welcome, well come to day 46 of a season of peace and to the day marking the 778th anniversary of the siege at Montségur, France in the  the lands where Mary Magdalene carried out her ministry and the Holy Family / Essenes created the “New Bethlehem” after Yeshua’s resurrection… Montségur, the final stronghold of the Cathars during the Inquisition, was the sacred site where Roman soldiers searched for the Holy Grail and sought to destroy the last of the Cathars who were the spiritual initiates of Mary Magdalene and embodied teachings of lovingkindness and living in harmony with the land and another all of our relatives…

legend has it that on Wednesday, March 16, 1244, around 200 souls of Montségur who walked the way of love and refused to surrender their Cathar faith were burned en masse… some locals believe  that when the soldiers entered the space where the Cathars were captured, they had all dissappeared, perhaps ascending en masse…

let’s honor all brave souls who act in truth to power over by resounding the Cathar Creed as we imagine and be the New Jerusalem of peace conceived in love and lived in harmony, the sacred space always alive in the deepest core of the ground of being…

“It has no membership, save those who know they belong.

It has no rivals because it is non competitive.

It has no ambition – it seeks only to serve.

It knows no boundaries, for nationalisms are unloving.

It is not of itself because it seeks to enrich all groups and religions.

It acknowledges all great teachers of all the ages who have shown the truth of love.

Those who participate, practice the truth of love in all their being.

There is no walk of life or nationality that is a barrier.

Those who are, know.

It seeks not to teach, but to be, and by being, enriched.

It recognizes that the way we are may be the way of those around us because we are that way.

It recognizes the whole planet as a being of which we are a part.

It recognizes that the time has come for the supreme transmutation, the ultimate alchemical act of conscious change of the ego in to a voluntary return to the whole.

It does not proclaim itself with a loud voice, but in the subtle realms of loving.

It salutes all those in the past who have blazoned the path, but have paid the price.

It admits no hierarchy or structure, for no one is greater than another.

Its members shall know each other by their deeds and being, and by their eyes and by no other outward sign, save the fraternal embrace.

Each one will dedicate their life to the silent loving of their neighbour and environment, and the planet, will carry out their task, however exalted or humble.

It recognizes the supremacy of the great idea, which may only be accomplished if the human race practices the supremacy of love.

It has no reward to offer, either here or in the hereafter, save that of the ineffable joy of being and loving.

Each shall seek to advance the cause of understanding, doing good by stealth and teaching only by example.

They shall heal their neighbour, their community, our planet and living beings in whatever form they take.

They shall know no fear and feel no shame and their witness shall prevail over all odds.

It has no secret, no arcanum, no initiation, save that of true understanding of the power of love and that, if we want it to be so, the world will change, but only if we change.

All who belong, belong; they belong to the Church of Love.”

may we all journey along the path with heart deepening our connection to and alignment with source and our being one with beloved in this sacred moment of eternity, in every sacred moment of eternity…

welcome, well come to day 46 of  a season of peace…

two years ago i wrote about indomitable peace activist and astonishing light of being peace, Frances Crowe who had turned 100 on the ides of march and how her beloved community was celebrating her radical soul… a legend in the Pioneer Valley of  western Massachusetts, she was honored in her beloved community with 100 signs for 100 years… i was curious about how she had celebrated her 102nd continuation day and found out she had died some five and a half months after turning 100…

what a legacy she leaves and the changing of so many lives in her devotion to peace which became her cause following the bombing of Hiroshima… what can one being do to further peace? listen to what a couple of friends say about Frances…

“Frances Crowe called me in the early ‘80s to ask if I would produce “Handy Dandy,” a play by William Gibson at a theater company I was managing in Northampton.  The two-character play tells of the complex exchange — about conscience and the law — between a nun who is arrested for protesting a nuclear power plant in Cambridge and the judge she comes before. Of course, Frances related to the play since she had been —  even then — arrested innumerable times. When asked how many times, she said, “Not enough.” I agreed to produce the play, and that’s how our work together began.

In the almost 40 years I’ve known Frances, these are things I think are true: she does not suffer fools gladly and she can spot hypocrisy from miles away; she is unrelenting (persistent is an understatement); she sees what it will take others years (maybe even decades) to see; she thinks of everything she can do and then she does it. A very partial list includes showing thousands of films, handing out probably millions of leaflets and petitions, committing acts of civil disobedience and being willing to suffer the consequences; using social media like Democracy Now! before there was social media; organizing thousands of protests, public events like the first Martin Luther King, Jr. Day celebrations and the Hiroshima and Nagasaki commemorations and more. Finally, she enlists everyone she can think of to help carry out the work.”

