High on Happiness

Posts Tagged ‘peace’

Pick a getaway place to go in your mind when the stresses of life bear down.  Fill it with sunlight and a soft breeze.   Imagine it goes on for miles, and that here there is no time.

Fill your lungs with its soft, light air.  Imagine hidden flowers and singing birds who wear the colors of a sunrise.  Stretch yourself into its spaciousness; drink its peace.

This world is yours alone.  No one can take it from you.  And every time you come here, it becomes more real, and you become freer.

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The sun’s birthday is behind us;
the New Year’s yet to come.
Take a little winter nap,
and dream sweet dreams, my son.

Ahead are grand adventures,
bright sun and sparkling snow.
But all things move in cycles,
and now’s the time for slow.

Let your breath flow softly;
close your lovely eyes.
Let your sweet dreams sail like clouds
across the winter skies.

Wrap yourself in comfort,
be warm and filled with peace.
You are safe and cared for;
my watching shall not cease.

Sleep like fallen leaves
on the bosom of the earth.
Then wake refreshed and rested,
and greet the hours with mirth.

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Oh, the fantasies that fill the air this magical, wondrous night!  The wee ones can hardly go to sleep, and the grown-ups push sleep away as they finish casting their spells.

Visions of sugarplums dance on the wind, and reindeer fly the skies.  And legends come alive.  Oh yes, legends become alive and true.

And hearts are filled with hope and with dreams, and souls are filled with light.  And even those on whom sorrow falls feel the love beneath all their longing.

And all our dreams rise: may our best hopes come true.  May there be peace and happy endings.

And high above, the twinkling stars shine, and the Great Yes bows down to enfold us.

The big flock of geese that had surrounded him all morning had flown to the far side of the lake.  Now he and one small wood duck had the place to themselves.

He reveled in the silence.  It wasn’t that he disliked the geese.  He thought they were magnificent creatures, possessed of such grace and strength.  They were funny, too, and their antics often made him laugh.  But oh, the noise they made!

The waters of the lake had stilled after the geese left.  Barely a ripple marred the painted reflection of the wooded hill that bordered the lake’s banks as he paddled slowly across its surface, taking it all in.  He could hear the invisible singing of the trees and he tasted the fragrance of their fallen leaves and felt the light dancing all around him.

But it wasn’t only the stillness, or the colors.  It wasn’t only the song or the fragrance or the light, although they were a part of it.  Deep inside, something else, something even more beautiful than the world was growing.   He listened to it closely as he floated on the waters.  It felt like dawn.  It felt like a connection to something wonderful that somehow filled everything.

He glanced up to the wide and limitless sky and thought about the way it held the sun and moon and stars and all the changing colors of the day.  This beauty that was birthing itself within him felt like that, limitless and wide and holding all things.

And his heart was glad, and he swam through the painted waters, filled with peace.

We speak of comfort in terms of pleasure: hot dinners, warm socks, cold water, clean sheets.   And so it is.

We speak of it a soothing balm in our hours of grief, anxiety and pain.  And it is this, too.

It is all that brings release and relief, that restores our peace, that mends our separation and returns our joy.  It travels in silence like the dawn.  Like the dawn, it is a vehicle of light.

Comfort is love’s great verb, the motion of its compassion, sent to bring us peace, to remind us that always and everywhere, we are dear and we are known.

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After the storm, peace washes in.   The elements repent.   Raindrops fall like forgiveness from the leaves.

The ground is saturated with tears.  They puddle in the low places.  But the healing winds will lift them, like prayers, into the air, and the deep earth absorb what remains.

Tomorrow the sun’s rays will cut with ease through an atmosphere cleansed of tension.   Flowers will open their shy petals.  Children will laugh in the streets.

Although everything has changed, stars will still twinkle in the heavens tonight and the waxing moon glow brightly in the sky.

We see, you know, such a small portion of the vast All.   Let your heart spin untroubled dreams.  The mystery is greater than we know.  But this is sure: we are known, and we are loved.

In little pockets here and there, tucked far away from strife, bullfrogs croak and sunflowers grow wild.

A thousand long-legged water bugs scurry in circles on the creek’s glassy surface, playing tag with the trout.

Squirrels gather hickory nuts.  Deer sleep in the tall grasses.  Wild turkeys feast on seeds.

Joy sings through the voices of frogs and birds and crickets.  And though mankind’s world is rocked with turmoil, here lives the reminder that peace is possible, and life is good.

From the midst of her prickly world, the thistle sends forth her soft wishes.  “May my children grow in sweet soil,” she whispers.  “May they be nurtured and become strong.”

She dreams of her own days in the sun, of the mornings filled with birdsong, of the soft tickle of bees’ feet as they came to drink her nectar.   “May they know joy,” she croons, releasing the feathery seeds to the breeze.

Hers, of course, are the wishes of parents everywhere.  She sings for us all.  “May they know peace.  May they be free of danger.  May they have children of their own.”

She watches them float away, glistening in the afternoon sun.  “May they know how beautiful they are,” she breathes.  “May they know how deeply they are loved.”

All across the globe, in every land, Earth keeps places that few ever see, magical reserves, small patches of the Garden.

If you should come across one on a day when your heart was untroubled and you mind free of care, you might find yourself stopping, caught by its power.

Something about it would make you want to breathe deeply, as if you were inhaling an extraordinary peace.

The child in you might want to run headlong into its spaces, full of gladness and shouting, “Home! Home!”  And yet you would hardly dare move, lest you disturb it somehow.

These are the places that hold the calm for the world.  They cleanse and balance the stresses of the deadening cities, the crowded thoroughfares, the torn homes.  They hold the earth tones of the Great Yes and breathe them into the breezes.

And the breezes go forth and wend their way through all Earth’s villages and towns.  And they sing the song to the hearts of all her creatures:  “All is well.  Be at peace.  You are loved.”