels from tropical places in another century). All the best to both of you! Love
You sent
Just falling asleep. Nice to hear from you. I will connect tomorrow….
You sent
hello, finally….yes, we are grateful for our life here this year and wherever we are. there are the events and people in each day that offer opportunities to enjoy new friends, scratch our heads or walk on by, so to speak.
i find the energy of this time intense and keep saying i am “on retreat” for the next while trying to find an appropriate disposition, yes, to all these world events and people’s actions and non-actions. life feels to me that there might be a new course of understanding and direction, yet no sight to see it yet. so we take time to study and meditate and sit with the rising sun and warmth.
it’s so difficult to understand world wide behaviours and attitudes of hatred and justification. So we try to imagine how to bring a different way of being and living.
Dengue fever is mild, for some, the first time. it is an ache deep inside, eyes are affected, stomach, fever, but i feel grateful for the mild two-week version i had. This year there is more rain here, hence more mosquitos.
i do need and love the warmth here, i need it to support life’s impermanence and unexpected twists. we’ve been enjoying beach walks and also walks in the stadium which is quite lovely and full of wonderful energy. we’re not out as much at night these days…living here brings a different rhythm. it was a first year of no christmas in ways we’ve known and shared. but we did take up this 1 1/2 hour prayer for world peace, chant and meditation, with thousands of monks and the dali lama. it was a moment of awakening for me to really look at them. i realized some were monks and some were nuns, but they held a place in between, and it dawned on me that for thousands of years they have been teaching , practicing and dedicating their lives to ending suffering by working on themselves, by changing from the inside out, to benefit others. i was in awe at the depth of humility and strength these men and women bore..what it takes to be kind and caring is so much more than the world we are now witnessing full of power, aggression and hatred. so we are quite active in our meditation practice here. i also loved king charles christmas message. i felt he spoke out of his striving and his culture and inclusivity in the world. my heart is so open to find a way to offer whatever we can with humility. i’d now like to finish this book i started so long ago called a mother’s call to world peace but i’ve forgotten the transcript at home……time will tell if we can be of service to this moment in any larger way, and if not continue to bring our minds and hearts and willingness to each moment. world peace, world hearths, and friendship so lives in my soul. and i remain open. sending love to you both, from both of us. nice to hear from you. xoxo
She sent
Hi Jill, I feel the same about what is going on in the world, right now, in Gaza, and the seemingly forgotten Ukraine. I think I am less hopeful than you. There are more good people in the world than evil, but, somehow, the evil can perpetrate their deeds, unchallenged. The rest of us are helpless to do anything to stop it. When I was much younger, I believed that humanity was progressing towards being better, doing better, that wars were something from the past. My thoughts are all over the place–trying to understand a God or divine being watching all of this, watching us destroy ourselves–why? It seems impossible to overcome. I used to pray for world peace, the spiritual Red Cross, I called it. Now, it seems to me, naive, and maybe a way to make myself feel better, that I’m doing something, at least. It all just remains a question for me. I, too, need the warmth to feel that I am living, fully. I found that being in the warmth, last year, put Christmas into a comfortable place, for me. I have my history as a Catholic raised and schooled person, deep inside me, the true meaning, and all the rest of it, when not in the company of little children, seems so empty. Sorry to sound all gloomy. I’m not really feeling gloomy, just thinking a lot about things. xo
And look what i came across, elsewhere, just now:
“I recognized winter. I saw it coming (a mile off, since you ask), and I looked it in the eye. I greeted it and let it in. I had some tricks up my sleeve, you see. I’ve learned them the hard way. When I started feeling the drag of winter, I began to treat myself like a favoured child: with kindness and love. I assumed my needs were reasonable and that my feelings were signals of something important. I kept myself well fed and made sure I was getting enough sleep. I took myself for walks in the fresh air and spent time doing things that soothed me. I asked myself: What is this winter all about? I asked myself: What change is coming?”
Katherine May, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times
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thank you for sharing honestly. i don’t feel gloom, i feel reality and how we each need to dig deep to find our way with it, through it, above and below it and i see the little mouse we used to draw with the children describing prepositions….haha. thank you for that poem or writing that “fell off the shelf.” what i love about writing is being able to touch into what is universal, each in our own way, making it seem less alone. i do have hope still and maybe because i know i could never endure full evil directly. and, so i know i can move through certain layers of existence and find a way, a dialogue, with living imaginations. but if i were asked to move through other layers, i know i wouldn’t have enough air to breathe. and yet, it’s been experienced time and time again, that we can take it all on somehow and make our ways through the most difficult of times.
the other day i was wishing i could sit in the UN, freely offering the breath of life, sitting together in the only place i know awakening can occur…in life realizing we are all in this together, so i choose there. my heart breaks into just too small of pieces entering into a world where children are killed. it is not a living environment. so i feel i want to continue being generous and speaking and writing ways of hope and living together, because i do believe there’s some truth in it all and someday, enough people will become mindfully aware and heartfully earnest in cultivating peace. i guess i do believe that. i have this funny dream life and disposition sometimes where i’ll be speaking to some world leader about changing the focus, and then i carry on…still feeling the full gamut of overwhelm, depression yet i also have a deep wellspring of willingness to keep living out of this thing i call human dignity…..i don’t hear negativity, i know you. i hear a mother’s call to world peace and if i could do anything in this world right now it would be to call all mothers to open up their arms and hearts and sing and cry and hold open that space and place together out of which to create, birth and tend to life, as we’ve all learned to do….yes, i have a clarion call deep inside of me and i really wish i knew how i could translate that into a new movement of red hearts. xoxoxoxo
She sent
I do appreciate how you see things. There’s a lot of hope, and recognition of possibilities. As though we need a critical mass to join this way of thinking, that seems so obvious, and so simple, when brought to the scale of humans, minus all the agendas of those who seek power, more and more power, the disputes over territory, and disregard for human life in attaining their goals. Those are a different kind of human being, unscrupulous in justifying their actions. Thank you.
She sent
I just had a thought for myself, out of this conversation. It popped into my head as “One Small Thing.” In answer to my question of what to do, in the same way of, think globally, act locally. To just start with one small thing, right at home, with kindness, generosity, and willingness to step outside my comfort zone. I already do some things, but, I know, I could do more. Thank you for the chat.
And, of course, I question, right away, whether I am just trying to make myself feel better for being helpless about what is happening in Gaza, right now.
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Hello. No it is not a bandaid. It is one step, one person, one kindness, and genuine interest that does change the world when we all throw open our arms, when we all hold open this space together. I loved the chat, too.
Spread Love
Art by B.Kemper