Tag Archives: #peace

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Negotiating peace

I spend a long day wrestling with love
arguing with myself back and forth
I am no angel descended from above
Those undeserving of my love make me wroth
yet my core argues that it still loves them
and agrees their cruelty’s beyond the pale
I snarl and cough and choke on bitter phlegm
Defend my self staying far away and hale
My core agrees I shall not tolerate abuse
Forgive yet we despair we’ll ever reconcile
They show no guilt nor shame for their misuse
My core says let them be: she is so mild
Negotiation done: Agreed. I may love those who I love
But I leave contact with them to the angels and Beloved.

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Sonnet 10

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Peace Prompt

Today’s Ragtag Daily Prompt is prompt, because we need a seventh person. Sounds pretty easy, right? To pick a word once a week and post it and then watch the replies.

It is easy and it isn’t! That day sneaks up on me. Now I try to post the Tuesday prompt 5-7 days early and set it to post on Tuesday morning.

If another prompt is missing, I can check the Ragtag site. Sometimes a prompter is gone or has something happening in their life or has put 9 pm instead of 9 am! I can intervene and fix the last problem. We fill in for each other, too.

This is an international group and a prompt for peace! Peace us and join us! I love seeing photographs from all over the world. I am itching to go to Australia to see all the birds and to India and back to Alamosa, Colorado and in fact, I would go to any of the areas that people post from. With all of the stress from the pandemic and the ongoing war, this is a daily place that makes me hopeful that people can get along and that we will reach the point where the color of our skin matters no more than the color of our eyes. It is Martin Luther King Day in the US and I am celebrating peace and hope.

I heard a wonderful sermon yesterday from a man who works in our school system, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfmPjcEIbBA. I went to a music jam which had wonderful diversity of music. I went to hear Chicago Bob play and I have to say that I did not expect him to play Teddy Bear’s Picnic. A friend came to dinner too.

I hope that you too have pockets of peace and can peace someone today. And hooray for this musician as well: https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20230113-martin-luther-king-day-the-song-that-changed-the-us.

Blessings.

How many cats do you see in the photograph?

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Winter bless us

Winter bless us year end dark and freezing
winter turn us inwards prayer for joy
prayer for joy for young ones all are seizing
others mourn loved deaths, eschewing toys
darkness let us settle loving all
silence let us turn our thoughts to peace
walk in wind and birds, iced trees so tall
few are out to gently walk the streets
the frozen ground holds lives that lie in wait
in freezing seeds hear the call and know
let every human drop their arms and hate
while seeds lie in wait to grow
let winter’s silence fill our hearts with joy
let peace descend, war melt to children’s toys

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A poem for Christine Goodenough after reading her Winter Delights.

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hope molting and growing new feathers

A friend away a friend some day
a friend can’t stay all the day
a friend won’t pray a friend can’t play
not today is what they say
a friend they say a friend always
a friend who may return some day

in a way you might say
hope molts and regrows feathers today

I think my inner four year old wrote today’s poem. I am thinking about the song my mother taught me, very young, for when I was frustrated.

My sister and I loved this song and others, Samuel Hall and “I don’t want to play in your back yard, I don’t like you any more. You’ll be sorry when you see me, sliding down my cellar door.”

I gave a young friend a book of rhymes. He looked at me with some horror. “These are nursery rhymes.” I grin at him. “Look again. It’s a book of insulting playground rhymes, suitable for all occasions.” He looked at the book again and held on to it.

The photograph is from the National Museum of Women in the Arts again. Another fabulous painting that seems to fit my theme.

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Parasympathy

In 2013, Catherine Hodes, director of the Safe Homes Project (a domestic-violence program), started a workshop called “Is it Conflict or Abuse?” An abusive dynamic, she argues, requires one person to have power over the other, whereas conflict involves two people struggling for power. The distinction can be confusing, and in some cases “both people feel like they’re being abused, because they’re not getting their needs met or they’re not getting their way.”

From the Atlantic Monthly article: That’s it, you’re dead to me. September 2022 p. 14.

I think this is a fascinating idea, in the article that questions the internet wisdom of getting rid of “toxic people” in one’s life. When we cut off someone we consider “toxic”, we aren’t peaceing them, are we? Peace me, peace you, how do we actively peace people instead of being afraid, on guard, at war. I think everyone is more afraid after the two years of Covid 19 pandemic and all of the deaths and the Long Haul Covid and war. Everyone has a shorter fuse, everyone is stressed.

