Peace on earth

 

Peace: A Gift for All Beings

"May peace flow like a quiet stream through all hearts and across every corner of the Earth.

May it touch the wings of birds, the breath of animals, the souls of humans, and the roots of trees alike.

Let kindness be our language, compassion our gift, and understanding our bridge—so that all beings, seen and unseen, may live in harmony, free of harm, embraced by love."

posted on FB Serendipity Corner in 2024

by Anna Speshilova

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Where we've been, historically speaking:

As published in 2020, a Timeline of World History!

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Environmental news

Australian good eco-news! That's ecology, not economy!

The Australian government has just announced that beginning next July, residents of three of the country’s six states will get three free hours of electricity every day, with the rest of the country to follow in 2027. This is because the country has put up so many solar panels that at midday, when the sun is highest, they’re producing truly massive amounts of power.

The free offer is a way to get Aussies scheduling their lives a little differently to take advantage of the surplus—one imagines that many of them will be programming their washing machines to run midday, and charging their EVs then, too. It’s a good moment to be selling ever-cheaper household batteries too, since Australians can fill them on the cheap power and then run their homes all night.

In the largest sense, this is truly remarkable news. For at least 700,000 years humans have worked hard to get energy—first by gathering firewood, more recently by scraping together the money to pay power bills. But now—thanks to our new understanding of how to generate energy from the sun—we can be relieved of that burden.

It’s potentially an epochal moment—in some ways as remarkable as the invention of agriculture or the Industrial Revolution. Back in the 1950s, the nuclear industry literally promised electricity “too cheap to meter.” Now, thanks to the largest nuclear reactor in our corner of the universe, that is entirely possible.

Thanks Katharine Hayhoe

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So I say to you, walk with the wind, brothers and sisters, and let the spirit of peace and the power of everlasting love be your guide.

John Lewis

Today's goddess

Dogū Goddess. Ebisuda site in Tajiri, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan, 1000–400 BCE. Dogū are analogous to the stone figurines that were made by people throughout the late Paleolithic and Neolithic eras.

Thanks Jenny Mendes Ceramics on FB

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Today's quote:

Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. HOWARD THURMAN I love the idea of a cease to all conflict and war. That doesn’t mean I don’t want consequences for the behaviors that have hurt others. Yes, I can be angry about injustice, and want resolution of harmful acts through legal civilized means, but not by becoming as hurtful as those who are being judged. Others may feel justified in wanting revenge. I won't go there, as it just perpetuates violence. My doctor visit yesterday was uneventful. I'm grateful that my migraines just give me auras, and no pain. I do continue to be sensitive to light following them, and it's so frequent suddenly that I wanted to address the problem. For the last 30 years or so I've only had a couple a year. For the last month, almost daily. So I'm being referred to a neurologist (who I already see for the essential tremor in my hands and neuropathy in my legs) an eye doctor to check that my visual nerves are ok, and a CT scan to see what's going on in my brain. No drugs, since she said they would have worse side effects than not taking them. Anyone on social media should have become aware by now of the Monks walking in the Peace March from Fort Worth TX to Washington DC. They are now in Georgia I believe.

Virginia to Louisiana - McClure and other restored Houses

More houses named after the McClures...

Historic House Listings on FB

 It is located on .69 acres in Clear Brook, Virginia. The house definitely needs work. The house features double porches, heart pine floors and some plaster walls. There is an old smokehouse on the property. Work was started on the home. Two bedrooms, one bathroom and 1,128 square feet

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In Oklahoma we find...

The McClure family farm, Southeast corner of MacArthur and Memorial Road. 160 acres, image taken in the mid 1950's. Built in the 1920's to raise racehorses. From Oklahoma History FB page

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Or how about New Orleans?

The McClure House in New Orleans, LA as it appeared in 1907

From This House Facebook Page

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Another (not McClure) home in Georgia.

Before and after

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The Georgia Trust for Historic preservation site on FB gives this:

We love a great before and after! The Merritt-Long House in Macon was built around 1894, and the house was slated for demolition in the early 2000s. The Historic Macon Foundation (HMF) stepped in and rehabilitated this Beall's Hill property! Having been vacant for decades, the house and its considerable size made the project the largest by HMF to date. The rehabilitation work included the front porch, which was designed based on the original footprint evidenced on a historic Sanborn map, opening up the hallway which had been divided into separate rooms and maintaining the historic wood flooring whenever possible. This property won a 2017 Georgia Trust Excellence in Rehabilitation Award.

Sharing with Tom's Tuesday Treasures

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Today's goddess:

Late Jamon, Isedodai Ruins, Kitaakia City, Japan

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Today's quote:

I am a kind of paranoiac in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy. -J.D. Salinger, writer (1 Jan 1919-2010)

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I’m off to the doctor this morning to hopefully get answers to my frequent migraines that have been almost daily for the last month.

In the in-between days

 

My oldest son was gifted a "swim with the fishes" at the Florida Aquarium...by his daughter (who I hope also went swimming there, but didn't post a photo!)

A bored mind can be the canvas upon which innovation is painted, and the womb in which novelty is nourished

The great goddess form Çatal höyük, 6000 BC, sitting on a throne flanked by two felines. She is later known as Matar Kubileya, Kubaba or Cybele. Found at Çatal höyük, 45 kilometers south of modern Konya, Turkey

Maybe the Angry Women - 4

 Considering women's rights to their own bodies!

