Patricia Pearce

Helping You Be the Change

Squandering Time: A Spiritual Practice

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pocket watch in sand
What does it really mean to squander time?

Benjamin Franklin once famously said, “Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.” It’s not surprising, given such a philosophy, that Franklin accomplished an amazing amount during his lifetime. Inventor. Statesman. Author. Public Servant. Founding Father.

But as much as Franklin is revered here in Philadelphia where I live—the city Franklin also called home—and as grateful as I am for all of his contributions to our city and society, I’ve come to question his premise that time is the stuff life is made of. More and more I see that life is made of a kind of attention that takes us into a dimension where time doesn’t even exist.

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My Teacher, the Peace Lily

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peace lily
Sometimes giving up opens the way.

I knew something was wrong with my beloved peace lily when its leaves began to droop. It had been thriving in its little corner of the living room for years, getting just the right amount of reflected light coming down the stairwell from the skylight in the hallway upstairs.

The plant meant a lot to me and I didn’t want to lose it: it had been a gift given to me under poignant circumstances by someone dear to me (though perhaps that’s a story for another day). I had always appreciated how it graced the space with its presence, being the first thing I saw whenever I walked in the front door.

So I did my best to nurse it back to health. I set it out on our enclosed porch where it could get a bit more light and could be in the company of several other plants — I believe community is important when it comes to healing — and I took care not to water it too much or too little.

But my efforts were to no avail. It continued to languish until it became obvious it was never going to bounce back.

Reluctantly, I accepted that that it was time to let it go, so I set it outside our back door until I could get around to taking it over to the community garden and add it to the compost pile.Continue Reading

Casting Love upon the Water

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IMG_3373This week we had what will probably be the last trace of snow for the season here in Philadelphia, something a lot of people are happy about. Personally, I have mixed feelings. Sure, the spring is gorgeous, but I also love the winter and have especially enjoyed this one with all of the snow days it brought with it.

One sunny February morning, while I was out shoveling our front sidewalk after one of our big snow storms, I enjoyed watching a Dad and his two young children down the block gleefully piling snow into an enormous mound in front of their house.

Later that day I found out what they had been so excited about when I walked down the block and saw an enormous snow person in front of their house. With kale for hair, clementines for eyes, lemons for buttons, sporting a purple scarf around its neck and a street tree coming out of its head, it drew the admiration of parents and grandparents from all over the neighborhood who brought their little ones by to take a look.

The snow person, of course, is long gone. During the following week, when the weather warmed up, it joined the rest of the melting snow trickling down into the storm sewer, and by now it is surely wending its way across the Atlantic ocean.Continue Reading

The Parable of the Resilient Christmas Tree

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IMG_3255We’ve had construction going on at our house since October and our first floor living space was in disarray until well into December. Consequently, I wasn’t able to get our holiday decorations up until a few days before Christmas, and I decided to leave them up for awhile to make up for lost time.

This past weekend, though, it seemed like enough was enough and I was just getting ready to take everything down when I noticed something that astounded me. The Christmas tree was sprouting new growth. All over.

“How is this possible?!” I thought. The tree, although it had continued to drink water, had also begun to drop its needles. How could something that was dying also be putting forth new shoots?

Needless to say, although the other decorations came down, I didn’t have the heart to toss this brave, resilient tree out into the bleak midwinter.Continue Reading

When Snow Claims the City

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IMG_3241Yesterday we got about a foot of snow in Philadelphia, and most of us are enjoying a snow day today as the city digs itself out.

Throughout the snowstorm yesterday, sitting in the comfort of my home watching the fat flakes accumulating on the sidewalks and cars, I was grateful I didn’t have to go anywhere. After dinner, though, I put on my boots and bundled up to take a walk around the block.

The neighborhood was peacefully quiet, the only sound that of a snow shovel scraping the sidewalk in the next block. When I got to the corner I stopped near a street lamp and watched the flakes swirling in its light. Mesmerized by their random movements as they swooped this way and that on the currents of air I settled into that experience of timelessness that is always present but which I miss when I’m immersed in the daily tasks of life.Continue Reading

Solstice Greetings

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Rather than sharing a written post in honor of the Solstice, when we in the northern hemisphere experience the planet turning back toward the light, I thought I would share one of my collages instead.

May this season fill you with the knowing that mystery is real and possibilities are endless.

 

 

Happy Solstice to You All!

Patricia

 

 

Parable of the Renegade Squash

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Kip standing in the heart of abundance.
Kip standing in the heart of abundance.

Late last summer in Kip’s and my community garden plot a mystery plant sprouted from our compost pile, and curious to find out what it might be, we decided to let grow.

And grow it did! Within a few weeks it had spread out to cover almost the whole garden, and since most of the other plants had begun to die down by then we just let it have its way. Judging by the leaves we thought it might be a pumpkin, a suspicion that seemed to be confirmed when small round fruits began to form.

As it turned out, though, they weren’t pumpkins. They were some kind of squash we were unfamiliar with, the name of which I discovered quite by accident while visiting a botanical gardens recently: Sweet Dumpling Squash.Continue Reading

Of Crosses and Crocuses

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of crosses and crocuses
There are two realities available to us: imperial reality and divine reality.

Last week on March 21st Kip and I celebrated our 21st anniversary. These last couple of weeks I’ve been recalling our wedding, which was a small, intimate gathering of immediate family and close friends. The ceremony was nontraditional. We wrote our own vows, friends and family members sang and played music, read poems, did liturgical dance and at the end of the ceremony each person came forward and gave us a blessing as they placed ribbons across our shoulders.

It was a wonderful gift to be showered with the well-wishes of our loved ones, and later Kip wove the ribbons of blessing into a wall hanging that hangs in our home to this day.

Of the many blessings we received that day, two stand out clearly in my mind. The first was, “May you have many crosses to bear.”Continue Reading