David Herron, Energy Healer

It's very hard to find or see or experience peace in times like we are having today. Today, as I write this, Israel has engaged in a war with the Hezbollah forces in Lebanon, and is bombing large parts of Lebanon. It is in retaliation for attacks by Hezbollah, but if you wind yourself back through the years you find a repeated series of attacks, one attacking the other, back and forth, as they each sought retribution for previous grievances done by the other.

How can we have peace with this fighting?

Okay, we can kick back another six pack and ignore the significance of the fighting. It doesn't have to be a six pack, as there are a zillion ways for someone to numb out such horrors. But suppose one is paying attention to the horrors, that they are aware of the significance of them, and they want to find a path to peace?

This thought is in my calendar: "Peace of mind is that mental condition in which you have accepted the worst" -- Lin Yutang

What comes to mind is that having acceptance for "the worst" then you cannot be knocked out of peace.

I think this challenges the common belief of what is peace. So, what is peace?

Is peace the absence of chaos? The absence of war or violence?

I've thought about this quite a bit, and for me the analogy for peace is a forest. A forest is more than the trees contained in the forsest.

One time I was sitting beside a road going through a redwood forest outside Santa Cruz. Sitting facing into the forest, my back was facing the road. And I noticed this stillness in the forest, yet at the same time there's a lot of activity in the forest. What happened is that after any event, such as a tree branch falling, or an animal rustling, that the forest would quickly envelope that event and peace would reign. But some events could not be swallowed by the forest, because the forest was not sufficient to envelope them.