~Lois Ahrens~

 “Working with Frances, I find that she lives exactly how she believes — leaving a small footprint and living simply so that others may simply live… Daily, I get a hands-on lesson in just how she does it…”

~Carolyn Oates~

“I met Frances Crowe on the street in Northampton before the Iraq war. She gave me that broad smile and probably a flyer. My husband, Bill, and I fell under her spell because what Frances was saying then and what she’s saying now makes sense. It’s pretty simple stuff: stop war and weapons sales; save the children — ours and theirs — from senseless suffering and death.

Bill and I had young children. Imagining planes dropping bombs on other people’s children spurred us into action. We found ourselves on the weekly vigil line, making posters, marching and traveling to protests. Frances affirmed something in me. Seeing how she made her life’s vocation the ending of war changed me. As an artist, my sculptures tended to chronicle my family and friends, but I found myself turning to art with a mission.

I’ve made a number of sculptures and drawings of Frances. She isn’t easy to capture — so much humor and passion rolled into one. One of my pieces celebrates the weekly vigil organized by the Northampton Committee to Lift the Sanctions on Iraq. I sculpted the many individuals who stood on the line, with Frances out in front, speaking to two soldiers. To Frances, everyone is worth attention, deserves respect and is worth convincing.

Frances’ passion simply washes away other concerns. She’s not bothered or constrained by her physical size, her sex or her age. Sometimes I think our instinct is to minimize these things, along with race, social class and stridency, in order to fit in. This may very well keep us from our most forceful action. But Frances uses every part of herself to advance her cause. And this is some of what it takes to make a good piece of expressionist art. A recognition that our voice and our message is more important … well, than anything. It’s nearly an act of faith that in getting the message into the world our shortcomings will actually be transformed into assets.

How is it that Frances’ welcoming, challenging message has sunk so deeply into our psyches? Every day I think we borrow a piece of her courage and conviction, the conviction that there can be a better place and a better way. For now, it may only be a place held in the mind’s eye, yet it feels real, this place of No War.”

~Harriett Diamond~

may we all journey along the path with heart deepening our connection to source and our being one with beloved in this moment, this beautiful moment…

welcome, welcome to day 46 of a season of peace and the day we celebrate the astonishing light of our being, a day of grace for me as i have luxuriated in a field of chi as many of our relatives across our beloved mother gathered in a healing field being a commonunity of care and compassion…

  and, yes, i’m aware today is the day to beware, which is short for be aware, of the ides of march… powerful winds roaring through today calling attention to the ever present spirits… portending the ending of a cycle and our embarking on a mysterious journey into the unknown… are you feeling the call of the old collapsing and the need to sing a new song of the earth?

and, is this moment of real-eye-sing we’re going thru a graduate course of impermanence on steroids feeling like we’re on a precarious precipice witnessing the call to leap off into the abyss wondering if this will be the death of us?

dear co-hearts, breathe in, breathe out… be open, be love… break open and empty… let go to flow… rupture to rapture… rhapsody of love… carries us home on the wings of a dove…

i want to close tonight as i want to close every peace from this day forward – with the tibetan light the flame prayer, a meditation on healing, on wholing the cosmos, a vibration of peace and harmony inspiring a 20 20 vision for our vaya con gaia en paz as a culture of care where all belong…

~

From today onward
Until the attainment of enlightenment
May I be willing
To live with my chaos and confusion
And that of all other sentient beings.

May I be willing
To share our mutual confusion
And work incessantly and humbly
To help and elevate everyone without exception.

~

presenced in our one cosmic heart of wisdom circle, thank you for our flowing together trusting in our power to hear our soul song and to surrender wholeheartedly to the new world of peace, love and harmony we came here to co-create…

a la la ho…

welcome, welcome to day 46 of a season of peace and the seventh day of embracing the creeping crud as we dance to the last songs of winter soulstice in this sacred space of sojourning in the desert of the heart, a journey that is quite the purification, the clean-sing in the last hours before equinox and the full moon…

as much as i am loving this baring of everything and living in an in between times consciousness, i want to get a jump on the celebrating to come…

tomorrow, when we celebrate the wild, poetically enchanting, magical Ireland, who better to hear an echo from her than her late great native son, John O’Donahue…

A Celebration Blessing

Now is the time
to free the heart,
Let all intentions and worries stop,
Free the joy inside the self,
Awaken to the wonder
of your life.

Open your eyes and see the friends
Whose hearts recognize your face as kin,
Those whose kindness watchful and near,
Encourages you to live everything here.

See the gifts the years have given,
Things your effort could never earn,
The health to enjoy who you want to be
And the mind to mirror mystery.

~

ah yes, brother john, i’ll have a gracious plenty of that and  will engage compassion to lead my actions, my words and my life…