Peace is something which must be won again and again, each new moment of our lives.
As I chose to leave Peace Corps Jamaica last week, for many reasons, I wrote for hours on the home journey. A new blog will arise from this transition, "Resilience"....soon.
Of myriad stars in a dark morning ceiling, over city lights on mountains: a human reflection of the power of stars.
There is relaxation, fatigue, washed clean of questions for now. There is grounded knowledge of an accepted pathway, branching beyond the expected, the planned, evolving through days & nights of meditation & wondering, grieving and questing.
What awaits?Who? Where? Moving toward my right outcomes.
Finding, reclaiming freedom ~ being blessed with new life and hope when such sorrow enveloped.
Turn now, towards a distant sun, northern lights, winter dark. Move away from hot, stifling, breathless, heavy light, and into a light from within tall trees in a misted, cooling muted homeplace.
Now ~ be ready! Refine your attention. Ask with sincerity. Take on the coat of many colors to be a part of the whole/of all.
Peace Corps: such a romantic ideal, to those who aspire and train, to those who observe and hope ~ such a valiant vision....Is it possible?
Perhaps a new "vision" is needed, a higher use, not just higher calling.
PC is small, self-absorbed, not advisory in any encompassing way~ which big, overwhelming America COULD do.
Be clear here: there is a certain beauty, appealing to some and not all. Myth of the tropical island: lost in failure, poverty, anger, extreme violence, endless cheap imports entrapping the culture, rather than empowering.
Thankful for the gift of learning, of living within another people, of community integration, of conquering and embracing the new and the fear and the hope.
I came in light, to live and find more light ~ in the glare of a relentless sun and over abundance of sheer noise, humans wanting more, bigger, better, adopting the worst of American ideals ~ I came in light, and found the dying of the light in a child's eyes, in the struggling anger of the people's children, random violence of disenfranchised youth.
I learned thankfully about the stamina and faith of the elders, about the land and the hopes, until it fell apart with the fighting urge to win freedom. I have never aspired to live on a tropical island, being a pure "northerner", but made the most of it..tried my best, I did my best. I learned and gave, I came away a more complete person in some respects.
I know where I am going now...I have found "home"....in a surge of resilience through saying yes to a new shining day. Message: We never realize completely what good we have, what an amazing world of connecting souls.
Open to each other! Look into someone's eyes! Walk slowly, and be able to see, hear ,breathe life itself.
(top photo: Oregon sky / lower photo: Jamaican sky)
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