Reading Latifah Taormina’s article in Subud USA’s October Newsletter, I was inspired to pray for peace during my personal Latihan at home, currently more useful for a restful night’s sleep than all the warm milk in Wisconsin. During women’s testing at Menucha, the helpers graciously allowed me to ask “What is our personal benefit from praying for peace?” I embraced a warm and glowing globe of ever-changing, swirling colors of light, that grew in direct proportion to the amount of love and light I was willing to send around the world. In other words, my personal sense of peace was tied into my prayers for peace for our fractured globe. Here is a brief collection of poems, songs, and prayers for peace that reflect upon that notion:

Let Peace Prevail

A Song for Guitar by Morris McClellan
The earth is home for everyone,
A planet jewel, warmed by the sun,
Stranger and friend, reach out your hand,
Lift up your voices throughout every land
Lift up your voices and make a stand
Let peace prevail over mountains tall,
Through hill and dale for one and all,
‘Cross oceans wide, love shall not fail,
Throughout the world, Let Peace Prevail
With each breath, let our hope renew,
For in each heart the beat is true
Our trust in love will tell the tale,
So, trust in love, let peace prevail
So, trust in love, let peace prevail

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Last Chore of the Day…

Leana McClellan, October 2023

Last chore of the day before I watch some British mystery or another,
l take the compost bucket out.
A fall wind heralds sweater weather, as stars flicker between rolls of clouds. Four moody blasts from a freight train stir a cozy wistfulness. Leaves deep under my Hydrangea bushes cook up earthy smells.
My neighbor and his excited pajamaed boy, are out adjusting their Halloween decorations. We wave.

I feel ease at my core in this moment. The nippy night is unexpectedly sweet, and I am wrapped in the all-is-well.

Then with a stabbing jolt I re-remember the war that is happening right now, so remote from my weekday night. Hurt, hungry lives, scrambling for safe moorings as they are swallowed up in gruesome chaos. Warriors hunt them in streets and fields, bullets burrow into heads and hearts and in a flash, all dreams gone sightless, mute.

They are strangers across oceans, who speak foreign words, but strangers who are us. The ghosts of yesterday, a century ago, a thousand years past, who once lived these fears, bear witness.

How can it be happening as I am loving each fragrant needle on the giant Douglas fir, even loving the rhythmic dark hum of the freeway? Maybe, maybe this time we might learn from the unthinkable and like a swirl of starlings, recognize our common journey.

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A Prayer for Susila Budhi Dharma on Earth, by Haris Wolfgang

Once there were many years of
chaos on a pilgrimage
toward letting the light in
this process we share
spiritual awakening
a beginning: begin
In the presence of the One
In a circle of a sacred space
we hold
We bear witness
the Many of Us
We Who are learning to become ONE
This we
Who hold a Sacred Space
Unconditionally we accept you
We listen, we hear your voice
To hold and nurture your song
To grieve
And celebrate Your joys
We Hold these agreements
as sacred bond
A sustainable trust that
Inspires engagement
Discovery inspiration
A shared vision
unity purpose
a holy reflection of the light
That illuminated from a far distance
Teaches trains us how to find
be the carpenters that build
And find the place we call home
it begins with a gentle whisper
From within
A calling
from points of light
From our Dearest Divine Friends
from beyond the circle
The softest touch on the shoulder
you one of us
All is good

You are part of us and will always be.

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I Love It All
by Leana McClellan

I dreamed that God was a cow out grazing
in a picture-perfect field, rhythmically chewing,
coolly observing all she had created.
She was massive,
brown and white,
solid as an old church door.
I was pulled toward her,
gliding across the grass as though skimming on ice,
my body filled with the clean airy scent of clover and cucumber.

Half a meter from her head,
each curly eyelash was a unique and complete universe,
every hair on her vast hide, an individual act of kindness.
When she twitched, tender waves washed through me.
I wanted to touch her but didn’t have the courage.
I felt perfect in her presence.
I loved myself, my life, and my journey.
I was moved to tearless tears.
I thought, “May I ask you how we are doing here.
Have we disappointed you terribly?”
Her pointy tongue flicked up into her cavernous pink nostril
and she silently replied,
“I love it all.”

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A Poem for My Mother, by Fayra Teeters

When the soul chooses to leave its home
It condenses away from the light that is spirit and falls like a leaf
Gently wafting on the breeze that is its personal destiny,
And as it falls it takes on more and more of the weight of the physical
Remembering less and less of its union with the light.
And there comes a sadness at this forgetting,
and a sense of loss at leaving the light.
And yet, each soul willingly embraces the separation
Knowing that each journey onto the earth will be an adventure,
a playground for growth.
And it lovingly embraces all that the physical plane has to offer
with equal parts of pain and joy
Knowing that it will have made a difference by its very presence
The very condition of being in a chosen place at a chosen time
And knowing that at the end of its journey, it will return home
Back to the light from whence it came.

Final note: Please feel free to share any songs, prayers, or poems for peace with SICA-USA for future articles, keeping the spirit alive and growing!