Pledge of Peace and Love ~ Day 17

This afternoon my daughters and I went to the pumpkin patch. We go to the same place every year. We love it. There are horses, cows, alpacas, and swings, hay to climb on, a zip line and of course pumpkins. It was a gorgeous day, warm and sunny with a beautiful blue sky. It was a gift. Knowing that it was a gift in the moment of it came from practicing peace and love.

Our lives get so busy sometimes that I know I am not always fully present with them. This afternoon was just about us being together and having a good time. It was an absolute joy to be there focused on each other and the gorgeous day. They chased each other around on the hay bales. We pushed each other on the swings and zip line. We laughed and found perfectly imperfect pumpkins. It was so nice to gift each other the present of presence.

They are a joy in my life and I’m glad to be walking a path that reminds me to honor the moments we have together and to at least notice when I’m not being completely present, so that I can work towards a life more mindful of each moment. Today the moments were golden and I’m filled with gratitude.

Pledge of Peace and Love ~ Day 16

I’m a little behind on the blog! Weekends it seems are more difficult to keep up with. I would think it would actually be easier on the weekend with more free time but it turns out free time is hard to come by!

I don’t want to skip yesterday though. I had the opportunity yesterday to listen to an interview with two friends on an internet radio station. The interview was about providing caregiving for their Mother and their son, but really their story is about amazing lessons in love, love of family and love of self.

They taught me so much in one hour. I was so grateful to them for sharing their wisdom and their hearts. Not only did they learn a great deal about the process of caregiving but also about themselves. They shared from a genuine desire to help others through their own lessons learned. I am not in a position of having to be a caregiver in the way that they were and are, yet there was much for me to learn from their experiences.

They spoke about navigating the health care system, which while sometimes challenging, they proved can still be handled with grace. They didn’t seem to let obstacles stop them; they simply saw them as challenges to be overcome, not as dead ends. They didn’t see people in the system as enemies but as allies, who if they could find the right questions to ask, would help them achieve their goals. They didn’t see conversations with family about caregiving as conflict; they saw it as opportunities for the family to have open communication so that they would all understand each other, rather than make assumptions about where the others were in their thinking. They loved and honored themselves enough to know that they had to express the limits they knew they had, in order to be present and not drained for the caregiving they wanted to be able to provide. And inspiringly they were able to move through the life changing accident their son was involved in that left him in a wheelchair, with hope and positivity and come through it seeing good that came from the process. I’m certain there were dark moments and days but that is not where they chose to dwell.

They are an incredible example to me of living from peace and love. I’m grateful to know them and to have their example as an inspiration. Thank you Kit and Randy.

If you would like to listen to their interview it is at http://archives.zeusradio.com/here-women-talk/rivers-of-faith-donna-tyson/rivers-of-faith-10-18-2011/ .

Pledge of Peace and Love ~ Day 15

Yesterday, and all this week really, I got to be witness to incredible acts of love. Not far from where I live in Virginia, an eight year old autistic boy was lost in the woods last Sunday while on a hike with his father. They searched all of Sunday and into the night with heat sensing equipment but didn’t find him. The police put out a call for volunteers. Over the course of the week thousands of people from all over showed up to volunteer. The terrain in the park was heavy with underbrush and briars, marshy areas and rocky cliffs. There was also a river in one area of the park. People were warned by the search coordinators that this was not easy work because of the terrain. The warnings did not deter them as people showed up in groups or on their own to help find this little boy. They showed up every day by the hundreds even over a thousand to the point where they had to turn volunteers away.

Friday was a day that I could offer my help. My daughters had appointments at 7:00 a.m. but when they were finished and dropped at school by around 8:15 a.m. I was ready to head out of town to try to arrive by the 9:00 a.m. time they had set for volunteers. I knew someone involved with the search and he had suggested that I call him before I left town to check in. I called him as I was driving out of town. It was a little before 8:30 and he told me they already had over 1000 people waiting in line to volunteer! While I had a moment of disappointment at not being able to do something constructive myself, I was overwhelmed by the outpouring of love that had been offered all week for this little boy and his family. It was absolutely beautiful and an incredible testament to the power of love.

