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Dona Nobis Pacem ~ The Tundra Year
When we started peace globes in 2006, I wrote a post called The Silence of Peace about the influence of my beloved grandfather on my formative years and how he shaped the way I see the world. He's been gone a long time and I still miss him so much, but his words and actions live on through the peace globes that fly each year around the Internet world, requiring us to think about peace and what it means to us.
My mission was to see the words Dona nobis pacem (Latin for Grant us Peace) scrawled on the roughly 70 million blogs reported to exist at that time, just for one day. A simple idea of unity and intention. I was a naive new blogger, overly-ambitious, trusting in the goodness of people and the wisdom of goodness. My heart was full of expectation and joy.
Were there 70 million posts? No. But words hold power, whether seven or seventy. What happened over the years proved quality over quantity matters. We've become a lovely worldwide community of connected poets, writers and artists. When Blogging moved to many other social media platforms, the peace globes moved with them. And yet, each year, we find ourselves here again to blog for peace and share our thoughts with the world.
It's been my honor to speak peace with you all these years.
In the year 2025, I write to answer the question, 'What brings me peace?'
only to find that I've landed in the same truth. Full Circle.
Deep down on the inside of me I could feel it as I wrote it again. In 2006, I wrote about the day I first felt real peace in my life. And this year, it all came tumbling out on the blog page again, along with my tears - vivid memories, no abandon, no regret, now solidly entrenched in the core of this little blog movement. I wrote. You wrote. We all said the same thing from 214 countries and territories. Then came The Doll Box, river words, Papa's fedora and much much more.
So I honor my grandfather, my Papa, today.
Returning to the framework he built from day one, in my writer's eye I could see a wooden railing in a little country church, graced by the presence of a kneeling praying grandfather, who wore a white starched shirt and all the faith he had on his sleeve. I traveled back in time to a memory that is as clear and palpable today as it was in the 1970s and as it reappeared on this blog in 2006. What have I learned in twenty years? The.power.of.words.
One night he took me by the hand and led me to the altar with him.
He knelt down on one knee, elbow resting on the other, and silently voiced his heart. Tightly grasping my hand with his left hand, I knelt beside him, snuggled under the arm of his tweed jacket, surrounded by the presence of many such men who sought God that Fall revival night. In a country church in the middle of the middle of nowhere on a crisp autumn full moon evening, all of Heaven came to hear Papa and his friends talking to their Maker in worship and reverence.
They were surrendered.
I was mesmerized.
A buzz of spiritual language filled the room, groanings and cries, hallelujahs, amens, tears and pleas, laughter, joy, community. Then just as suddenly, and much louder ~ silence and stillness.
A Presence fell.
Is there anything more beautiful than a room full of true worshippers in unity, unashamed, locked in, gathered around a sacred wooden altar, holding court with God Almighty? I think not. I know not.
What a privilege it was to behold, to experience. My fourteen-year-old hippie-bent soul wanted more. From that day on, I ran after that feeling.
I felt the power, as undeniable as the appliqued flower-power daisy plastered to my jeans, as sweet as the smell of Papa's tobacco pipe-infused tweed coat, and as safe as the crook of his arm; the place where I loved to linger, where I learned to listen in the wee hours of a work morning as he gathered his things for the day, whispering "Dear Gracious Heavenly Father" as only a granddaughter can hear, as he lovingly lifted lyrics to Heaven on my behalf. They covered me. He covered me. Jesus covered both of us. Those words held connection to eternity. In turn, those utterings and unctions kept him reaching higher and higher. And I kept reaching for him.
Because he was the place of peace that I needed.
A place where his unconditional love yielded safety and calm.
A place where no separation exists.
He knew how to find it.
And I wanted it.
OVer the years he taught me how to find it by his example,
so that when he couldn't be with me, I could find it myself.
I know that Presence to this day, because Papa birthed it in me. He still holds my hand and I still hear his voice, rising and falling, gently squeezing my small fingers with each inhalation and nuance of prayer. Wherever the Spirit led him, I went too.
It was so holy I could barely breathe.
I've spent this entire year deliberately inserting myself into that space again. Distractions have plagued me, physical struggles have been challenging, sickness and stress. The toll on my mind and body has been significant. This has been a year of pain and falling down, only to rise and fall again, reaching for that space of quiet and strength.
