I've been pondering this question for several weeks now.
Understand that peacemaking has been a *fundamental* underpinning of most of my adult life and is integral to my faith, spirituality and justice advocacy. And in that context, I have asked the title question.
First - I think the word peace has been used so much that knowing what it means collectively and individually can be challenging.
Second - when I actually looked it up on Dictionary.com - the first several definitions had to do with absence - of conflict, violence, war, etc - and so in some sense, our understandings of peace are colored by what we're avoiding as much as what we are building.
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From a www.dictionary.com search on peace:
peace
noun, interjection, verb, peaced, peac⋅ing. –noun | 1. | the normal, nonwarring condition of a nation, group of nations, or the world. |
| 2. | (often initial capital letter ) an agreement or treaty between warring or antagonistic nations, groups, etc., to end hostilities and abstain from further fighting or antagonism: the Peace of Ryswick. |
| 3. | a state of mutual harmony between people or groups, esp. in personal relations: Try to live in peace with your neighbors. |
| 4. | the normal freedom from civil commotion and violence of a community; public order and security: He was arrested for being drunk and disturbing the peace. |
| 5. | cessation of or freedom from any strife or dissension. |
| 6. | freedom of the mind from annoyance, distraction, anxiety, an obsession, etc.; tranquillity; serenity. |
| 7. | a state of tranquillity or serenity: May he rest in peace. |
| 8. | a state or condition conducive to, proceeding from, or characterized by tranquillity: the peace of a mountain resort. |
| 9. | silence; stillness: The cawing of a crow broke the afternoon's peace. |
| 10. | (initial capital letter, italics) a comedy (421 b.c.) by Aristophanes. |
So I came to wonder if I might be a harmony seeker as much as a peace maker.
again from dictionary.com:
har⋅mo⋅ny
–noun, plural -nies. | 1. | agreement; accord; harmonious relations. |
| 2. | a consistent, orderly, or pleasing arrangement of parts; congruity. |
| 3. | Music. | a. | any simultaneous combination of tones. | | b. | the simultaneous combination of tones, esp. when blended into chords pleasing to the ear; chordal structure, as distinguished from melody and rhythm. | | c. | the science of the structure, relations, and practical combination of chords. | |
| 4. | an arrangement of the contents of the Gospels, either of all four or of the first three, designed to show their parallelism, mutual relations, and differences. |
For me - harmony is about building beauty through the combination and offering of different gifts - choral, instrumental, artistic, creative, pragmatic etc. It has to do with working together, the interweaving of different perspectives. In realms beyond the solely musical - harmony can still be perceived, appreciated and sought - communal harmony, world harmony - in ways that bring beings together with individual contributions adding to the greater whole.
love and blessings -
Sylvia
PS I found the harmony image through a google search and would love to know more about the picture's origins.
Note 6/12/09 With many thanks to
Lars/Fast Dart - the harmony image is "Josephine's Millenium Tree" - found at http://www.josephinewall.co.uk/josephine.html in the surreal section of her online gallery - by way of http://www.spiritualrenaissance.com/home.html Both websites are worth checking out, and speak richly to issues that I address in this and other blogs, particularly the Q&R "
Where Are You On Your Journey" and the essay "
Answering the call to service"
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October 2009 
Sylvia
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listen to the song on my profile –
by john legend if your out there
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love that harmony
Sylvia, ever since I saw your status, I’ve visited thisblog a couple of times. Each time, I felt I had too much to say and not enough time to say it. Then I realized it’s about what you have written, after all; and…
The title of your blog opens up many thoughts. Peace is such a commonly used word; and something I sought early in my life. After many experiences, I realized that when we want peace; we may either give up too much personal freedom to achieve a superficial measure of calm; or become too aggressive in forcing issues of social justice so that an absence of war or injustice can be achieved.
For me, I realize that if we are looking for it; it is because we have many pre-conditions that need to be met before it comes. If we find it; it’s just there, as always, in our innermost self. [Why do we seek peace? ]
Harmony, I agree, comes very close. All it requires is someone to place seemingly discordant notes in a certain sequence…
Hi, Meenakshi - yes! This is the kind of reflection and discussion I was hoping to evoke in this blog :-).
And having experienced singing in sacred circle - I would offer that harmony can be the process of all those involved finding their ‘niche’ - which likely will shift with needs, experience, and changes in communal energy. We can start out with a rough blueprint - song notes on a page - or the tune and parts that someone composes or teaches - but the process of building harmony is about each one’s note having appropriate weight, key and timing. A director in the traditional sense isn’t really necessary as long as folks are willing to jump in to get things going.
Is inward peace akin to serenity? And if so … then what is peace among peoples?
thank you :-)
Sylvia
Delightful the way you described that singing and harmony..
Among people you’re right [as I think you may be suggesting]–it’s another challenge.
The words balance, respect and ability to see the others’ perspective come to mind. Hey! I remember writing this in another blog today: rudyan’s blog entry What would have to change for there to be no war?
Hi, Meenakshi - one sense of what’s needed is emotional and spiritual room for each other. I was host sister to a Japanese woman when I was in high school - and when I visited her and her family after graduating from Japan - I was struck by how much privacy was internal there - since there was relatively little physical room (they lived just outside of Tokyo). The day Kimi arrived to live with us here in Ohio - even in the midst of jet-lag she was amazed at how much physical space we have.
That emotional and spiritual (and at least some physical) room is another way to frame the autonomy that I mentioned on Rudyan’s blog - “letting each other be”. Just breathing in our own flow - and being with others.
I’ve had some precious experiences with this practice - particularly in the group of healing prayer ministers at the church I’m part of - and hopefully those experiences will continue to expand outward from our circle.
