This week I had to opportunity to attend a family and friends celebration for "graduating" students of a Cotillion program. The Cotillion tradition reaches back to 18th Century ballroom dancing, commingled with social skills training for youth, and coming of age ceremonies. There was a sweetness and innocence to the 2026 version of dressed-up California pre-adolescent boys and girls, randomly partnered by their teachers, practicing introductions and conversation, as they learned to compliment one another, and dance. The students were a California mix of backgrounds, barrios, wealthy families as well as struggling ones, that all seemed to be reaching for a stable future by invoking traditions of the past. Cell phones were mostly silenced. No one was watching relentless You Tube videos. No screens. No political commentary. New skills, music, cookies, companionship, and a lovely sunset, clearly brought a space of hope, after a year of upheaval that impacted the whole. This was a delightful evening of Peace.
My intention here is to encourage you to move forward in your own lives, by collecting your present moments of peace. I could critique the flaws of social conditioning; we are all conditioned in one way or another by social pressure. And we are consciously and unconsciously bombarded by threatening forces of one type or another. But we can stop to find ease within. Another friend sent me photos today of her hike up a local mountain trail that has been closed for a year; the area had dangerously damaged, burned and scarred in the January 2025 fires. It has taken a full year for nature and the forest rangers to restore it. This weekend it has finally returned--nature in it's glory!
The way of affirmation of life, of the Good, is not by forcing ourselves to be positive, especially when we feel just the opposite. Yet, rehearsing pain, anger, or fear is not helpful either. When pain--emotional, physical or mental--comes, feel it, acknowledge it, but gently stay open to receive peace. Peace is there. We collect more Peace as we recognize Peace, as we attend to it, and name Peace, even if it is only momentary, it is Real. This week, set aside the phone, the news, the screens for a bit--feel the Peace of silence, the Peace of a nature trail, the Peace of laughter and Dance. Consider that your life is already filled with Peaceful moments, and they expand when recognized and acknowledged. Let it be a week of Peace. (Susan Nettleton)
"World peace through nonviolent means is neither absurd nor unattainable. All other methods have failed. Thus we must begin anew… Those of us who believe in this method can be voices of reason, sanity, and understanding amid the voices of violence, hatred and emotion. We can very well set a mood of peace out of which a system of peace can be built.” – Martin Luther King, Jr. (Dreams of Brighter Tomorrows in Ebony Magazine, March 1965."
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45521/i-wandered-lonely-as-a-cloud
https://www.dorothyhunt.org/peace-is-this-moment
https://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/Poets/K/KalidasEdwar/WayToPeace/index.html