I call it The Tundra Year -
a long cold winter of the soul and a short cool summer.
And yet....inside of me an arsenal of weaponry appeared, quite boldly, and firmly at my disposal. It smelled of wooden benches and tobacco tweed.
By the bedside on my knees, gently walking in the forest, weeping with frustration, calling on my Maker, hunkering down into healing Scriptures, studying remedy and science, writing, angry whining, falling again, questioning, rising and starting over.
Has your faith ever been tested in the fire? This was my year.
Then one day, just as surely as winter snow creates new intricate patterns on leaves in the forest,
a renewing of my mind fiercely began.
But it wasn't easy. The process caught up to my jagged wonky physical complexities and made the battle more intense for awhile. Like a flash of dangerous lightning attempting to disguise itself inside thunder, once more it tried to sap my strength and make me weak.
I began to say it. I am strong. I am strong. I am strong.
I began to believe it. I began to walk in it. I stopped falling down.
Until I landed in the Grace that had been there all along.
I am on a healing journey. I am strong. I am strong. I am strong. I am strong!
My journey of faith and prayer and peace began at that altar of supplication in the 70s, where I witnessed what it is, what it looks like, what it sounds like, what it feels like to focus energy and love and compassion with all your might before a Mighty Creator.
Likewise, we focus energy and love and peace and compassion with all our might on the world we share on the cusp of each November.
I am strong. I am strong. I am strong.
You must believein the power of your words. Say something. Speak right things over yourself, your family and your world. See yourself healed. See the world healed. Pray for your neighbors and your enemies. Lift your thoughts to a higher realm, where peace and rest is not only possible but expected.
Papa expected the world to change when he prayed.
So do I.
There is no other option.
Where's your altar?
Does your heart flow from there?
"Thou hast set all the borders of the earth: thou hast made summer and winter." (Psalm 74.17)
My Tundra has been no difference or worse than most everyone on the planet this year. This verse gives me courage. Papa would approve.
Why did he feel compelled to pull me to the altar with him that night? Why did he hold on so tight, forming an unbroken chain between my hand, his hand, and God's hand? It remains.
His act of love nd obedience changed the course of my life. In that moment I found God's peace for the first time in my life. Transfer. Synergy. Life-altering, Truth. Only Divine LOVE does that.
I still believe in the power of words as has been our motto for twenty years. I believe in the collective power of intention. I believe in you as you speak Dona Nobis Pacem one more time into the atmosphere. One voice. One subject. One day.
Happy 20th anniversary, Dear Peace Bloggers!
What started from a bowl of Papa's earth marbles has gathered writers and artists from all walks, religions and backgrounds speaking into each other and for our troubled world, just as Papa spoke his prayers and love into me. In summer. And in cold dark winters.
Powerful words spoken in love must make a difference ..... breathing and birthing and shaking and sifting towards change - in our own hearts first, where it always begins- until we reach the dawning of a new peace-laden world for everyone.
God speed that day and God bless each and every one of you.
All 2025 Blog4Peace participants! Leave links below and in the comments.
NOTE: 2024 links are included in this widget as well!
Welcome to the 14th launch of BlogBlast For Peace aka Dona nobis pacem in the Blogosphere.
Our theme this year is Change Your Climate. Many are choosing to write about global climate change. Others are choosing to write about the need to change their own personal climates in order to create peaceful spaces for themselves ( ie: eliminating stress, self-care). I have chosen the latter.
Please sign the Mr. Linky at the end of this post so that others may visit you and see the beautiful peace globes throughout the Blogosphere. Remember to tag me on Facebook or wherever you are on social media. Thank you for being a part of this community of peace bloggers. Your words are powerful and important to all of us. May we lift and encourage in our quest for a peaceful more sustainable planet earth. Grant us peace!
Bathing In Persimmon Trees
As she got older and more introspective, my mother would spontaneously start talking about random things from her faraway childhood. On this day, she began to weave invisible spinning yarn in the air in front of her. "There are these threads....you see....threads...." as her hands moved in and around them, making sense of mysteries in her mind, weaving and talking as she spun, connecting branch to branch to branch. Except she wasn't really sitting there with me. She was somewhere back in time playing dodgeball with the curse.
