A Reading on the Peace that Violets Offer

 Hello, dear friends, this is Ann Keeler Evans – Peacemaker, Poet, Taroist, and author of the Peacemaker’s Tarot for the 21st Century. The other day I saw this amazing video of a creator – Trinity Dublin, I think – who has wired a tree and the soil and all that’s about it, and created a localized network an AI network that has given this tree a voice. It is so powerful; I’ve just been amazed by it. And I have been thinking, as I’ve thought about that video, about the fact that I am totally in love with the violets that are so rampant in Spring as they go rampaging across our our lawns and I thought once of a line that would say “Violets, not violence” and I made a garden flag out of it and I loved it, although I tend to like words that don’t have as much ‘not’ in them. I thought, well, what if I did a reading about the violets’ point of view about what’s going on in the world right now? Because there were more this year than there have ever been, and my cards are designed to answer questions about what should I be thinking about now in this particular thing.

So I considered and I realized there are five petals on a violet; there are four major petals, and then one smaller petal in the bottom center. And I decided that I would ask a question for each of the petals and then ask for some instruction, if you will, and some suggestions from the Peacemaker’s Tarot as to what we might consider about this part of our lives.

So the first petal, which I considered to be on the upper left, asks, What is your Peace Power? The second, which is on the upper right, is Who is your Peace Team? Third petal, left bottom, is What Community of Peace are you building? Fourth petal, right bottom, What Peace are you making? And the fifth petal is, What is your language of Peace?

When I looked at my Peace Power – which I think is really presence – that’s what I do; I’m a visionary and I think of presence. So I drew my first card, which is number III, and it said, consider Love. And you and I know, in this time, which is tumultuous, it’s easy to not do that. And the number III card, Love, works at two different things on the Möbius and one direction, we’re looking at Intimacy and how we deepen intimacy and grow it with ourselves and with others. And the other is Honesty. And again, how do we do that with ourselves and others? Not bad, my dear.

Love says, “We are not an isolated individual; we are a being in relationship. It’s the healthiest and strongest tie that binds us together, offering us protection, relationship, and being known for who you are. It requires sustenance and learning to love back. It requires being willing to lose that love to gain a deeper one.”

This is very hard work for us to be doing, and we’re asked to be present. I’m asked to be present in the light of Love. Whatever your strength is, you are asked to do that in the light of Love.

“Who is your Peace Team?” I have a very large Peace Team. I’m very lucky. There are a few things I work on and there are people on each of those teams. There are people I call for support and suggestions, people who I work with. And so the question about how do I think about that team is that I’m asked to look at card number XII, which is Commitment. “Sacrifice is needed to obtain my desires. Sometimes we must turn ourselves inside out or be patient and bear with the situation until it changes.”

The thing that is true in Commitment is that we need to both Surrender and to Transcend. We need to surrender to the group that we work to, not needing to always take the lead, to always be the one in charge, but to allow other people’s gifts to lead and shape us, and then all together, we transcend that, we commit to a better way. It’s pretty exciting.

The next question asks, “What Community of Peace are you building?” I’m working on a couple. One, I work in a hospital and I’m looking to build community there. Two, I really am interested in the work of Grandmothers and what our work is to do in the world, how we bring our wisdom to the world. And the other is Arts. How do I use art – in my case, poetry – to talk about what else I need to be doing, and looking at, and how do I ask other people to join me in that, and it says to remember that there are, as you’re doing that, there are two directions again on that [XIII] Möbius, and one is Charisma – to use the gifts you have, the personality you, have your way of being in the world, to engage with others, and the other is Prophecy. “We’re called in specific times for a specific purpose. Are we the ones who will lead us towards peace?” And I think prophecy is very important now to speak out for. I’m always looking to speak out for, I want to build saner, safer, happier, more excited community. Communities. And I want to continually invite people in. So, I think both Leadership and Prophecy are needed there, and we gather those, if we’re working in a group, then we gather those from all of us who are within the group.

The fourth petal, which is the right bottom asks, “What Peace are you making?” I believe that I am continuously trying to make Peace, across divides, with other people. Again, it is the constant invitation into Peace. The card that showed up is the number II, it’s the Purpose card; to observe life’s passages and community celebrations, healing your mind, heart, body, and spirit back into community.

Now, there are those who have known me a long while, you know that ritual is something that I have spent a great deal of time doing. So community celebrations I think are in line and we, and also healing, we need to be healing the divides that have been fomented and fostered upon us because we’re all looking for happiness. We’re looking to experience joy. We want children who are safe. And so how we do that, is to do that together. And so maybe I’m being asked to do more ritual and what would that look like? What kind of Peace rituals do I have to build? You know, these violets, they’re pretty clever.

And the last question it asked is, “What is your language of peace?” And I would have to say joy, and again presence, but awe, the absolute disbelief I have about places in the world and things in the world that just stir me. And when I picked up the card, the card is number XV and it’s Delight. So all of us are asked to bring Delight to our language of Peace.

“Life is serious, but this world offers so much in which to delight: friendships, books, nature, sky, puppies, kittens, baby food, and clothing. Clothing? This is love? But if such things make you happy, great. But how then do they become distractions? Life is a great holy obligation to take delight in life’s banquet. Consider what you might miss if you don’t jump into the fires of real life with all your gifts. The wondering, dancing flames are delightful today. Question doubting and dance.”

And so the two sides of this Möbius are Questioning – and from that, I think often we mean doubting… “Too often, Peace has been forfeited because Doubt started its rumors. Allow doubt to lead to good questions.” Why would I doubt that? What’s the purpose of the doubt? Sometimes it’s to say, “Is this safe?” But is that doubt or is that just doing due diligence? Good questionings can lead us to wonder, ask important questions and be constant to Peace and its Delight. Imagine a world where Delight is one of the leaders, and when that’s true, dance.

I spoke to some people today in the, in the parking lot of the CVS and they were saying, we don’t get to dance anymore. And my husband now many years dead, used to play every Wednesday night – Monday night, I forget which night it was, I worked – often a couple nights a week, and there was dancing going on and so many of us missed that. Covid shut down a lot of that, but we have to dance. I don’t know what that looks like. I just know that we have to have fun and move our bodies and get out of our heads and into our bodies because that’s what dance does as well; find delight in the world.

And so think about. Think about the violets. They are small and shy. You look at them in the morning and they’re just sort of cuddled in on themselves, and then they throw their head back and they dance. And then you look the next morning and they’re further out in the lawn and there are more of them and it’s so exciting. So, question doubting, and dance. My friends, the violets are here to teach us of their power in the world and to ask us to think of different ways.