Remember that stress activates the sympathetic nervous system, the fight or flight system. The body makes less thyroid and less sex hormones and makes more adrenaline and cortisol. Cortisol is a steroid and great for short term, but bad for long term. If we are continually stressed, cortisol messes up the immune system and we get auto-immune disorders, the body attacking its’ own cells. The adrenaline raises our heart rate and blood pressure, neither of which are good for the heart long term. When the thyroid hormone is on the low side, we feel tired. The adrenaline makes us feel wired and we have trouble sleeping. The cortisol makes us more likely to get sick and raises blood sugar too. The low sex hormones, well, women can stop menses and men start asking for viagra.

So we as a world, need to learn to downregulate the sympathetic nervous system and go back to parasympathetic. The relaxed one. The one where we have less adrenaline and less high cortisol and more thyroid and our gut works and sex works again. How do we get there?

Breathing is one way. Slow breathing: 5 seconds in and 5 seconds out. Work up to 20 minutes. One of my veterans said he was not used to feeling relaxed, it felt weird. Ok, it may feel weird, but maybe we need to practice it. He did. There is circular breathing too, 5 seconds in, 5 hold, 5 out, 5 hold. Zen meditation, facing a wall for 40 minutes, works too. We try not to follow the thoughts. The thoughts pop up anyhow, but not following them down the rabbit hole is interesting and challenging. Mindful mediation and Jon Kabat Zinn’s books and tapes work as well. It takes practice. Practice peace, practice relaxing. Doesn’t that sound like a lovely practice?

Stupid cat videos work for me too. Laughter works. What makes you laugh? I like the silly animal videos, the moose playing with the wind chimes, three baby bears rescued (with care) from a dumpster, with the truck driving off to avoid momma bear. Rocking, knitting, sewing, fishing, walking the beach, cuddling a baby, dancing, listening to music, playing music. Which works for you? Silly movies. I don’t like horror movies, and I love cartoons and animation. Engage the child at heart for the parasympathetic nervous system.

In high school my daughter said that most fights were stupid. “One person says something without thinking. The other person goes off and gets upset. She stops talking to person one, who has no idea what is going on, and they often talk to their friends. So there is this big fight over some dumb comment.”

I don’t think it ends with high school, sadly enough. And before we label someone “toxic”, maybe we need to wander off and breathe, or watch a silly cat video. Whatever works for you that doesn’t hurt others.

We need more parasympathy in the world. Yep, I just made that word up. Relax and if you can’t or won’t, consider practicing.

Peace you and please peace me.

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/body/23266-parasympathetic-nervous-system-psns

https://healthnews.com/family-health/healthy-living/how-to-activate-the-parasympathetic-nervous-system/

August 19, 2022

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On meditation and breathing

In college at the University of Wisconsin, I dated a gentleman who was following the Zen Buddhist tradition.

He meditated daily, for forty minutes, facing a wall.

I was quite intrigued. I did not think I could do that. I am a fidgety person and can’t sit still. I promptly tried it.

Forty minutes is a long time facing a wall at age 19.

I would fall asleep. I would start tilting to one side or the other on my zafu and jerk back up. I knew I was not supposed to follow thoughts, but I couldn’t not think. It is more subtle than that: I slowly figured out that I can let the thoughts pop up from the toaster brain, but try not to follow them. Wave at the thought. Let it go.

One day there was a small hole in the wall when I faced it. A tiny spider came out and went back in. I was very happy about the spider.

The next day the spider came out and waved one leg at me. Then it went back in the hole. The end of the 40 minutes is signaled by a chime. I got suspicious afterwards and went back to the wall. Not only was there no spider, but there was no hole, either. I did not see any more holes or spiders.

I meditated regularly daily for two years. After that I would return to practice intermittently. Meditation trained my breathing: my breathing slows way down during meditation.

I use that breathing when I have pneumonia. In the worst episode, I was in the hospital and disbelieved. I slowed my breath way way down to calm myself and so that I could think. Eight counts in, eight counts out. Then ten, then twelve. I needed to focus and figure out what was causing sepsis symptoms. And I did figure it out. The provider sent me home that morning, septic and 6 liters behind on fluid, but I was able to survive.