Like shadows on trees in a cemetery, cast long from eons of time and generation, I had always seen them.
If you want to go mad,
cover them up.
If you want to break the curse,
stand in the Light.
Generational threads can tie together what desperately needs to be broken. They are inherently binding and strong.
Made of flax. Faith. Fiber. Custom. Tradition. Tribe. Toxicity. Untruth.
Even and especially love. Whether they remain tied and woven into the next generation depends not on the strength of the cotton, but on the spinning of the pattern. Twisted legacies take whole life spans to unspin. It requires laser-sharp discernment and a willingness to plant a new field. To begin a better story. Harvesting new tribes is not for the faint-of-heart. My mother was anything but faint.
And that's when I began to remember...
warm water washing down my back.
I felt the heaviness of long tangled hair.
Soap.
And her hands in my hair.
Scrubbing and soothing at the same time. Bare feet on a dark linoleum speckled floor, bent over the kitchen sink in the middle of a fifties wood frame in the heat of summer and the only running water in the house. Daddy hadn't finished the bathroom yet.
My mother stood untangling the mane that was always tangled and drying me off with a ragged towel.
And then I started to cry
Uncontrollably. Sobs from an eight-year-old that should never be heard by a mother.
She knew. I could see it in her eyes. She knew. From the covering of shame I felt underneath the thinness of fabric that could not cover could not cover could not cover the confusion and tremble of a skinny little girl who had just been reminded of more than innocent suds running down the back of a dark-haired freckle-faced me with grownup questions swirling in her mangled head.
She looked straight into the dripping freckles and raised her eyes to meet mine.
It was my mother's greatest gift to me.
Unwavering trust. Unquestioning acceptance. She believed what I was about to tell her before I said it. I can still taste the shampoo on my lips and see the horror in her eyes, the quiver in my voice. I remember the way my eyes wanted to only stare at the linoleum while she gathered herself. Standing there dripping in a torn towel while she called someone to tell them what she'd seen in her daughter's eyes.
I never had to see him again.
She saw to it.
She sacrificed family and relationships to protect me.
Had she chosen to look the other way, I am sure without a shadow of an oak tree doubt, I would have crumpled into a broken twig on the sudsy floor and never recovered.
Instead, it was the moment that defined me.
In the deepest part of me that day, she taught me to trust the sacred places that no one should touch. I owned every nook and crevice again before she even finished with the tender drying
because my mother believed me
she gave me permission to trust myself
She had no idea that she'd just given me my voice.
Of all the trials that came later - our arguments, her quirky temper, my stubbornness - our differences growing wider in the middle of our lives, then circling back to unconditional love, as happens with mothers and daughters - I'm not sure she ever fully recovered from the sadness of that moment.
Threads
You see them, don't you Mimi?
I wanted so much to know her and understand her better and all that mysterious weaving in the spirit. Those strands had names. They had stories. But there wasn't time and she was gone. What made her so unbreakable? What stopped her from untying the last piece of tangled life and freeing herself? What kind of woman knows by instinct and love how to run straight into battle for her daughter? That's the indestructible mother I longed to fully know.
When I felt she had no faith in my endeavors or no understanding of my independence, in hindsight, now, I wonder if the moment under the towel defined the way she would forever try to keep me from straying too far into unfamiliar territory. As I spread my wings to fly away, perhaps her holding on was the only way of protecting me. Perspective.
I went through some things this year that broke my heart. Multitudes of unkindness and wholly undignified days. But the more vile they became, the more grace I received.
My body is recalibrating. Balancing. Resetting. Changing my climate, my environment, is not just necessary for peace of mind, it's mandatory for my survival.
I am ready to put this decade behind me but not without the wisdom it contains.
Standing under the canopy of trees gives me courage and strengthens my vulnerability - that delicate balance between authenticity and prudence. It resembles the act of protection and trust. Intimacy and connection. You might not have a lifetime or even a decent swath of moments like these with the people you love.
But it only takes one.
Divine grace echoes on the walls of my heart.
My mother's grace reverberates decades later.
And she is the reason that I can stand uncovered in a field of persimmon trees
without fear
without shame
without scars
I finally learned to accept all our twisted roads and fallen places. How she tried to exhume the genesis of those invisible threads in her hands, never quite finding where the first broken piece began and the last continued.