At around 2:00 p.m. they found him alive and well about a mile from where he had been lost. He was taken to a hospital and reunited with his family. Though with the display of love shown to him this week I think his family is much larger than he might have thought. I’m grateful to be part of that family and am inspired by such love! Clearly you don’t have to search far to find immense love in the world.

Pledge of Peace and Love ~ Day 14

Sometimes I think the best choice for peace is silence. Twice over the past week I could have chosen to react to something in a moment when it would indeed have been reacting. Or I could have chosen to be still and silent with the issue and respond at another time rather than react. It wasn’t avoiding what had come up, simply choosing to wait until I could respond from a place of peace. I’m happy to say that I chose peace over my Italian reaction nature! In both situations it was clearly the right choice.

That’s a significant part of the path of peace for me, those moments of choice and recognizing them in the midst of them rather than afterward. This pledge has truly made me so much more aware of my choices on a moment by moment basis. Occasionally it’s annoying! I would love to just react in a good old human sort of way. But it seems that the good old human way is shifting to a new way and I want to be part of that shift. So, I will gratefully continue this pledge and celebrate the awareness it has brought me. Making the conscious choice for peace feels wonderful and hopefully the more I practice the more it will become a choice I don’t have to be so conscious of, because it will be my natural way of being, the new way.

Pledge of Peace and Love ~ Day 13

Tonight I had an experience that was less than peaceful. I was in the parking lot of a store and a woman was walking out with a small girl who was maybe 2 or 3 years old. The child was crying loudly and the mom was clearly frustrated. First of all, they had just come out of a costume store that has many scary displays in it, so it wouldn’t surprise me if she had been frightened by something in the store. For a small person like that, the large displays of monsters and blood covered babies would be frightening I’m sure. Obviously I know nothing about the Mom or how her day was or what her life is like. I do know she had the girl by the wrist and was dragging her along. She leaned down and said something like, “Stop crying or I’m going to smack you in the mouth.” I don’t remember if the word was smack or not it was something forceful like that, not slap, but I do remember that she threatened to hit her in the face. This of course did not stop the child from crying. So she leaned down again and said, “Do you want me to smack you in the mouth?” If it hadn’t been so sad it would have almost been comical. What kind of question is that? Who on earth would say yes to that question?! But it was too sad to be comical. Now trust me, as a parent I understand frustration and your children pushing you to the edge of your patience. We have all been there as parents. But her threat to hit the child in the face carried a violence with it that I could feel from 20 feet away. Our words carry energy of their own. As I heard someone say recently our words are create-tive. We create with them. I didn’t want to imagine what was being created for that little girl. My hope is that it was just a moment of frustration rather than and action waiting to happen.

The other difficult part of it was that I honestly didn’t know what to do. I wanted to intervene in some way but I feared that if I spoke to her I could make things worse for the girl. I didn’t even think particularly peaceful thoughts in the moment since I was worried about the child. How do I bring peace to a moment like that? I certainly don’t feel like I did tonight. I’m not sure what the right thing would have been to do. I wish I had thought of something brilliant in that moment to diffuse the situation. I think the best I can do at this point is to continue to send love to the little girl and should I come across a situation like that again, remember to stay in my own peace so that I can, at the very least, radiate it to them both.

And as I’m reading back through this I can see and feel the judgment I had toward the mother. Like I said I know nothing about her life – not that it would excuse hurting a child, but surely they both are deserving of peace. Maybe it is she who needs it most of all and yet in my judgment I’m sure I would have offered it to the child before the mother. Maybe if someone had offered her a little peace and understanding somewhere along the way she wouldn’t have been in the emotional state she was in to start with. I guess offering peace to all every moment may have an impact I can’t even imagine. Yet another reason to keep practicing. Clearly I’m still learning.

