Peace – Page 2 – Cathy's Blog!

Posted on June 19, 2025 by Cathy Edgett

How We Meet What Comes

The following poem comes from Stefan Laeng who read it at his meditation class on Tuesday. It is by the late great German comedian Hanns Dieter Hüsch (who was born not far from the birthplace of Charlotte Selver, our teacher of Sensory Awareness,). It’s his translation with the German original below.

When the soldiers come

Lure them onto the roof of the dove

Lure them into the nest of the swallow

Lure them into the cave of the lioness

Lure them into the forest of the deer.

Approach them with open hands

Full of bread, and salt, and fruit, and wine

So that they loose their way in the brushwood of your virtues;

So that they get lost in the maze of your friendliness.

Let them be amazed.

Let their generals and presidents be ashamed.

Let their henchmen run aground.

Be a lowland of courtesy

Intelligence be your weapon

Patience be your strength

Love be your narrative

Your silence be your victory

So that the governors marvel greatly.*

* Some of you may recognize this as a biblical reference. Matthew 27:14

In German:

Wenn die Krieger kommen
Look sie auf’s Dach der Taube
Lock sie in’s Nest der Schwalbe
Lock sie in die Höhle der Löwin
Lock sie in den Wald der Rehe.

Geh ihnen entgegen mit offenen Händen

Voll Brot und Salz und Obst und Wein.
Dass sie sich verlaufen im Knüppelholz deiner Tugenden
Dass sie sich verirren im Labyrinth deiner Freundlichkeit.

Mach sie staunen.
Beschäme ihre Generäle und Präsidenten
Lass ihre Handlanger in’s Leere laufen
Sei eine Tiefebene voll Höflichkeit.

Dein Gewehr sei die Klugheit
Deine Kraft sei die Geduld
Deine Geschichte sei die Liebe
Dein Sieg sei dein Schweigen
So dass sich die Landpfleger sehr verwundern.

Posted on May 21, 2025 by Cathy Edgett

Peace in Every Step

Stunned by the political news I turn to Tricycle Magazine and an article by Lewis Richmond, titled The Power of a Quiet Life.

He describes a time in June 1982 when the nuclear freeze march took place in New York City to protest the “then-burgeoning specter of nuclear war between the US and Russia”. It was a major event with the route cleared so the crowd of more than a million people could walk from the UN Plaza north to Central Park, a walk of nearly two miles.

Fourteen were chosen to walk in the front. One was Thich Nhat Hanh who gestured to the other thirteen to link arms. He led the pace with his slow walk, the way he always walked. This pace wasn’t part of the plan and at this pace, the city of New York would come to a halt. Thich, who during the Vietnam War, survived all sides and factions wanting to kill him, was resolute. He stayed with his pace as the monitors directed people to stream on both sides of the line of fourteen people. The fourteen who began the march, kept their mindful pace and were the last to arrive at the finish line.

Richmond writes: “We walked, arms still linked, the way Thich Nhat Hanh wanted us to walk, the way Buddha surely walked when he was in the world. Thich Nhat Hanh made the Buddha come to life that day.”

Thich Nhat Hanh: ‘Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet’.

Posted on March 6, 2024 by Cathy Edgett

Dreams

The rain continues and my dreams these days are about children, saving the children. I’ve been spending time with my four year old grandson, so perhaps that’s part of it, seeing his innocence and division into “good guys” and “bad guys” and wondering how we might navigate balance and come to peace.

He was into swords for a time, but now he has become Robin Hood so the swords have become a bow and arrow and he wears them on his back tucked into his Robin Hood mask and shirt.

The two of us were at Coyote Point this week, and I was intrigued with this sign. I had no idea how close we came to imitating the East coast with our own Coney Island and Atlantic City. The pungent odor of sewage dumped into the bay saved us from that.

He draws himself in the sand – a perfect likeness

Posted on December 21, 2023 by Cathy Edgett

Solstice

It’s a day to pause as the light begins to shift and we prepare to enter a new year.

May this be the year we move into the heart of longing for peace and release the tools and words of war.

I watched a video of the poet Jane Hirshfield last night. She spoke of how Kinship will save us, the acknowledgment of our interconnection. Perhaps we could say to every tree we pass: sister, sister, sister. We can ask our natural friends, our relatives, the mountains and plants, what they can teach us. This is a time to listen.

I’ve always loved the work of Alexander Calder, his mobiles and circuses. Jane was asked if darkness is required in great art. She used his work as an example of such lightness, beauty, and happiness that reflection is required to find the mortality. It’s in the delicacy of his creations. They move and sway, fragile in their time here, as are we.