You see them, don't you Mimi?
She died before she could unravel all the threads
But she deposited in me just enough spitfire to keep my end of the peace treaty intact:
To leave the untelling on the kitchen floor
To live without hiding behind trees
To forgive those who want to see me broken
To be open and brave when your words need wording
and to be loud in the most vulnerable of places
and that's why I need trees
Had you told me a year ago that people can feel energy from trees, I would have silently patted you on the head and sent you on your way. And yet, since her death six months ago, I find myself running to the forest on my mountain, sitting for hours in the sanctuary of their branches. Breathing in oxygen. Absorbing life into the cells of my stress-laden body.
Finding the Mother trees. They shelter the young saplings and strategically branch out in directions that give them the most nourishment from the sun.
Did you know there are mother trees?
We are made stronger when we understand where we came from
when we uncover what is hurting us
We discover which branches are strong and which need pruning.
I am learning to be thankful for the miles of memories that created me
Welcome to the 2018 launch of Blog4Peace. We are an international group of bloggers and social media gurus who promote the cause of peace on our blogs, websites and pages. Click one of the links above to get your own peace globe and join us. It's an amazing day on the Internet! Our theme this year is the power of words. Here's my peace post. I'll be by soon to read yours!
Words in Blue Kyanite
If there are stories to be told in heaven, let them be these.
Let them be told as these have been told. Let verse and lyric rhyme as old saints do on the eve of great awakenings. Lean your ear toward what matters most and listen as spirits mutter sacred texts and beautiful songs. Stretched across the throne of the world from the top of heaven's doorstep, words can still reach earth. Stretched across the world's doorstep in many homes and hovels today, words can still reach heaven. And you will say them again. And again. And again. That's what storytellers do.
That's what peace bloggers do.
For you see, words are not only powerful for the content and wisdom they bring to bear; they are powerful for the reason they came to bear.
There is no great catharsis, no sudden shift in the universe, no real progressive change in the world without storytellers. And you thought your chapter was over? Let me tell you something...it doesn't end until you tell it to end.
He had this twinkle you see....A spark of something that resided deep inside the brilliance of his mind. Something that glowed with kindness, documenting years on earth like centimeter markings on a ruler. My Papa. He is the one who inspired me to write in the first place. He is the one who left me with an earth marble full of continents and rivers and mountains. He left me the whole world.
And his hammer.
Words are not the only tools we have. He needed it to make things. I need it to smash my fingers. He understood hammers. I do not.
.
I've been asking him lately, in my dreams and in my mind, what story he wants to tell today on November 4th, because he always give me a nudge. And all I am hearing from him is that he wants me - and you - to tell our stories. Now. Not his. Ours.
It is the most basic of human needs - the power and joy of connection. Of being heard. Of being heard!!! Not because someone is shouting, anyone can start a movement if they're loud enough, but because purposeful intent behind mightily built well-chosen words is strong enough to make a whisper ripple across seven continents and twenty-five rivers and still be understood on the highest mountain peak a thousand miles away.
That's what Papa's marble did for me.
That's what your words do for the world each and every year.
And while there was serendipity and more than a few God winks to get the ball rolling (so to speak), the discovery of the marble only served to help me understand that in this life there are no coincidences.
Every person you meet brings their energy, their intent, right smack-dab into your personal space...sometimes so close you want to (and should) run away and hide from it when things don't feel right. That is discernment. Others bring the healing you need when you didn't even know you needed to call a healer.
That is grace.
Which brings me to my friend.
It happened at the beginning of a new school year.
I bent over in agony when I heard the news, so unexpected it was, so cutting. It was a physical pain in the caverns of my body. I could hear the bones break in my brain. I didn't expect to feel her loss so viscerally. Peacefully housed in pine she lay weeping and exhausted no more. She was free. I was not.
I was afraid.
And angry
Let's be real. My life was full of complaining. And whining. And posturing. And planning. And pondering. And procrastinating. And even whining to myself that complaining would do me in. I was even tired of my own complaining! I've been tired and exhausted this year. Not.peaceful.at.all.
And there she was. Asleep forever in a cold pine box full of peace. Not even fifty years old. My heart broke for the losses and pain she endured on planet earth.