Pledge of Peace and Love ~ Day 12

Today began with a small act of both peace and love. The reminder to begin it that way came a year or two ago. I think it was summertime when a praying mantis came to visit. It sat on the screen door of my house for a couple days. It stayed long enough for me to start to think that maybe it had some wisdom it wanted to share. I decided to sit in meditation near it and listen to see what it had to say. It turned out it had a lot to say.

Here is what the praying mantis shared as I sat quietly:
Prayer. Be in a constant state of prayerfulness. Be always with an open heart, and words are not necessary for prayer. Prayer is a state of being more than a combination of words spoken. It is the flow of love from the heart returning to its Source. Be always praying, not with words but with deeds, with actions, always moving from the stillness of love within. Then you are moving in prayerfulness. Pray unto love. Pray without ceasing. Be prayer, be communion with Spirit. Let each look, each word, each action be your prayer. Prayer is a joyful state of being, for prayer celebrates the connection within to the Source. Be a living prayer.

Besides these words, what I carried with me from that day was the idea of beginning each day prayerfully, in full awareness of Spirit. I try to remember that each day before I get out of bed. I don’t always succeed. Today I remembered and it was a beautiful way to begin the day, centering myself in the silence of peace and love.

Pledge of Peace and Love ~ Day 11

Today I took an opportunity to share an idea I thought might help contribute to peace. I was listening to NPR while I was working. The Kojo Nnamdi show was on WAMU. They were talking with author and professor, Peter T. Coleman, about Cracking Intractable Conflicts.

I posted a note on their website with an idea that had occurred to me while working in documentary filmmaking years ago. I wondered what would happen if you recorded people during peace negotiations (forget for a minute the obvious confidentiality concerns) and then each night after the negotiations they had to watch footage of themselves during the negotiations. I wondered what impact it would have on people to be able to see and hear themselves from another perspective, perhaps through the eyes and ears of someone else at the table. They might be able to see where they appear angry or appear to be inflexible through their body language, when that was not truly what they meant to communicate. They might be able to hear where their voice sounded aggressive or hostile. It might just help them all to see things a little differently. What if that could help in the peace process?

I didn’t know if they would actually address the question, but they did. The guest seemed to like the idea and thought that it was creative. Whether anyone will actually try the idea or not isn’t important as much as the intention to contribute to a more peaceful world by sharing the idea. That intention was felt by however many listeners there were at that moment for Kojo’s show and felt by those who listen to it online at some future date. You just never know who your ripples of peace might touch or if they will touch anyone at all, but it’s always worth making a little splash. Maybe then our combined intentions will create a great wave of Peace.

Pledge of Peace and Love ~ Day 10

I think my greatest act of love today was a small gift of love I gave my older daughter. She had been away for the weekend at a teen retreat through our church. She loves this trip. Teens from all over the region get together for a weekend and communicate from their hearts and are surrounded in love and peace. They participate in outdoor activities, do a talent show and have heart to heart discussions in groups. She always comes home glowing.

Then the post rally low hits. She’s a teenager, so that could be very dramatic, not to mention that she was tired from the weekend. She was feeling low knowing that she would go to school the next day and not be surrounded by all that love, all that acceptance. I can see how that transition could be difficult. I empathized but also gave her a slightly different way to look at it.

We talked about intention. I told her that I have found intention to be a powerful thing. She had a choice, she could continue to focus on the feeling of the low and missing the warmth of rally and that would be ok. However, we also talked about the idea of changing her intention from the inevitability of the low to one of taking all the love she is feeling and bringing it with her to school tomorrow. Now, she doesn’t have to approach it the same way they did this weekend and go around hugging everyone in the hallways, but she could bring that love with her and simply be that love tomorrow at school. That love doesn’t have to disappear right? It could continue to be shared. I mean just think about if all the kids that were at that retreat went to their various schools tomorrow and just let that love quietly shine from them. Think of the ripples of love that would make all over the region. It seems to me that it doesn’t necessarily take a great, dramatic act of love to share love, but perhaps instead the greatest act of love is simply to be the presence of love.

