Peace is a Process

There’s angst in the air and I have breathed it in.

Walking in the woods today I became aware: I am not connected. I was not treading lightly, not looking up, not listening… in many ways, not present. I was… tromping on icy, crusty snow with ice cleats strapped to my winter boots, snow pants swish-swishing in the background of the din in my head… trying to talk myself into believing that miscommunications + being excluded were not getting to me. But, oh… they did.

Everything, piled up, got to me. The glitchy computer that seems to skip lines in the middle of typing… the cat wanting to sit on my hand that’s trying to type a straight line of thought on a glitchy computer… my childhood friend telling me that she, her husband, their two kids - the whole family - are sick with COVID… my local friend who’s feeling miserably sick from the cancer that is now ravaging through so much of her body…. my neighborhood friends making friends with each other + forgetting me.

And then there’s White Supremacists storming the Capitol Building. I am not going there, here.

Just like a ‘good’ 20-minute sit, it took the better of my hour-long walk before peace found me.

First, I tromped. Then, I noticed the tromping. I am not connected, I realized. Slowly, my brain worked it’s way to wanting to be connected.

In a recent meditation group, one of our elders, JM shared how, years back, when she was a counselor, there was a man who could not forgive. “Do you want to forgive”, Joan had asked. “No” he had stated. “Do you want to be the kind of person who wants to forgive” she had asked, next. To that, she related, he replied: “yes”.

Once I got to wanting to be the kind of person who wants to be connected, I remembered how to connect.

At first, my heart would have none of it. Feel my roots, into the earth, I told myself. I did not feel a connection. Feel my roots into the Energetic Field, I continued. Again, nothing. I did not feel a connection. What I felt was… stuck in a glacial disconnect.

Slow down, I thought. Look around. So I did. And took a picture.

4:30 PM (ET) January 10, 2021 Hiking from the Harris Hill Ski Jump to the Retreat Farm, Brattleboro, Vermont. Photo taken by Ami (when I finally stopped + looked up:)

I walked on. There are poems posted on trees in the nature trail behind the Retreat Farm. I’ve read them. Stop, I reminded myself. Read this poem.

Picture taken in March, 2020 by Ami. Poems on trees in the Retreat Farm woods, Brattleboro, Vermont

Mmm. Poetry. It has a way of moving something in the soul that’s been hiding, covered, stuck… frozen.

I walked on + felt my footfalls lighten… the glacier melting… my sense of Self + Connection emerging. Peace was finally finding me, and I it.

My friends have much in common, and I’m happy for them. I’ll connect with them soon. It’ll be wonderful.

Jessica has me to love her, no matter what. Cancer sucks; her, I love.

Melody will get better. Mike + Julia are already coming back from the flu; she will too. Eli is symptom free + he will remain so. None of them will have lung scarring or any other horrific long-term reactions to having had COVID. This I must believe, so as not to let worry take me over. No need to worry about what we have no control over. If in the future I need to support my friends because of what COVID has done, I will.

Kenzy will continue to be like a co-dependent Black Lab, and, when she needs my attention, I’ll stop what I’m doing to snuggle her.

The computer… it’s machinery. Sometimes it runs smoothly, sometimes not. It’s probably time for a check-up… maybe a new laptop.

Crazy politics… that they are. Crazy people… we can be. Is there a peaceful solution? It starts with me.

Peace in. Peace out.