I was at the crossroads between terror and panic. Would I be next? Would my body betray me as well? Can I live up to the example of courage she set? Could I maintain this pace and keep my health intact? After all, she was the strongest person I knew. Heart-stopping, constricting air-depleting suffocation. Did I mention the fear? Even so, I felt guilty for focusing on myself when it wasn't about me at all.
What was her story? She spoke loudly from the pine box. The silence was maddening. Knock it off, Mimi, and listen up! I can't remember one single meeting, one single instance, one day or second or smile that was wasted on her. She made me better and sometimes made me mad doing it. Oh, but she didn't know it. And she had no patience for my histrionic nature. She didn't waste time worrying about how other people perceived her, whether or not she hurt your feelings, or how you arrived at any conclusion without her. She was too busy living strongly while she was dying slowly.
You knew you were in the presence of someone who knew what it meant to inhale and exhale with intent every single day. You knew, somehow you knew, that time spent with her were masterclasses in how to live fully.
Could there be a better time to shake up the world than on the day you decide to die? She shook up my world! Yes, I said decide. I know that I know that I know (as my grandmother would say) that some people decide it is their day to die. Ascended gurus manage to mark the hour quite regularly. When it's time for the body to give up its usefulness, it's time to give up the ghost and take up a new identity somewhere else.
And so my friend became my catalyst for change in a year that began in fear. That happens when you see someone you just talked to reposing in a pine box too soon.
**Excuse me, Miss Pencil Skirt, said the doctor...but I don't think you're breathing quite right**
Fear is a simply a jumping off place.
"What you do in this moment will determine everything," whispered the Voice of reason.
I decided to change my words.
Starting with my thinking
I wrote pages of self-talk: I will not tolerate pity. I will not tolerate blame. I will not tolerate complaining. I will not abide negativity. I will not entertain anger. I will not surrender to bitterness. I can breathe I can breathe I can breathe I can breathe....
"Gather your strength," whispered Spirit. "Gather strength for yourself." I wanted to live well. I needed to love myself well enough to gather my strength and heal.
Those who live well, by default love well.
Pyrophyllite
I mean the kind of love that makes you sweat, requires your blood, makes you live in it, slog through it, talk about it, wade in it, fall down under the weight of it until you can't even breathe because that devastating love is so full of itself.
Have you ever come to a pivotal moment in your life when days were so dreary you'd rather feel something than nothing at all? Your lungs are tight from holding back the light that so desperately wants to get in...but you can't exhale well enough to inhale? Stress will do that to a person. At least that's what the doctor told me. What? What?? I can't breeeaaatheee?? "No, Miss Pencil Skirt, something seems to be affecting your lung capacity."
This is not what you want to hear the day before you go to a funeral.
**raises hand**
I think I need to call a healer.
I didn't understand the world until I was sixty-years-old.
It was then that understanding became too soft a word for the depth of knowing residing in the bones of six decades on earth.
It was more like burning lava cooled by the flames of tea leaves.
I love leaves
When my Papa was in his early sixties, he fell on the kitchen floor and took his last breath. Just like that. Suddenly. Without premeditation or fanfare. His lungs collapsed and the poison inside caused a massive crumble of tissue and structure. He was gone before his head hit the floor.
Kyanite blue in pyrophyllite stone
I never knew he couldn't breathe. There was a ticking time bomb inside the man whose heart was overshadowed by a pair of lungs full of pyrophyllite dust. He never told me he couldn't breathe! I always thought he'd die of arthritis. Or working too hard. Or loving too much. I never dreamt he'd fall in a heap of poisoned air and give up the ghost on the kitchen floor.
Look familiar?
He was too busy living to die of sensible causes.
All he did was love me.
In large loud bouts of contagious love.
His love was all I heard.
It. Was. All. He. Said.
Papa worked in a pyrophyllite plant (think talc) back in the day before it was safe to mine or breathe dust particles from the clay or work with the intensely heated kilns which were to used to mold particles for commodities like furniture. It caused fibrosis in some and unknown lung ailments in many. I didn't know Papa couldn't breathe. Apparently, neither did he.
He just kept living. And loving everyone around him. Until he decided to fall on the kitchen floor.
