What Topic will I Choose?
As I contemplated the topic for our next Women’s Grounding Retreat, I glanced over my bookshelves and on-line literature. I meditated and asked to be shown the right topic and the month it should be held. I went to YouTube to listen to the music of Bob Sima, a favorite singer/songwriter and fellow ADL minister. One of his songs clearly came forth- “The Movers the Shakers and the Peacemakers” jumped off the screen and demanded that I listen to it. His song has clips of Peace Pilgrim speaking about her life’s work -a pilgrimage to help cause peace to predominate in the world. I continued down the “rabbit hole’ discovering more and more compelling work on the topic of peace. I found Dr. Maya Angelou’s poem she wrote for the 2005 White House tree-lighting ceremony.
Maya Angelou’s beautiful poem, “Amazing Peace”, calls us to use the season as a platform to go within, see the possibility and together, call on peace to come to the world.
I call on all women to come and join in this peace-making experience. We are the Peacemakers! This retreat will be held in December as this is the season of peace and light. In this season of Peace, I invite you to join me as we light the candle of peace within our own hearts and let the light of Peace shine out into our world. During the retreat we will honor women who have come before us with a mission to bring peace to the world, participate in a World Peace Circle and Light ceremony, learn and participate in astral travel to bring peace to other areas of the planet, go within for a Mindful Movement experience with Barbara Pastie and more. Continental breakfast and light lunch provided.
Women’s Grounding Retreat
Theme: Women- We are the Peacemakers
December 9, 2023 9am-5pm
East Nassau, NY
For more information and to Register for this event go to: Rippleeffectspiritualtherapies.org
Amazing Peace: A Christmas Poem
By Dr. Maya Angelou
Thunder rumbles in the mountain passes
And lightning rattles the eaves of our houses.
Flood waters await us in our avenues.
Snow falls upon snow, falls upon snow to avalanche
Over unprotected villages.
The sky slips low and grey and threatening.
We question ourselves.
What have we done to so affront nature?
We worry God.
Are you there? Are you there really?
Does the covenant you made with us still hold?
Into this climate of fear and apprehension, Christmas enters,
Streaming lights of joy, ringing bells of hope
And singing carols of forgiveness high up in the bright air.
The world is encouraged to come away from rancor,
Come the way of friendship.
It is the Glad Season.
Thunder ebbs to silence and lightning sleeps quietly in the corner.
Flood waters recede into memory.
Snow becomes a yielding cushion to aid us
As we make our way to higher ground.
Hope is born again in the faces of children
It rides on the shoulders of our aged as they walk into their sunsets.
Hope spreads around the earth. Brightening all things,
Even hate which crouches breeding in dark corridors.
In our joy, we think we hear a whisper.
At first it is too soft. Then only half heard.
We listen carefully as it gathers strength.
We hear a sweetness.
The word is Peace.
It is loud now. It is louder.
Louder than the explosion of bombs.
We tremble at the sound. We are thrilled by its presence.
It is what we have hungered for.
Not just the absence of war. But, true Peace.
A harmony of spirit, a comfort of courtesies.
Security for our beloveds and their beloveds.
We clap hands and welcome the Peace of Christmas.
We beckon this good season to wait a while with us.
We, Baptist and Buddhist, Methodist and Muslim, say come.
Peace.
Come and fill us and our world with your majesty.
We, the Jew and the Jainist, the Catholic and the Confucian,
Implore you, to stay a while with us.
So we may learn by your shimmering light
How to look beyond complexion and see community.
It is Christmas time, a halting of hate time.
On this platform of peace, we can create a language
To translate ourselves to ourselves and to each other.
At this Holy Instant, we celebrate the Birth of Jesus Christ
Into the great religions of the world.
We jubilate the precious advent of trust.
We shout with glorious tongues at the coming of hope.
All the earth's tribes loosen their voices
To celebrate the promise of Peace.
We, Angels and Mortal's, Believers and Non-Believers,
Look heavenward and speak the word aloud.
Peace. We look at our world and speak the word aloud.
Peace. We look at each other, then into ourselves
And we say without shyness or apology or hesitation.
Peace, My Brother.
Peace, My Sister.
Peace, My Soul.