Flowing with the river of life
On the International Day of Peace and Equinox
Dear Enchantable ones,
We returned from our trip, one foot on the ground, and with the next step, I was immediately on the conveyor belt of the semester.
Once the semester starts moving, it has that feeling of moving fast and not being in control of the movement. You’re moving forward whether you want to or not. There is no stopping until December.
There is no stopping.
It feels like a conveyor belt, or one of those people-movers at the airport. You can try to stand still, but there is no fighting it - you are still moving.
This week I decided I like the metaphor of a river better. I am flowing with the river of life. There are rapids and eddies and waterfalls and long lazy stretches.
This reminded me of an activity we did last summer at the YES! Education Transformation Jam. The activity is called The River of Life, and involves telling your life story through the image and metaphor of a river. You can find the activity in the YES! facilitator’s manual (p. 42).
Where are you in your journey along the river of life, dear reader?
Is it an eddy, some rapids, a smooth quiet stretch, a waterfall? Are there alligators, dragons, dolphins, dragonflies?
On my river of life at the moment, I am on a stretch that is moving fast. It is very full. The water is deep and wide. This kind of water could swallow you whole, and you have to be careful. But for now, we are not drowning. We are flowing, floating, head above water, if just barely. The water is dangerous but I know I have the skills to navigate it, hard-won, long-practiced skills. I need to put down any extra weight, anything I don’t absolutely need to be carrying, even things I might want to. There be dragons, and they keep coming at me fast, but I am slaying them1.
Synchonistically (thank you, universe!), I found this bookmark in a book this week while syllabus planning, a love note from Fountain Creek near Colorado Springs, Colorado:
Which piece of advice from Fountain Creek do you need to hear today?
This week I was asked/invited to organize an event on campus for International Day of Peace (September 21). I will host a gathering on Monday in which we will have a collective space for sharing songs, prayers, poems, or other creative offerings in the spirit of honoring and celebrating this day. What follows is my collection of thoughts for framing the event.
Dear beloved UPEACE Community,
Today we gather to honor International Day of Peace, which this year carries the theme of cultivating a culture of peace, in honor of the 25th anniversary of the United Nations General Assembly’s adoption of the Declaration and Programme of Action on a Culture of Peace.
Only after I agreed to host this event did I remember that I had organized the International Day of Peace celebration on campus in 2009 alongside my fellow peace education classmates (we had to do this as a class assignment, actually). We planted the tree that you can see growing in the field between the bamboo hut and the cafeteria. My contribution to the event was very similar to what I am offering today - I hosted an open mic space in the cafeteria for sharing creative offerings and bringing the community together in the spirit of peace.
I don’t actually get very excited about International Day of Peace. We’re here on a campus where working for peace every day is our mission. One day is not enough. And yet, this day is a chance for us to remember who we are, why we are here, and what we came here to do. It is a chance for us to recommit to our mission, realign ourselves with our values, and to hold and live and love the question together, “How do we cultivate a culture of peace, as a campus community and in all the communities we are a part of?”
On one hand, globally, it can feel like there is not much to celebrate. The world has been getting less peaceful. According to the Global Peace Index 2024, global peace has been deteriorating, with 100 countries having been involved in some form of external conflict in the past 5 years. We don’t need the Global Peace Index to tell us this. We can see it. On the other hand, other worlds are possible, and we have to keep trying.
Rather than a celebration, perhaps then we can think of this day as a chance to renew our commitment to work for peace, to recommit to our mission and vision and values, to enact a culture of peace here, now. A day dedicated to cultivating peace in ourselves, our community, through our thoughts, words and actions. To recommit to living and being our mission and values, to not wait until graduation to work for peace but to do it here, in your classes and relationships.
My teacher Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, who experienced first-hand the horrors of the US war in Vietnam, was exiled from his homeland, and in his exile taught about how we can cultivate peace in every breath, in every step, in every action we take. His teaching came out of this experience, and that peace is every step and his seeing that we can’t wait to build peace - we need to start right here where we are, with each step and each breath. Peace in ourselves, peace in the world, he teaches.
We can cultivate peace in how we walk across campus. We can cultivate peace in how we treat each other, by learning each other’s names and stories. We can cultivate peace by practicing courageous conflict resolution and transformation, by committing to practicing accountability and repair. We don’t need to wait to cultivate peace. In fact, we can’t wait. Please don’t wait until you graduate.
Peace starts within us, and it starts with our smallest actions and how we treat each other. At the level of culture, it starts with the norms that are guiding our behaviors, and it starts with asking the question, “How do we cultivate a culture of peace here, together?” Where in our lives, individually and collectively, are we in alignment with our values, and where might we need some adjusting?
How can we cultivate a culture of peace as a campus community is an almost impossible question to answer. It was the topic of my master’s thesis which you can find in the campus library. On one hand, we can answer it with our smallest actions and ways of being with each other. We can answer it with our attention and our care.
As I talked about in my foundations session this year: we don’t have to answer it. We can live this question and keep it alive2 together. We can love this question together.
But we can also envisioning it: how do we already experience it, and how do we want to experience it? How do we yearn for it? In naming these visions, we can call it forth into being now.
So today, in this gathering, I invite us to celebrate peace by holding this question, by recommitting to the mission and values of this institution, and cultivating a culture of peace here together. In that spirit, I’d like to open the space for songs, poems, prayers, and other offerings that will nurture this spirit of peace and community harmony.
Today is the equinox - autumn if you are in the north, spring if you are in the south, but no matter where you are on earth, it is a day of equal light and dark. A day of balance. A day of justice. A day of transition. A day that holds the possibility of equality, peace. An auspicious day.
It’s a great day to check in with our lives and see how we are doing, how we are living, how we are feeling, what we are experiencing, and what we yearn for. If you made December magic with me this year, you might check in and reflect on the fruits of your year so far, what you have harvested, what has borne fruit, what is ready for compost. You can revisit your word of the year (if you chose one) and see how it is feeling as we enter this last chapter.
My 2024 word of the year was EXPANSION, and I feel it, in my work and the way it is being received in the world, in my relational webs. At the same time, I notice that amidst expansion there is the danger of being spread too thin, of taking on too much, and of having too many things to juggle. This is its shadow side.
As we enter this last season of the calendar year, I know I will continue to expand, just based on the things on my calendar on the horizon, and yet I am very aware that I need to take an inventory on where I am spending my time and energy, and on making sure that I carve out time to shore up the walls of my container and make sure I am sturdy, solid, grounded. I will return to the energy choice and reflection exercise that I shared on Enchantable last year. I invite you to join me. The equinox is a great day to take stock! You can find the exercise in this post and on the Guides tab of Enchantable:
In cycles of regeneration, expansion is always met with contraction. This is not negative - it is balance. In the spirit of the equinox energy, I offer you the following reflection questions to inspire your journaling, drawing, or otherwise creating and pondering:
Where are you expanding? Where might you need to contract?
Where are you on the river of life? How is it flowing?
What are you harvesting? What is ripe? What is ready to compost?
Where do you feel aligned with your core values? Where might you feel a little out of alignment and needing adjustment?
Wishing you a blessed peace day every day, and a beautiful equinox day of balance. May the energies bring more harmony to your heart and the world.
With love and care,
Stephanie
This may not sound peaceful, but no actual dragons were harmed in the process of dragon-slaying this week :)
Thank you to Michelle Helman for the language of keeping it alive, which helped me connect this back to my foundations session theme.