The psychologist Carl Jung wrote: The whole world wants peace and the whole world prepares for war.

May this be the year we acknowledge our kinship and grow the heart of our desire for peace and the wind and breath chimed grace of love.

Here is the link to the talk if you’re interested:

Posted on June 7, 2023 by Cathy Edgett

Connection

Our family gathered on a ranch 1000 feet above Half Moon Bay to celebrate Steve’s 75th birthday.

Fire in the custom fireplace morning and night

Prayer flags wave in a Tibetan temple above us

Posted on March 6, 2023 by Cathy Edgett

Perception

I wake and think I can’t see until I put my contacts in or put glasses on but I actually can see. The cataract and lens replacement surgery worked, and I’m slowly coming to believe it. It’s clear when I drive. I see road signs and lines that were blurs before. The world is edged with invitations I missed.

Sitting on the couch at home, I realized there is a gap in one tree and I can see through to the ridge, and yet I’m still in a somewhat state of disbelief as it’s become so clear how we create our world and focus.

I’m reading Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book Lyndon Johnson and The American Dream. It’s a fascinating look at all he accomplished and how influenced he was by his environment, parents and grandparents. We all are, of course, whether it’s to absorb, or push against, but he did what he did because of it, and then came to an inability to adapt. This issue of response is often with me. How do I respond to what comes now and now and now?

My iris plant isn’t yet blooming but I resonate to this poem and how when the flowers emerge I’ll see little vases holding flowers perhaps infinitum like fractals. I’m opening to see life the same way as patterns of curiosity open, close, and merge, like night and day.

This poem is from Billy Collin’s poetry book “Musical Tables”.

Argument from Design

Six petals on each iris,

every other one

with a small yellow streak,

which resembles a tiny vase,

holding a few flowers of its own.

Bridging the clouds, water, and ground –

Posted on March 25, 2022March 25, 2022 by Cathy Edgett

A Pause

I remove Poetry of Presence, An Anthology of Mindfulness Poems from the shelf and the book opens to this poem by Fudy Joudah.

Mimesis

My daughter

wouldn’t hurt a spider

That had nested

Between her bicycle handles.

For two weeks

She waited

Until it left of its own accord.

If you tear down the web I said

It will simply know

This isn’t a place to call home

And you’d get to go biking.

She said that’s how others

Become refugees isn’t it?

Posted on February 28, 2022 by Cathy Edgett

Language

This 2017 essay is excerpted from Words for War; New Poems from Ukraine.

Ilya Kaminsky is an amazing poet and here he writes about what language means, what poetry means to us all.

Ilya Kaminsky on Ukrainian, Russian, and the Language of War

Posted on February 2, 2022 by Cathy Edgett · 2 Comments

Today is 2 Day

Not only is it Groundhog’s Day, but it’s February 2, 2022, so 2-2-22.

And if we pause at 2:22 today, we’ll be in a lineup with twos as though entering an Ark.

And with that, I bring forth Pema Chodron’s words from This Sacred Journey:

My children met the Sixteenth Karmapa when they were teenagers, and I asked him if he’d say something to them. I said to him, “The children are not Buddhists, so is there something you could say to them with that in mind?” He just looked right at these young teenagers and said, “You are going to die. And you’re not going to take anything with you except your state of mind.” You die, but your state of mind continues. So how we work with our thoughts right now really matters.

And right now I’m thinking of the number 2 as a place of balance and harmony.

Posted on February 1, 2022 by Cathy Edgett

The Lunar New Year

Today the Lunar New Year begins the Year of the Tiger. The tiger gives people hope and is associated with bravery, courage, and strength. It’s a time to wear red for good luck and to ward off evil spirits. It feels like Christmas to me, a time for birth and honoring our time on earth.

I’m with this quote of G.K. Chesterton:

What was wonderful about childhood is that anything in it was a wonder. I was not merely a world full of miracles; it was a miraculous world.

I invite that now.

One thing I’m noticing is the importance of looseness in the lips, shoulders, and armpits. Do we allow breathing under our arms, the flow out from the heart? Do we taste the freedom blooming there?

I came across a poem I wrote a few years ago and it guides me now, this early morning, as I rise to welcome this new day and year. I shine in the early morning dark.

Lighthouse to myself,

Armpits open to air, shine

Beacon inside out

When Thich Nhat Hanh and his followers walked in a Peace March, others passed them, as they were walking slowly and mindfully and being peace, but then, they were shown a shortcut, and they arrived first. Life can be like that, pure ease, when we embody interbeing, and live as a torch or lighthouse of peace. The moon is new; may we be too.