Pledge of Peace and Love ~ Day 9

I missed a day. I think maybe I didn’t write about yesterday because it’s a little more difficult to write about. It requires a bit more revealing of myself than I would like, but I made a pledge.

I’m a very empathetic person, and that may be an understatement. There are times when it feels as though I can feel other people’s feelings with and for them. There are times when I feel called to allow collective emotions from humanity in general to move through me, sometimes in words, sometimes in tears. I think that allowing, that movement, helps the energies to shift, even a little bit, which I’m grateful to be able to do. Sometimes though it’s very difficult, like when I did the writing about the Holocaust that I posted on this blog a couple years ago. I know it is my practice of peace that now allows me to be able to move through this process as gently as possible. That practice of peace has helped me to know there is a connection to peace within myself which is always present, always accessible. I worked with a visual of it for a long time, an anchor. The anchor was very solidly planted in peace and there is a long and very strong anchor line that connects to my heart. It was a visual reminder for me that helped me return to that place of peace again and again. It helped because it reminded me that I was never disconnected from that peace; there would be times when I couldn’t remember it, couldn’t feel it, but never a time when that anchor wasn’t there. All I had to do was remember the connection and I could begin to feel the peace flow again.

Yesterday was a day when it was difficult to remember my anchor of peace. The emotions and energy that were moving through me were a real challenge to stay disconnected from, they centered on the pain of violence we do to each other. The process is much easier when I remember not to allow the emotions to become my emotions, my energy. Sometimes though the feelings associated with the energy are so intense that it is difficult not to empathize and feel them. That is when I really need the memory of that anchor. Yesterday it took me a while to remember, to feel that peace again, to remember that there is love in the world. Yet, when I did feel it again, I was incredibly grateful for the path of peace I have been traveling, because otherwise it might have taken me much longer to remember.

I’m grateful in another way too. After all, the reason that I made this pledge was because I could feel a shift happening, a shift toward a new way of being in the world, that baby new Earth that I could feel. I suppose it’s no surprise that there might be what feels like turmoil during a transformation like that, and in the midst of that turmoil it is a wonderful thing to remember that I can always return to the memory of Peace and choose to live from there.

Pledge of Peace and Love ~ Day 8

It seems my peace practices begin each morning on my walks. That shouldn’t surprise me really since my walks are a form of meditation for me. As I was walking this morning, I crossed the street and noticed a variety of allen wrenches in the road. They were spread around as if they fell off the back of truck and had scattered. Most of them were where a car would park along the side of the street but a few were in the main part of the road. My heart nudged me to pick them up, but my brain said, “Well they aren’t really in the street and they aren’t sharp, it will be fine.” So I kept walking. I got as far as the sidewalk when a car drove by. I heard the clink of metal hitting the pavement as a tire drove over one of the wrenches. “Sigh,” says my head, because now it knows I will heed my heart as I should have done in the first place. So I turned around and picked up every wrench I could find and put them in a neat pile on the curb in case anyone came back looking for them. As I picked them up I knew that some of them really could have punctured a tire if they turned up as a car drove over them.

As I walked away I thought of a story my daughters and I listened to recently, Ella Enchanted. (It’s nothing like the movie by the way.) Part of the story talks about big magic and little magic and how you have to be careful of big magic because you never know how it will change things. For instance, if you changed the weather one day it could impact crops and people could starve when you thought you were just making it sunny for your party. Today was just little magic. Either way I don’t always know how my magic or choices for peace and love will impact others. I’m ok with not knowing because the part that I do know is that every choice for peace and love creates more peace and love in some small way. My heart already knew that and that’s enough knowing for me.

Pledge of Peace and Love ~ Day 7

There is a majestic tree that I sometimes pass on my morning walks. Its strength, height and beauty always catch my attention. This morning it caught my attention for another reason.