Kyanite
That one blue marble in the center of the bowl - yes, that one - is Kyanite, infused with and altered by pyrophyllite. It is a metamorphic mineral found in sedimentary rocks within soapstone mines in the southern United States, Brazil, New South Wales, Australia, India and Kenya. It contains aluminum silicate (hence the silent poison).
Kyanite gets its name from the Greek words for fire and leaf. Tonight I have discovered that this same blue stone has crystal healing properties especially in the throat area near the bronchial tubes. I know little to nothing about the realm of gemstone metaphysics, but I do respect the power of Earth and the ancient wisdom of chakra healing.
**You can't breathe said the doctor You can't breathe said the doctor*
I never knew I couldn't breathe until they told me I couldn't breathe!! Has this ever happened to you?
And what other silent gift did he pass on to us?
Pyrophyllite is also known as "Pencil Stone" (said The Pencil Skirt) and has been used to enhance writing abilities, helps to speak one's truth with clarity and brings balance to all the Chakras.
So you see, that wonderful blue marble we've gazed at since 2006 might well be one of the reasons that peace bloggers feel compelled to write. On some deep spiritual level we feel it.
It's alright if you don't believe that. I've just unearthed this myself (so to speak). But doesn't it make sense? That blue stone became something beautifully rare and healing to all of us.
Papa's intent was good.
Papa's intent became our words.
Papa's destiny is still evolving.
I want mine to do the same.
Don't you?
It wasn't so much what he said throughout the years to his curly-headed, hardheaded granddaughter that made the cataclysmic shift in my DNA; it was the unspoken life of a simple man too busy living a simple life he loved to die conveniently proper.
I want to die inconveniently improper too.
I think I just found my healer
While Papa harvested dust and clay, he fashioned a symbol of the world for a granddaughter he couldn't have known would ever even exist. Harvesting and working in the dust of those stones eventually led to his death. For him to pass this treasure on to me - to us - is surely more than coincidence. It illustrates how every single act we do on planet earth has a consequence, often far-reaching and seismic in nature.
Please leave your peace globe links in the Mr. Linky below OR in the comment section. Tag me on Facebook at https://facebook.com/mimilenox Welcome to Blog4Peace 2018 Please visit each other and feel the power of this amazing day.
Your peace globe and post will be assigned a number and placed in the Official Gallery at blog4peace.com. By participating in Blog4Peace you agree that your peace globe designs and links may be displayed on other social sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Digg, etc and shared across the Blogosphere wherever peace bloggers are found online, in the name of world peace and in the spirit of promoting this work. They may also be used in printed works and publications online and elsewhere by the founder of this movement, Mimi Lenox, in creating published works about the Blog4Peace movement.
Every effort will be made to credit, notify and obtain permission from the artist if and when the design on your peace globe template is chosen to be featured in printed works, books, or online publications.
If you do NOT want your peace globe design shared and made accessible to others, let me know the day it is submitted or simply submit an anonymous unsigned peace globe.
Otherwise, please understand that this movement is all about spreading the message.
Thank you for being part of this incredible community of peace bloggers.
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It is perfectly alright to SHARE via share buttons on social media sites from this blog. These beautiful creations and words should be seen and heard in the Blogosphere. However, images and links on this website may not be copied, downloaded or redistributed offline in printed works for profit or elsewhere online for profit without express permission of the blog author, Mimi Lenox. Uses other than sharing from a Share button is a violation of copyright.
We launched the 2012 BlogBlast4Peace season with a trip to the shore (real and virtual). I am already on the Atlantic. If you were here with us July 12 at sunset, even in spirit, then you were a part of the 2012 launch for BlogBlast4Peace. I can think of no better way to announce our November 4th campaign than a designated time for all to bring the same thoughts and vibes to the table....er...ocean. Then it won't be just me making an announcement. It will be all of us. I like it! Facebook Event page ishere. It was a great success. Thank you. Let the peace begin.
Take a peace globe graphic from this blog and post it on your blog or social media page. Title your post "Dona nobis pacem" (grant us peace). Write about peace and/or simply fly the symbol. That's it.
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Over 39,000 Fans from 214+ countries/territories and every continent on the planet are on the Facebook page. Joining us daily and on Nov 4. Incredible!
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