Being Peace

Written By Justine Shu

How would it be possible for peace to erupt and spread throughout the world?

Each day the news tells us of a new tragedy, a new outrage. Each day the world seems to be racing toward a dangerous and hopeless future. Many of us struggle to find a way to respond to it all.

We have to begin from within. We need to calm ourselves down, ensure our boundaries are clear, and listen to the guidance of the Goddess and our spirit allies. Only then can we take action that is effective and powerful.

Stress undermines calmness
Becoming calm can be one of the most challenging things to do. This is because of the way stress accumulates within our system. If we are not currently in physical danger, all those stress responses serve no purpose.

I have been remembering something my yoga teacher taught me many years ago. She talked about stress and how easy it is for it to continually magnify. It is easier for stress to increase than it is for stress to be released. If we are not mindful, our baseline level of stress will rise and never return to its original calm depths.

This is how it works. Something occurs that activates fear, anger, or anxiety within you. Your body prepares to respond to the danger by contracting. Your spirit also contracts in response to these urgent feelings. When the danger passes, your spirit and body will naturally relax, but they will not automatically return to the calm peacefulness that you felt before the activation. The baseline has moved upward.

The next time you encounter something which activates the danger response, your body and spirit contract and the stress level rises. This time it rises to a higher level because the baseline was higher. For many, this activation and stress response repeats over and over. After many repetitions, your spirit and your body are always on alert, whether there is danger or not. High stress becomes your ever present reality.

In response to this high level of stress, people sometimes wind up living fearful or angry lives, constantly expecting the worst. Others become physically ill. Some feel so utterly overwhelmed that they become hopeless, and shut down completely.

There has to be a better way to be awake and conscious without illness, hypervigilance, or hopeless passivity.

The practices that I use include:

  • regular attention to my boundaries

  • conscious choice about the influences that I accept into my spirit & my body

  • cultivating peace at the core of my being

Being Peace

What I’d like to speak about today is the peace at the centre. This is always important for self-care and clear action, but it is even more important when peace is so desperately needed in the world.

If I can be peace, then I can become a conduit through which peace flows into the world.

I choose not to feed the anger with more anger, the fear with more fear, the hopelessness with more hopelessness. I feed peace. I emanate the power of calm, peacefulness.

First, of course, I need to find my centre and connect with the Divine energy that flows here. For me, this is the conduit that runs from deep in the Earth to deep in the stars. I become the place through which the Dark Star below and the Bright Star above can meet, in loving connection.

I welcome the sacred as it clears me of anything which distracts or entangles me. I see my boundaries, strong and intact, maintained by my Spirit Allies.

Breathing in centre, I open to beauty and inspiration. Breath rising and falling, held by the Divine, I feel a calmness opening within me. Perhaps at first, it may only be the possibility of calm, the willingness to feel at peace. With time, and breath, peace will emerge. Calmness will ripple outward, like a pebble in a pool of
water.

I surrender to peace. I surrender to calm. I become my breath.

Sometimes it is possible to so fully become the breath of peace that I can let that ripple of calmness expand outward beyond my boundaries.

I can breathe peace into the world.

For a moment, for a breath, there is nothing more powerful than this peace.

There is only limitless calm. This becomes my offering.

Right now many people need help to even find their way to centre. They may need to do something calming before they begin a breathing practice.

It is important to know what you require in order to maintain your equilibrium.

You may need to spend time in nature – surrounded by trees, listening to flowing water, or plunging your hands into the dirt as you tend your garden.

For some, it is music that brings them home to their centre.

Others dance their way to the sacred. I have a friend who finds the Goddess through singing – alone, and with others, they sing.

Some people need to be very physical before they sit down and breathe. They might work out, chop wood, clean their house, or dance up a sweat in their living room. Once they’ve really worked their body, they can relax it. As their body relaxes, their spirit opens. They are ready to sit and breathe their way to centre.

Finally, it is important to notice that there is much more than fear and anger in the world right now. Notice the beauty, and the love.

Yes, there is uncertainty and chaos, but there are also moments of profound generosity and grace.

Let’s all pay attention to what it is that we are feeding.

I calm myself. I honour the sacred exuberance of life. I offer my energy to joy and beauty.

I feed peace.

Image: Berehynia, who protects the homeland, on the top of the Independence Monument in Kyiv.

If you have the means, here are some credible organizations that are helping out in Ukraine:

Justine Shu
Previous

Signs of Spring
Next

The Magic of the Wheel of the Year