Considering a woman elected president and having to live in hiding from a dictator who would not leave office. Maria Corina Machado. Then she won the Nobel Peace Prize for 2025...and how to collect it (see below)

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'She's awesome': How U.S. veterans helped Venezuela's Machado escape
December 12, 2025 5:33 PM ET
Heard on All Things Considered

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil — It's an extraordinary achievement to win the Nobel Peace Prize. But for this year's laureate, even getting to the ceremony was a feat of its own.

María Corina Machado spent more than a year in hiding after her opposition movement defeated Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in last year's election by a wide margin, according to voting records validated by international observers. Maduro refused to leave office and ordered a massive crackdown on the opposition.

Getting Machado out of Venezuela and safely to Oslo required an operation worthy of a thriller. At the center of that mission was U.S. Special Forces Veteran Bryan Stern, the bearded, broad-shouldered founder of Grey Bull Rescue Foundation. Stern and his team of U.S. military veterans have pulled off hundreds of extractions around the world. But this one, he says, was different.

She's the second most popular person in the Western Hemisphere after Maduro," he said." Because of that signature, that's what made this operation very hard."

Stern and his team had only a week to plan Machado's escape, a mission they called Operation Golden Dynamite — a nod to Alfred Nobel, the Peace Prize founder who also invented dynamite.

A land route was ruled out — too many checkpoints where she'd be recognized. So, they decided to move by sea.

But they had to be careful. The U.S. military has built up a significant presence off Venezuela's coast, destroying nearly two dozen alleged narco-trafficking boats in recent months, killing at least 87 people. Stern wouldn't discuss details, but says he coordinated with U.S. officials who were aware they'd be operating in the area.

He was careful to avoid using a boat that could turn into a target. "I didn't want a big giant boat with big engines that could go fast and cut through waves," he said. "That's what the narcos use — and the U.S. military likes to blow them up."

Then their plan hit another snag: Ms. Machado's boat never arrived at the predetermined rendezvous point in the Caribbean Sea. 

"We were supposed to meet in the middle, but when that couldn't happen, we pivoted and went to them," Stern said.

In pitch darkness, with 10-foot waves smashing the sides of both boats and only flashlights to guide them, nerves frayed. Each crew worried the other could be cartel members, government agents, or worse.

"I could be Maduro's guys, I could be cartel guys — anything really," Stern said. "Everyone is skittish approaching each other in the dead of night at sea. In 10-foot waves? This is scary stuff."

Finally, once they were close enough to hear one another, a voice cut across the water.

"It's me — María!"

Stern hauled her aboard. With the wind at their backs, the final leg to a Caribbean island — which he declined to name, but is widely reported to be Curaçao — was mercifully smooth. A private plane was waiting to take her the rest of the way to Oslo.

Stern says Machado was tougher than the crusty veterans helping her escape.
"We're all bitching and moaning — it's cold, it's wet, we're hungry, it's dark," he said. "She didn't complain once."

Stern admits he was a bit star struck by Machado. He'd followed her fight for democratic change for years. He'd always assumed Venezuela's "Iron Lady" got her nickname from her political steeliness. But after that night, he says it's something more.

"She's gnarly," he said, laughing. "Pretty awesome."

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Reuters published on Dec 11, 2025: Venezuela's Maria Corina Machado has arrived in Oslo just hours after the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony — defying a decade-long travel ban after spending more than a year in hiding.

This year's peace laureate Maria Corina Machado has been forced to live in hiding. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela.

Here she finally stands next to Jørgen Watne Frydnes, Chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, with her Nobel Prize diploma and medal.

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I noticed many negative, uninformed and just stupid comments on the FB posts that I have read following these two postings. When some of them at least asked questions, like who is she? and why did she win? I do hope they make the effort to search for the answers!

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Did you see her speaking on the correct YouTube video? My link seemed to go elsewhere. But this goes to a newscast which includes her at the Prize Ceremony.

I must wonder if her win of the election and becoming Presidente' de Venuzuela in actuality might have changed the way the US (Trump and Hegseth particularly) are acting towards it today.

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'Whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, if there be any virtue, if there be any praise,' they are all comprised in this one word, love."

and...

"Do all the good you can,

By all the means you can,

In all the ways you can,

In all the places you can,

At all the times you can,

To all the people you can,

As long as you ever can."

John Wesley, born 1703, father of Methodism.

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Angie Buchanan

6.24.22

"No more civility. No more being polite. No more trying to get along, no more attempts to understand a different point of view. No more tolerance. The filters are out, the gloves are off. I am feral, unhinged. I will not be legislated by your religious doctrine. I'm not even trying anymore, Your way hasn't worked. Let's try mine.

Art: Circe Invidiosa by John William Waterhouse In case you don't know the story - she's poisoning the waters - turning her offenders into monsters.

This witch don't mess around."

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These posts came about after the 2022 Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, and started the domino effect of many states declaring abortions illegal. Women (and a lot of feminist men) were outraged. Some who were pregnant died.

The Goddess Kali in Tampaksiring Indonesia

Kali destroys those who are evil-doers, collects the garbage of humanity.