The leaves on it have just begun to turn a little yellow on the edges. As I was approaching it today, the sun was still rising, so the light was illuminating the tree from below. When I looked up it was as if every single leaf on that tree was lit up! It stopped me in my tracks it was so beautiful! So great was her beauty that I was  barely cognizant of the approaching cars as I began crossing the street. I’m sure the drivers thought I was crazy walking around with my eyes to the sky but I couldn’t help it. Each leaf a shining light. It was truly glorious!

I was grinning like a fool as I walked beneath her and raised my face to absorb the glow. As I paused, bathed in her light I thought, each leaf lit, each life lit. There they stood, peacefully radiating their light into the world, and from my perspective, making my world better for their light. I continued on, peacefully radiating my light into the world. I’m sure I didn’t stop anyone in their tracks like she did, but I did let my light shine.

Pledge of Peace and Love ~ Day 6

I was reminded today that practicing peace for a new Earth means practicing peace towards all inhabitants of Earth, not just humans; even enormous, hairy spiders!

In general I am a great friend of the creatures of Earth, especially birds. I was just having a conversation with my daughter the other day about how I can’t stand to kill bugs, despite the large quantity of fruit flies that have taken up residence in our kitchen. My daughters know this already because they have watched me capture bugs and release them back outside. For me it really is part of my practice of peace, because truly I don’t think killing anything is peaceful. I find it a real challenge in the summer in my mosquito infested yard, and if I do react and swat at one I feel badly afterward. I still have a memory from my childhood of an afternoon when I was playing outside and there was a colony of ants climbing up the trunk of a birch tree in our yard. I remember killing many of them with a stick - why I’m not quite sure other than I was a child and saw ants as pests. However, I also remember afterward thinking of it from their perspective as the great ant massacre and feeling badly about the ants who were left alive and had lost their family. I didn’t see it as a lesson in peace at the time, but I felt so badly about it that I remember it to this day.

Peace toward all the creatures of Earth has been on my mind this week because of the robin I wrote about the other day, the snake I saw flattened in the road on my walk yesterday and the many squirrels I’ve seen dead on the roads lately. They helped me remember that the truth is it’s not just our planet. We share it with many others. It is their space as much as it is ours. Some of their species evolved long before ours. Yet it seems we don’t always share the space peacefully, but rather see them as intruders in our space.

That’s the way I saw the enormous, hairy spider in my bathroom this morning. Spiders are one creature that I don’t exactly like to be in close proximity to, though I do like the lessons spiders can teach. Today I remembered my lessons of living in peace and sharing space as I ran as fast and as peacefully as I could out of the bathroom. Perhaps as I practice more, next time I will only walk quickly away, grateful for a chance to share the space of peace.

Pledge of Peace and Love ~ Day 5

Today I’m working hard on peace; only not in a way I anticipated. I am working with the understanding that inner peace is not the same thing as being peaceful towards yourself. I’m certain that one must be peaceful towards oneself in order to really have inner peace, but I just never thought about it that way before. Somehow I had separated out the spiritual journey of peace from the physical aspect of peace, of treating the vessel peacefully.

I have a tendency to push myself and take on a lot. I have gotten much better over the years at saying no to at least some things I’m asked to do, in order to honor myself and the time I need with family or the need for down time. Well, let me clarify that, I’ve gotten better at saying no to others, but not so good at saying no to myself. I’m learning that clearly today as I’m feeling quite exhausted, but hadn’t honored that feeling enough over the past week to allow for much renewal time.

Now how does that contribute to the peace in the world, you may ask? Simple I would say. If I can’t honor myself, how can I truly honor another? If I can’t be peaceful toward myself, how will I truly be peaceful toward you? For me, peace is a practice and that practice begins with me and moves out from there. Right now I am really feeling the knowing that it doesn’t only begin with practice of inner spiritual peace, but also with the practice of inner physical peace through rest, renewal time and making nourishing choices about what I put into my body in the form of food and drink. In honor of that harmony of physical and spiritual peace and so I can better offer that peace to the world tomorrow, I will post this and go rest!

