My Wish for World Peace/// 350.org on the Connection between the Climate Crisis and Ukraine--OIL

My Wish for Peace--Handing You a Seed

First written for The Art of Autism Peace Project 2020 about Peace being found by honouring the gifts of an ordinary day and from that peacefulness within, finding the strength to speak up against wrongdoing.

And shared from a place of privilege of not living under war wrought by a tyrannical despot...

Thanks for taking time out of your day to read this and contemplate pathways to peace...

Peace is nighttime staring at the dark and sweeping, cloudless, summer star- bright sky

With your small form standing barelegged on a red-clay road

a cow pasture lined with Goldenrod and Queens Anne’s Lace behind you

and surrounding you the fragrance of a saltwater marsh

tethers your senses to the here and now

and all the while that erstwhile feeling you get

as the trailing tail of a comet explodes your mind into blazing galaxies

far beyond imaginings of long ago

these are the stirrings of Peace

reminding you that eons mean nothing more than the

everything of how we all exist

somehow in this great moment of possibility

poised

like a dome- shaped skyscape and your cousin’s face and a stranger’s soothing voice reminding you

We All Are One

and Peace is also the Hallelujah of this all set to the hum of ten thousand Cricket’s cricketing

and lapping waves

and everything feels right just for those moments and even when you remember briefly the reasons it might not be perfect after all

Peace is bearing witness to this remembering and still choosing a loving pathway forward

Peace is having trauma and still choosing compassion at your next chance

Peace is the inward sweeping motion of the heart to welcome all that’s on the margins

Come in, come in Peace says with kind and smiling eyes

There’s room for you here, the kettle is on,

You’re safe, let’s sit awhile dear friend

Peace is fruits and berries and winter squash and cabbage and corn and potatoes which have been harvested from fields and trees that were tended with care, shared freely

Peace is where the needs of the World are justly reconciled

Peace is those cold and hungry being fed and sheltered

Peace is tending to the sick and elderly with kindness

Peace is fence mending and bridge building and breaking down those walls that are meant to divide and conquer Spirit

Brick by red Earth brick

Peace is the place where loneliness finds a tender companion in joy

Peace is the space between the in breath and the out

And the trust that allows that space to exist

Peace is making our little circles wider to accommodate more needs

Peace is watching concentric circles form after still waters are broken by a dropping stone, a diving duck, a jumping fish and feeling grateful for each one

Peace is the ripple and the dip between the waves and

The calm before the storm when the storm is all of life

And in that storm Peace is you remembering to be quiet and just breathe

Peace is this ritual of quieting

Peace is the listening that happens when you quiet

Peace is the quiet

And from that quiet

Peace is the means we communicate desire for reform

through reconciliation

inclusion

And holding space

Peace is an avenue through which all languages

become known in the one language of the heart

Peace is the truth of bravery in the face of great difficulty

World Peace--my wish with every birthday candle I blew out on childhood birthday cakes

World Peace isn’t possible

I was told by other adults when I grew up and braved my heart to share my childlike wishes

It isn’t possible because the world exists thanks to the constant motions of flux they said

But to me

Peace is bowing to those motions of flux in honouring

sharing in their bounties

allowing those natural harmonies to

sing out beautifully in the natural world

with far less interference

Peace is knowing the Air has the right to exist for its own existence and respecting that

That Water has the right to be clean and life giving and respecting that

That Soil has the right to live and thrive without being depleted and respecting that

Peace knows this delicate natural harmony the living world depends upon for myriad existences has the right to exist of its own accord and peace is respecting that

Peace is making heart space enough to heal a broken world beginning now

Peace is a Monarch Butterfly’s wings fluttering on the breeze and a chrysalis on Milkweed

Peace is the whisk like call of the Nelson’s Sparrow in a saltwater marsh in evening time

Peace is a choice we can all make towards healing

Peace is saying yes to clean foods and no to chemicals and pesticides

And quietly living your choices with a calm heart and mind

Peace means harming is not a pathway to more

Not individually nor globally

Peace understands enough

Peace requires pauses

Peace demands action

There is so simulacrum for Peace

Yet the beauty of true Peace shines like moonlight on the Water

showing the way forward for us to respond

In the darkness

Shining on apples

Shining on sweet hay

Shining on the leaves that turn colours in autumn

Shining in the eyes of children who are allowed to be themselves

Shining on the tidal pools where the minutiae of that little world plays out in

Birth, Living, Death, Rebirth

Peace is saying

I am Willing

I am Willing to plant the Seed of Peace in my heart in the good faith that

if nurtured

one day it will bloom

It will bloom and the whole world will make posies of it

I lay down myself to all this in its honour…

I hand you a Seed

Wishing you Peace

Jill M. MacCormack

AS WELL AS...

Feb 28th 2022 excerpt from Atiya Jaffar at 350.org (my bold)

Then, I read a quote from the Ukrainian delegate to the IPCC. Ahead of IPCC’s release of it’s latest report on climate impacts he said:

“We will not surrender in Ukraine, and we hope the world will not surrender in building a climate resilient future… Human-induced climate change and the war on Ukraine have the same roots -- fossil fuels -- and our dependence on them.”1

This line gave so much clarity to this moment in history. Fossil fuels are driving both war and warming. The case has never been stronger to leave this toxic fuel source in the ground and, building a more just, fair and sustainable world.

WHAT: A Conversation with Climate Leaders: Where do we go next? WHO: Join us to hear from renowned movement leaders Anjali Appadurai and Avi Lewis, and local Climate Justice Edmonton Organizer Juan Vargas WHEN: Tomorrow! (Tuesday) March 1 - 4pm PT / 5pm MT / 6pm CT / 7pm ET / 8pm AT / 8:30pm NT WHERE: On Zoom - RSVP below to get the link.

Limited seats remain so make sure to RSVP here.

And finally this news story:

https://www.readthemaple.com/kenney-condemned-for-using-russian-invasion-to-promote-oil-interests/

Wishing you peace and wellness.

Jill

I folded these paper peace cranes filled with a love and hope for peace and shaped to form a heart pictured here on my living room floor. xo Jill