How often do you get so wrapped up in that one thing you are doing that there is no time for anything else?
It happens to me, and to be honest, it could be something really important to me, like writing about Peace, or considering it, or reading about it.
Sometimes our focus on one thing or one person leaves us out of balance. I have to work at balance. I have to work at that hour by hour, day by day, and week by week. If I do, then it’s likely that month to month, season to season and year to year that I will find steady footing in my life Journey that I’m coming to know as Peace.
Peace must contain as much laughter as it does hard work, as much wild improvisation as it does careful strategizing, as much sleep as it does wonder! What do the sages teach us?
“Life is a balance of holding on and letting go.” —Rumi
Oh, too true. We cannot move forward if we’re anchored in the past. And love only flourishes when it is free to discover. In my Peacemaker Tarot cards I talk about the distance between the complementary strengths on each Major Tarot card’s being the Möbius. Waking or sleeping we are always somewhere on that trek. How do we learn new things? How do we let go of what we’ve always held to be true, but proves not to bear out in the long run? We balance learning with reverence.
“We have to balance the lineality of the known universe with the nonlineality of the unknown universe.” —Carlos Castaneda
If we fasten ourselves on one thing or another, we miss the healing, insight, and laughter that thing could bring us. I can get fastened on facts and proscriptions. I’m not particularly good at those things, so I become very narrow in my focus on them, leaving no room for possibility and no balance in my life. I forget how to breathe when all I can consider is How. To. Make. This. Work. And at the same time, if I’m only blue skying, I’m not really Peacemaking or living in the present, am I? Let us fill our hearts and minds with Possibilities, understanding that balance is both the straddling of the two and the moving between them.
Play, reverence, work, mundane activities, repair, delightful time with our beloved and in nature — all these are necessary to our health and well-being as well as the health and well-being of ourselves, our families, our communities and our world. This is giving Peace a chance.
Salaam, Shalom, Peace. Blessed be.