Pledge of Peace and Love ~ Day 4

Love was a theme throughout the day today. This year in particular I have been reminded again and again how precious life is. Today seemed full of those reminders. I found out that a friend’s Mother passed away. Really I prefer the idea of transitioning to another form of energy, but that is irrelevant when compared with the loss and grief her family is feeling. Yet, my friend and her family were by their Mother’s side when she surrendered this life. What an amazing and yet difficult gift for them all. To be able to be there, in love and to honor her as she leaves is a wonderful thing, even if it doesn’t necessarily feel wonderful in the midst of it. We have a tendency to have an aversion to the dying and death and yet to hold someone in your heart with love and to send them off onto the next part of their journey with that love surrounding them, what could be more loving than that? So I was glad to hear that my friend had been by her Mother’s side, glad for them both.


I am letting it serve as a reminder to me to appreciate each moment with the people I love, with the warmth of the sun, with the song of the birds, with the laughter of children, with a gentle breeze, with the purr of a cat, with connection to all my human family. Even though I do make a conscious effort to be present in the moment, being human, I don’t always succeed. When my daughters come home from school am I focused on what they are saying the minute they come in and want to share? Not always, sometimes I’m working and only half listening. Do I take a moment to hear the birds when I awake in the morning, or am I too grumpy that the alarm went off so soon? Do I treasure each moment with the people I love? I will be more aware of it now, hopefully. And I don’t mean to get so lost in the appreciation that I’m still not being present, but just the awareness that the simple act of being present with another is a way of appreciating them and the gift of that moment. My heart sometimes reminds me of opportunities I’ve missed with a gentle ache that says, pay attention. I hope to lessen the potentially greater aches of having missed precious moments by heeding the smaller nudges now.

Pledge of Peace and Love ~ Day 3

My practice today centered mostly on peace. The practice of peace actually began last night when my daughters and I went to Kings Dominion to their annual Halloween Haunt and continued into today as I sat with it and as we talked about it. Halloween Haunt is basically a variety of themed haunted houses, as well as fog filled areas of the park called scare zones where people jump out at you. Horror is not my thing, never has been, and I didn’t think it would be something my daughters would particularly enjoy because it’s not really their thing either. However, my younger daughter really wanted to go and find out for herself. I thought she was old enough to have that opportunity, so we went.

It didn’t go well. We waited on line for at least an hour and a half for the first ride (though it was lots of fun!). Then we walked through the scare zone called Feary Tales. The park was darker than it usually is at night and the “fog” so dense in the scary areas that you really couldn’t see much at all sometimes. And yes there were people in frightening costumes with very gory makeup or masks that would follow you or jump out at you. My youngest quickly discovered that she didn’t like it one bit. It made her extremely uncomfortable and unhappy. I was good with leaving right then if she wanted to, but she didn’t want to feel like we had wasted our time. So we went on one more ride and called it quits after that. Even having to walk out to the exit through the scare zones one more time was difficult for her.

Looking back on it I think part of her discomfort was the general atmosphere of not just the park, but also the people attending. The intention of the whole evening was fear created from violence, and that feeling was pervasive. I know it was supposed to be “all in good fun” but from the perspective of peace, it made me wonder why we would think that violence and fear are good fun. Where is the peace in that?

The only peace I found that night was within myself, and I was quite glad that I was able to find it there so that I could share it with my daughters. The crowd was not peaceful; there was a lot of swearing and yelling and one person being led away in handcuffs. The intention of fear and violence had an impact on all there. We have been to the park at night before and it was nothing like what we experienced last night. I don’t exactly regret going because I think it was a good learning for them both; to honor the kind of people they are in the activities in which they choose to participate. I just wish my youngest could have learned that more gently than what she was feeling last night, but I think she learned it quite clearly through the experience. I don’t think it was fear she was feeling as much as discomfort. I felt it too. What an interesting contrast it was for me when I’m consciously trying to live a life of peace to be in the midst of a creation from such a different place. A good learning for all three of us.

