"Be Kind" on WOS Radio

Pleased to have a song I did with Bay Station Band "Be Kind" included on Women of Substance Radio & Podcast Episode 597 "Music with a Message" along with Sandi Gregory-Olbrich Takeyce -  Deborah DeDe Wedekind Elle Crossley Lisa Jane Lipkin Linda Kosut Debra Hadraba Heather Wilson Carmella Gitanjali Baynie Jane Ross Fallon Lily Kiara Erin Bentley and Sandy Rapp

#ClimateFacts: People's Climate Movement 4/29 in DC

We resist.
We build.
We rise.

 April 29^th 2017
 Washington DC
 March for jobs, justice and the climate. More info: https://peoplesclimate.org/

Notes from the Resistance re: #CLIMATEFACTS:

Senator Jeff MerkleyVerified account ‏@SenJeffMerkley 
Trump is trying to censor #ClimateFacts. He won't succeed. Follow @AltNatParkSer @rogueNASA & RT! #resist
 @KristinesWeb 
Arctic sea ice has declined by more than 30% in the last 25 years #ClimateFacts
@LeoDiCaprio 
#ClimateChange affects fisheries, jobs, livelihoods. Get informed. #climatefacts
@Elliearogers

Solar industry created more jobs than oil and gas combined last year. Labor vs. climate is a false fight. #NODAPL #climatefacts @POTUS

More information and how to get involved: #ClimateFacts: You Can't Hold Science Back

 

Today I mourn, tomorrow I march: "Another Test"

Sad day, this inauguration day. I woke up at 4am to a large thunderclap, a low cloud going over our house crackling lightning and thunder, and then a downpour. It felt ominous, and it's taken half a day for me to snap out of a dark mood. In the meantime, the music has gone on. Bay Station has played a couple of fun shows in the past week, and we just shared a song we wrote in response to Black Lives Matter more than a year ago. Today "Another Test" just feels that much more timely. Today I mourn, tomorrow I march.

Hawk Hill Gypsy

One of my favorite 'reset' buttons is getting up to Hawk Hill in Marin County every couple weeks as a volunteer for Golden Gate Raptor Observatory. A 360-degree view of the Bay Area will put nearly everything back in perspective (plus helping track the Golden Gate Raptor migration not only restores my wonder but allows me to utilize some of my college-accredited field & ornithological skills). After a very full, long, fun weekend of music at FAR-West, I was back on the Hawk Hill Monday. Yesterday, our hours of counting were capped off by the release of a Red-Tail Hawk dubbed 'Gypsy' who will be tracked via Telemetry for clues on just how hawk spend their time. Hawk migration season runs into early December. Get up on the hill if you can! And find out more about GGRO at http://www.parksconservancy.org/programs/ggro/

A photo posted by Deborah Crooks (@deborahrcrooks) on Oct 19, 2015 at 4:31pm PDT

Then today I heard a great broadcast on NPR, with Terry Gross talking to wildlife photographer Gerrit Vyn and essayist Scott Weidensaul about some of the remarkable abilities of birds. Vyn and Weidensaul contributed to a new book about North American birds. Flights Of Fancy: Exploring The Songs And Pathways Of 'The Living Bird' http://n.pr/1KkI1HW

The Living Bird: 100 Years of Listening to Nature, by Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Gerrit Vyn, Barbara Kingsolver, Scott Weidensaul and Lyanda Lynn Haupt

 

10 Ways to Get Unstuck & Finish What You Started

Making stuff — songs,  stories, magazines...pies — has been my through line for most of my life. Creating is for me one of the coolest things about being alive. How amazing it is that humans can make things out of 'nothing?' How much one can find out about themselves through doing.  Now I chart my fluidity, or my stuckness, by how my projects are proceeding. Usually there's a match up to what I'm feeling.  I'm likely stuck if I'm feeling frustrated, cranky, oppressed somehow or over-tired (in a way that sees sleep as a way out rather than as a restorative). I'm usually stuck if I'm feeling fear of some kind,  or that my circumstance is compromised. Over the years I've been fortunate to find several practices that have worked for keeping me, or getting me, back on track when I'm stalling out. As I've been working on getting my arms around a big project that has eluded me for some years — years in which I've actually completed lots of projects (albeit other projects) — I've been turning to my favorite ways — that don't involve plane tickets or other large purchases — to get unstuck a lot!

