Everyday Peacemakers

Everywhere on the farm, signs of spring are emerging—red-winged blackbirds and robins returning, chipmunks appearing from their burrows, pussy willows budding.  Life returns after the rigors of winter as the snow slowly melts away as the last virulent burst of winter storms subsides.

Spring is a promise of hope, of renewal, of starting over after winter’s hardships.  I walk the muddy lane from the barnyard to Farmstead Creamery, listening to the new sounds of bird calls in the trees, the rushing of the creek, the waking of the earth.  I know that I am so fortunate to be able to enjoy these sights and sounds and smells without the fear and chaos that engulfs fellow humans on the other side of the world.

The receding snowbanks reveal what has been hidden—broken branches from the ice storm, the broccoli box that blew away and got stuck in a snowbank, the wheel barrel you’ve been looking for.  Spring is also a time for cleaning up and sprucing up in the aftermath of winter.

Each spring, the receding snow reveals the bedraggled nature of the yarn-bombed Peace Pole that stands its vigil outside Farmstead Creamery.  After summer’s sun, autumns rains, and winter’s snow and ice, the threads are sagging, grayed, and weather-beaten.  It’s time to make a new one and freshen up the statement for peace come spring.

This year, our Peace Pole’s theme honors Ukraine, with gold and blue and sunflowers.  In the evenings, my crochet hook whirs busily, turning acrylic yarn stash into crocodile stitch petals for the sunflowers.  As I’m working, I’m thinking of folks and families who would love to be working in their gardens or in their fields this spring in Ukraine, but instead find their world torn apart by violence.  Showing our solidarity with these people and expressing our desire for peace is a small act.  But each small act is valuable as they combine and grow as everyday peacemakers.

I shared some thoughts on this in my recent Erindale Tapestry Studio fiber arts newsletter.

In these turbulent, uncertain times, I find myself thinking on the work of everyday peacemakers.  I am so fortunate to have a safe home, away from the battlefield, but I also know that the work of peacemakers is not just on the front lines.  It is right here, where we find ourselves, amongst the people we meet every day.

Creative practice is a critical part of peacemaking as it helps us to ground in present consciousness, to think of new possibilities, and to build networks of peaceful community as we share our experiences and knowledge.  So often, we can cause pain to others because we have not worked through the pain in ourselves.  The arts–especially, perhaps, tactile arts like fiber arts–gives us a tangible way to work healing in ourselves and each other through expression and gentle practice.

As a human with a desire to “make a difference,” seeing the rippling out of that peacemaking with my students not only brings great joy but builds the inner strength to carry this work forward, even as the troubles of the day weigh heavily on my mind.  My hope is that you, too, feel that rippling and energy of compassion and dedication to liberating the creative soul.

If you want to read the full newsletter, you can find it via my studio website at www.erindaletapestrystudio.com

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The work of the everyday peacemaker also carries on in the hands and hearts of those who practice regenerative agriculture—stewarding the landscape and its animals to a renewed and healed state from what has come before.  Violence can take many forms, including commodity and profit-focused means of treating the earth.  When all we wish to do is take for ourselves, we deplete once abundant resources and leave scars on the land and destruction to habitat (including our own habitat).  Regenerative methods massage the scars back to vitality and balance, taking the warzone of corporate interests and claiming the space for the ongoing process of peaceful healing.

While often we are taught that the opposite of love is hate, when we peel back the mask of hate, what we find at the root is fear.  Enveloped in fear, we push out the capacity for the intercession of lovingkindness, and cruelty becomes easy.  So many atrocities have been fueled by fear and by greed.  What is greed fueled by? —the fear of not having enough.

Standing amidst the threat of fear and choosing love, choosing healing, and choosing to continue to care is the everyday peacemaker’s act of bravery.  Bravery is not comfortable.  It is not denialist.  Instead, it trusts that, despite the sacrifices, love and truth and right-relationship to each other and the earth will prevail.  As we approach Easter weekend, and the promise it brings to us all, spend some time thinking on how you can be an everyday peacemaker in your family, in your community, in your own heart.  Let us carry that forward together.  See you down on the farm sometime.