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Sunday, November 4, 2018

Dona Nobis Pacem ~ 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 decideI 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. 

Image result for pyrophyllite images
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. 
Kyanite crystals.jpg
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. 

 All I remember was that he loved me
and that was enough

He didn't have to say a word
That is the power
of words laid carefully round in blue Kyanite 
 
Jamie White ~ Washington

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Welcome to Blog4Peace 2018
Please visit each other and feel the power of this amazing day.






Some of the Blog 4 Peace 2018 Participants
1. Mimi Lenox
2. Animal Shelter Volunteer Life
3. Princesita Parungao
4. Marlene Borst
5. Shannon's Moments of Introspection
6. Cora van Leeuwen
7. Silvia Hoefnagels
8. Crow's Feet
9. Michelle Frost
10. Welshwoman in Sicily
11. Sherry Blue Sky
12. SpeedyRabbit
13. The Gal Herself
14. rose
15. Laurie @ Meditations in Motion
16. Ned Hamson
17. Jamie White
18. Max Thompson - Psychokitty
19. Karen A. Thompson
20. Stunning Keisha
21. Sweet Purrfections - Dona Nobis Pacem
22. Just Ducky
23. Louie
24. Zoolatry ~ Words Matter: Dona Nobis Pacem
25. Diane Hasz ~ Official DJ of Blog4Peace ~ Connecticut
26. Broken Teepee
27. Walk in The Woods ~ Rosemarie Roast
28. Grant Us Peace (Dona Nobis Pacem) #Blog4Peace "Words Are Powerful"
29. “Words Are Powerful” Grant Us Peace (Dona Nobis Pacem) #Blog4Peace
30. Pat Bertram
31. Bluezy's Virtual Dumpster Diver ~ Texas
32. Michael Golch
33. Golch Central's Rambling Stuff
34. Everyday Kindness with Claudia
35. TinkNL
36. Crow's Feet in Scotland
37. barbara
38. Susie Clevenger
39. Thorne's World
40. Sicily Scene
41. Tinkerbell in the Netherlands
42. teleportingweena
43. Coco, the Couture Cat
44. Bertram's Blog
45. Jackie D. Rockwell
46. Jan Spoon mage
47. Julia Phillips Smith
48. Kely, with One L
49. Jackie D. Rockwell
50. Curlz and Swirlz, Life with Cornish Rex Cats...
51. Diane Hasz
52. Of Living and Loving and Coping
53. Nanna Aldrich Murakami
54. White Dog Diary
55. The Ladiez of Beaglebratz Manor
56. Two Spoiled Cats
57. One Gal's Musings
58. Blue Country Magic
59. Julie Schultz
60. The Horoscope Junkie
61. The Cat on My Head
62. Speedy the Cheeky House Bunny
63. Brian's Home Blog
64. The Island Cats
65. Friends Furever with Allie, Raz and Noelle
66. Write with TLC
67. Susan Sehi-Smith
68. The White Dog Diaries
69. Bluezy's Virtual.Dumpster Dive
70. Little Binky and Granny
71. Mama Pajama
72. Jackie D Rockwell Instagram
73. butterflysue70
74. Terra Toby
75. Meditations in Motion
76. a spirit of simplicity
77. Living with Loulou

18 comments:

  1. Beautiful, Mimi. Wonderful. Your peace blogblast stories are my favourites. See you in the morning! Ready to hit the peace blog trail.

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  2. Your stories always uplift those that read them,Bless you for being you,xx Speedy and Rachel

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  3. As always, Mimi, thank you for sharing your voice, your story, your peace. You inspires us!

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  4. Beautiful and eloquent as always. Thank you for this annual break in the noise of the world.

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  5. love the quote that you chose to share and thank you for coordinating this every year.

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  6. There are a few sites where I cant find a place to leave a comment, since I dont tweet etc....but I have read and enjoyed all of your links. We have to keep Envisioning Peace. Stay strong!

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  7. I have not blogged in many, many months but I could not, in good conscience, skip blogging today...So I worked on making a new Peace Globe, not just reusing one from past years, because as your story today said...Words are Powerful and right now, I want to hear words of love, not hate and words of Peace, not War...

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  8. Sherry - I see you making the rounds on the blog trail on Facebook especially. Thank you for being here. I miss the old days of blogging, especially during BlogBlast.
    I loved your peace globe - the face of that child in the photo was so sweet.

    Peace to you and yours,
    Mimi

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  9. Speedy - You always make me smile!! I love your stories and antics. And of course, you're such a beautiful bunny, with a beautiful heart.

    Thank you for being my favorite bunny of all time.
    We must keep speaking love and peace. We must never ever stop.

    Peace to you and yours,
    Mimi

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  10. Rose - I am inspired by YOU and all the peace bloggers around the world. We demonstrate what unity and purpose can bring to the world, how it an be accomplished.

    I LOVE your presence here on earth and on the web. Everything you make is gorgeous and the earthy herbs and healthy potions fascinate me.

    Peace to you and yours,
    Mimi

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  11. Jamie - Oh....the world is extra noisy this morning.

    But our peace words are loud and annoying to all who would bring otherwise.
    Thank you for being YOU and helping me in so many ways. I don't know if yo realize this or not, but you keep me on my toes. And you always make me think outside the box.

    May peace be found wherever you are. Peace and love to you and yours,
    Mimi

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  12. Caren,

    Thank YOU for being here and leaving a comment as well as participating.
    It's nice to hear and know that we are using words, quotes, and graphics that really resonate with other readers. The sites and sights (!) I'm seeing in the Blogosphere this morning are truly inspirational.

    Peace to you and yours,
    Mimi

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  13. Michelle - What would I do without you? We seem to be sympatico these days...well, we always were. Your peace post was brilliant. And I treasure your friendship. Maybe one day we'll meet up somewhere on the other side of the world. That would be so nice. Wouldn't it be awesome to meet all the peace bloggers in one place?

    Peace to you and yours,
    Mimi

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  14. Sherry - Your presence here is important to me. I'm happy that my posts inspire you. You are a faithful reader and friend. I appreciate you so much!

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  15. Thank you for sharing this. Life can bring such pain, but we can't forget those beautiful gifts of a person's spirit that shows us how to rise even when all we want to do is stay where we've fallen. Thank you for hosting a day when words of peace spill into a troubled, angry world.

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  16. Thank you for your inspiring story, Mimi and for hosting this fantastic blog. Love, Peace and Pawkisses from πŸ’— to πŸ’— πŸΎπŸ˜½πŸ’ž

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  17. Hello Little Binky and Granny! I shall be by soon to see your awesome peace work in the world Carry on. We are loud and powerful you know....

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