Now the pain clinics are teaching slow breathing. Five seconds in and five seconds out. Start with a few minutes and work up to twenty minutes. “Almost everyone goes from high sympathetic nervous system fight or flight state to the parasympathetic relaxed nervous system state.” I think we need more of that, don’t you? This is being taught for anxiety, for chronic pain, for fear and depression. I asked a veteran to try it. His response: “I hate to admit it but it works.” Also, “I’m not used to being relaxed. It feels weird.” I laughed and said, “I think it might be good if you get used to it.” He reluctantly agreed and continued the practice.

Peace you, peace me.

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peace you peace me

I forgive you faster then past trauma
choose to let go of all the drama
you told me that I should let go
I am letting go of you and want you to know

I am letting go of all the past trauma
family fighting, intolerance, stupid drama
breathe in love, breathe out love
peace be with you, olive branch and dove

let the fight or flight gently fall away
breathe in peace and air all your day
breathe slowly, five out, five in
muscles relax and face in a grin

sending love whether you respond or not
forgiveness for harm and grief and loss, all rot
I am choosing peace and choosing to breathe slow
your friendship is deeply valued, I hope you know

peace you peace me peace all our friends
kindness is contagious and laughter among friends
I still have hope in the earth, breathing in and out
peace earth, moon, sun, peace within and without

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Friends and illness

The good thing about getting deathly ill is that you find out who your friends are. They stay by you. Even if you are misdiagnosed, labelled, ignored.

It is harder to ignore me now that I am on oxygen. It is difficult to chalk oxygen up to a rumored behavioral health diagnosis. When you have pneumonia and are confused, that is called delirium, not mania.

The bad thing about being deathly ill is that you find out who is NOT a friend. They disappear like rats leaving a sinking ship. Actually I like rats better.

I have one person who says, “I like you well, not sick.” Um, I would rather stay well too. But having seen fully 20 specialists, including four pulmonologists since 2012, a cure seems unlikely, doesn’t it? Meanwhile I seem to be getting stronger in pulmonary rehabilitation. Treadmill, classes about the lungs, stretching and weights.

Another person states, “if you get sick again, I am gone for four months.” Not a friend, right? Not a true friend and never ever will be. They do not understand friendship.

A true friend shows up at my house in 2012. I am lying on my bed using my father’s oxygen. She glares at me. “YOU are coming to MY house.” My reply: “OK.” I survive, even when the hospital sends me home with strep A pneumonia and delirium. Helps to be a physician, though I had to just trust myself, even delirious. The true friends help save me. I can’t even say how grateful I am.

I have a new friend. She is ill. It is progressive. Her husband seems so surprised that I come to see her. But I know how terribly lonely it is to be abandoned when you are ill. I have been there four times.

Blessings on the true friends.

Here is my sister’s blog. I remembered this post as “caged”, but her word is “trapped”.

https://e2grundoon.blogspot.com/2010/12/

My sister died of breast cancer in 2012.

Over The Rhine – The Laugh of Recognition

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medicine

I was thinking of old medicine bottles for today’s prompt, but I think hiking is one of the most medicinal things I do. Healing. Freeing. Feeling the changes in the air, seeing the forests and the water here, being very present. Peaceful.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: medicinal.

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making peace

denise levertov writes making peace
that it is an active process
it is not the absence of war
but a process in itself: how do we make it?
Make Peace

how do we wage peace?
wage is not the word
we do not do it for money
we must be more active than hoping
engender peace?
spread peace: like a pandemic
a pandemic of peace

the comfort of peace
the joy of peace
the love of peace

the peace of the grave
the peace of sleep
the peace of heaven
peace here now
peace not distant nor below the earth
peace conscious, aware and present
peace alive, breathing, welling up in everyone
peace here now

a pandemic of peace
a river of peace
peace flowing through and around, above and below us
peace full, peace out, peaced
let us verb it
I am peaced today
I peace you
I peace Russia
I peace the soldiers
I peace the Ukraine
I peace the entire world

I peace you
please, will you peace me?
peace me now, then there will be two
and everyone else
peace the world now
a pandemic of peace
make peace

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I taped a conversation with a wren one morning in Wisconsin. I never saw my wren and clearly I have not got the language down, but she kept talking to me anyhow.

Conversation with a wren.