PEACE is very meaning of the word Islam. When its three operative consonants, S, L, and M, are combined with a variety of vowels, they spell "peace" across the whole spectrum of human speech. SALEM is the word for peace in English. SHALOM means peace in Hebrew, while SALAAH is peace in Arabic. (In the native language of Gandhi, the word for peace is SHANTI). Peace is a longing that connects the human family in a common depth of soul. The hope for peace surges in the collective unconscious. It is for the generations now living to bring this hope to consciousness and build the structures that will give it operative vitality.
But, for me, winter has an even greater gift to give. It comes when the sky is clear, the sun brilliant, the trees bare, and the first snow yet to come. It is the gift of utter clarity. In winter, one can walk into woods that had been opaque with summer growth only a few months earlier and see the trees clearly singly and together, and see the ground that they are rooted in.