Thank you for the many ways you help us all connect with each other here on Gaia -
blessings -
Sylvia
Sylvia, I found this through your facebook link. It’s a real good thing to look deeply into the word Peace, what it means to each of us, what we are really wanting when we invoke it. It troubles me that on the geopolitical front, peace comes out of the barrel of a gun.
Invoking new words to help us understand this cosmic abstract construct: PEACE is a good study. Harmony. Serenity, Pleasure, and add to that the political/social values we “fight” for: liberty, freedom, autonomy, self-determination, happiness, prosperity.
PEACE is an inside job.
Circle singing does more for Peace worldwide than anything else I can think of.
Like Meenakshi, much to say, very stimulating, little time to say it.
Hi Sylvia. I too have juggled between the states ‘peace’ and ‘harmony’ and I tend to lead to harmony as what I want. I truly want to see us complementing each other to create beautiful outcomes.
Inner peace in my opinion comes through acceptance of the self and all things as they are; even concluding they’re as they should be. But so often when we think peace, as the first definition goes to immediately, it is about the end of world wars etc., something which is often out of our individual control and, if we take it as ‘our’ problem, is sure to lead to frustration and dissatisfaction, since we are in fact almost powerless in that regard. We might never feel ‘peace’ if we take such things personally.
I conclude by saying that inner peace is what I personally seek; to feel contentment with my own actions and their consequences and accepting that others are playing their own game with the greater ‘good’… and will account karmically [is that a word? lol] in due course. And I continue to dream of harmonious living among a vast majority of equally aware and personally responsible people.
Peace and love to you, friend, Sherri
and sometimes harmony and peace, can only come after chaos is created out of what is. people think that peace and harmony are orderly things, and they are but they are subject to the definer’s sense of and definition of peaceful and harmonic order.
the more that is done to create your own personal world of peace and harmony, the more you may shake up or create “discord,” “disharmony” or “chaos” in the world around you, but that too is harmonious and peaceful order, as when looked at from afar beyond the vision of our own view.
in which case, i think we look less for peace and more for validation that we are doing the right thing even if by a dictionary’s or someone else’s definition it doesn’t feel like we are really *looking for peace* … it often sometimes seems more like we’re *looking for a fight* (e.g., fight against those things we feel take away our peace and harmony in some way, like protesting a war).
BUT, when seen in the view of *god* that gave you the unique destiny to be you exactly where are at any moment in time, perfect for that given moment in time and circumstances, all is truly in constant balance of peace and harmony.
our chore is merely to “be the change we wish to see” and live what we view to be true to bring to life what we define as peace and harmony.
interesting discussion!!! thanks for the invite.
peace & harmony,
elaine
‘freedom must be exercised to stay in shape!’
Hi, folks - thanks to everyone who is chipping in to this discussion :-)
From the Merriam-Webster Thesaurus entry on peace:
Synonyms: peacefulness
Related Words: accord, amity, concord, harmony; calm, quiet, serenity, tranquillity (or tranquility); order, stability; pacification
And from the entry on harmony:
Synonyms: balance, coherence, consonance, proportion, symmetry, symphony, unity
Related Words: coordination, correlation, correspondence, equalization, equilibrium, evenness, order, orderliness, regularity, uniformity
I thought it quite interesting that there are no synonyms listed for peace that leave out the word itself - and that harmony is listed as a related word for peace but peace is not listed as a related word for harmony.
I have some beautiful cards with the Chinese symbols for Harmony on the
front - and was told by the creator that she understood a translation
to be “rice in mouth” - that if folks had food - that meant life was
balanced and peaceful. I resonate really strongly with those symbols
and that sense of justice and peace/harmony/balance all flowing with and from each other.
peace/harmony and blessings :-)
Sylvia
Holy interesting thought fodder, Batman! After some contemplation, “Peace” to me now seems to be more of something settled for. The newly-enjoyed absence of war or discord, a feeling of relief with the memory of some discomfort still lingering with which to compare it.
Harmony now strikes me as the even more pleasant, more proactive result of successful co-mingling of energies or efforts.
Harmony is now my goal, and when that is not possible… peace.
Thanks!
Hi, MamaSue - to misquote Mel Gibson in one of the Risky Business movies - I love it when a concept is communicated! You captured very beautifully and concisely what I’ve been pondering [warm smile].
Thank you -
Sylvia
Source
Sylvia,
If I knew where and how you googled the image I could find a
link back. I’ve seen their work before but just can’t quite drag it up
yet :-)
We are all so blessed to have a place to ponder esoteric thoughts of
Peace and Harmony. I do believe what Carla had to say about the circle
singing..It has something to do with harmonic resonance.
Namasté
Hi, Lars - the painting is from: http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q157/enolderman/Harmony.jpg - I just don’t know how to trace it back from there.
Thanks for the link to a really evocative article :-) - I took the liberty of cross posting it to our conversation on Gaia Networking with some questions about music and love.
namaste’
Sylvia
Aha! Look what just popped into our little world.
It's the Josephine Millennium Tree …(enter here)
Here's the link back to it's source,
ie: how it found me.
:-)
Jeff - [nodding] - I appreciate your approaching the issue from what we can create more than what we are resisting or are lacking. Somehow I missed responding when you first posted this.
Lars - wow! Thank you! See the edits to my original blog - I love the websites I found in tracking Josephine Wall's work. I'm also awed that you had the patience to continue searching after three months - and were able to track the image down.
Interesting that this blog is revisited at a time when the House of Representatives is possibly on the verge of rejecting the current supplemental war funding - [much love and light flowing]
hopeful blessings -
Sylvia