We at least could choose to leave as opposed to people who live surrounded by fear and violence that they can’t so easily escape. Along with my daughters, they are part of the reason for this pledge, so that one day none of us will have to leave anywhere to find peace; it will be within and all around us. I believe each choice we each make for peace and love brings us all closer to that world.

Pledge of Peace and Love ~ Day 2

Interesting day today. Lots of practice of peace. First off you should know that my family is very competitive. It's apparently genetic. So sports are not generally a peaceful experience for me (baseball season in particular is a time I find it challenging to be peaceful). I got to practice peace watching my daughter's field hockey game this morning and cheering in only a supportive and encouraging way. I have to say not all my thoughts were peaceful in relation to the refs but I did keep my words peaceful at least! I also had an opportunity to send love to a girl who was hurt during the game. As she laid crying on the field I just kept imagining her surrounded with love, knowing that could only help her.

Another chance to practice peace came while driving down I95. I wrote a poem once called Each Life. I remembered driving soon after writing that poem and looking at each car on the road and thinking, each life is precious, each life has value. It completely changed my perspective of the other drivers. I remembered that tonight as I was driving on the highway and looked at each car and remembered those two words, Each life. It didn't matter if I agreed with their driving choices, those two words changed how I was looking at each person. And what if they were to give me that gift as well, as we passed each other on the road? Seems like driving might be a much more peaceful experience then, for each life.

Pledge of Peace and Love ~ Day 1

How I lived my pledge of love today had to do with a robin. On my morning walk I saw a dead robin laying in the grass in front of a house on Washington Ave. As I noticed it I thought, Awww, how sad, and continued walking. I got about six feet before I stopped and turned back. I went and stood beside the robin, bowed my head and offered my love and my gratitude for the robin, his song, his colors, his inspiring flight and his life. As I walked away I thought of all the other creatures, plants/trees and people who would transition to another form today, whose songs I would never hear. I bowed my head as I walked and offered them love and gratitude for their songs, that though I will never hear them, echo in the hearts of others.

Thank you sweet robins for the gift of your songs.

The Pledge of Peace and Love ~ October 13, 2011

Posting the Campaign 2012 pledge of non-violence in word, thought and deed on my FB page today inspired me to make my own pledge. Mine will be not only a pledge of non-violence, but also a pledge of love and peace. Now through the end of the year I will attempt every day to be conscious of what I put out into the world through my words, thoughts and deeds. I will make a conscious effort every day to choose from peace and love. Each day I will post something on my blog about at least one thing I did that day that contributed to a more peaceful, loving world. It may only be a small thing, but I believe what we do and think makes ripples that move out and touch others. I hope that I will have lots of peaceful, loving ripples to write about each day. However, I will also be honest about the times I fall short of a choice that was loving or peaceful, because I am human and there will be moments of forgetting. Though I am hoping that just making the pledge will keep the thought in mind and heart enough that it will get easier as I go along, to remember it each moment.

I do have a reason for making this pledge now. It may seem strange, but there is something I have been feeling all week, it feels as though a new Earth has been born. It is a pure and pristine Earth with no veils to cover it, no layers of separation, new and whole and oh, so beautiful! An opportunity to create anew for all of us. Like any fresh, new baby, this baby Earth needs nurturing, love and nourishment. So my pledge is for the new Earth so that it may be nourished by Love and Peace. You may say I’m a dreamer….



How I lived my pledge today was setting the intention of living a life of peace and love by the simple act of making this pledge. There is a great joy that has been ignited in me. I hope to share that with all. For those of you who may be wondering, “What the heck does that really mean, living a life of peace and love?” my only response is, I guess we will find out together.

Peace and Love,
Lynda