10 Ways to Get Unstuck & Finish What You Started

1. Do some yoga. Even five minutes of breath and movement can change your perspective. If you've never done yoga, try a beginner class or commit to learning sun salutations. I have a regular yoga practice so this has become built in. Now, if I'm resistant to my yoga practice,  I do what I consider my 'minimum RDA:' 20 minutes of my regular practice, including sun salutations, a few standing and some seated poses.
2. Vocalize. Another built-in for me as I regularly chant and I sing.  When I was going through a low period, I found these were things that made me feel better. Sound vibration and music affect us physically, psychologically, emotionally and spiritually. Make a sound=shift in consciousness.
3. Go for a walk outside, preferably up a hill. For most of my life (until recently), I've lived near some geographic feature I could ascend. Going for a walk + changing the view +breathing the air = gear change. But you don't need a hill. A walk around the block can do wonders. My new15 minute loop near my house gets my blood moving and... doesn't take me too far from what I'm working on.
4. Make/bake something easy. Often my stuckness is a result of being daunted by a project. Making something edible reminds me I can complete a project and also make something useful. When I was young, I liked to bake. Now I've been more into raw, vegan snack type things, that don't take all day and are truly nourishing.
5. Set a timer. Sometimes thinking/worrying about the thing I'm resisting — making that call, writing the next paragraph, paying the bills,  learning the new song that hasn't been getting in— than actually doing it. Setting a timer for a amount of time that's not overwhelming — 10 minutes to half hour — helps gets me started, which is key, and usually leads to completion.
6. Dance. Blast a favorite tune and go to town...even if town is in your living room. Dance is play and counters the over-seriousness business.
7. Mix up your usual routine so your usual sequencing is different.  Perhaps it won't offer up any resistance when approached at a new angle.
8. Take part in a challenge. I'm a big proponent of 'write a [novel, album] in-a-month' type challenges or Instagram # sharing challenges. They're manageable, they're contained and it helps to know you're not alone.
9. Reach out. Connect to another maker, or someone who is doing what you aspire to, or simply an old friend. Up the ante by writing a real old-fashion letter.  Write as a fan or to say thank you. Or write your friend to tell them the things you love about your life right now. Make it equal parts gratitude list and reconnection. Put your letter in an envelope with a real stamp. Walk it to the real mailbox.
10. Take time from social media. See what the vacuum left by Twitter and Facebook yields. 
11. Make a list. 10 projects you admire.  5 next steps to take. 15 things you've already completed. All the things you do well. Wow, look at that!

10 Steps to Change Your World: A List in Progress

"Today we are faced with a challenge that calls for a shift in our thinking, so that humanity stops threatening its life-support system. We are called to assist the Earth to heal her wounds and in the process heal our own -- indeed to embrace the whole of creation in all its diversity, beauty, and wonder." — Wangari Maathai 

I think a lot about whether I'm helping or hurting the planet. Maybe this is because I grew up in California, maybe its because I practice a Buddhism that challenges me to revolutionize my life.  Maybe its a persistent naivete, but I woke up this morning thinking of ways one can change the world. Is that possible? In college, earnest, unjaded and sure my actions made a difference, my college professors were pulling their hair out over the fact of climate change. Twenty five years later here we are. The news is full of woe; who know where are water is going to come from; the result as of entrenched racism and sexism and greed have never been more stark; the presidential race is a sales job... people are struggling everywhere. And after 25 years of ups and downs of action, result, periodic disappointment...we're still here. I think, I know — because I've changed a lot — change —of one's mind, of ones limits, changes that can result in a more peaceful world —is very and always possible. Actions add up to result. Why not make them positive, proactive actions? Why not start with your own world?  Think of it all as an experiment if you have to. We might all yet surprise ourselves. What I've found thus far...

 10 Steps to Change the World: A List in Progress

1. Love something or someone. Show up every day and decide to love it or them. This can be your practice (#2). Life is suddenly that much more amazing.
2. Practice. Regular practice is where it's at for me: a prayer, an exercise, a martial art, an instrument, an art, a relationship...all the above!  Like  #1, its about paying attention and through repetitive action you learn your mind, your habits and what needs to change to progress. 
3. Get involved with a community. That is volunteer for something or join a committee: whether that's music or gardening or spiritual study or cat rescuing or a project at work, get involved with something where you're a part of it but IT's not all about you. Yes, you'll find out how tricky it is to reach agreements about seemingly simple things. And you'll find out that you really don't like everyone. But that's the point. You'll learn to work with other people to make things happen.
4. Know nature. Go for walks where there's dirt underfoot.  Learn about the other creatures around you. Be amazed.
5. Eat locally grown, organic food whenever possible. Plant it if you have to. If you don't have a yard, inquire about a community garden.
6. Limit fossil fuels. Carpool. Use public transportation. Walk. Or ride your bike. Clean air, healthier you.
7. Clean up. Wash your hands, etc. et. al.
8. Vote whenever you can. Run for office or get involved (#2) yourself if you don't like what's happening.
9. Say thank you. Simple acknowledgement can go a very long way.
10. Forgive. Assess the past, take the lesson in the mistakes and move forward.

 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Storm warnings and warmings

It's been an ominous time in these parts. All week the news and streets full of protest and analysis, action and activism, anarchy and fury and heartbreak. And now, as if saying, 'shape up! already' Mother Nature has gathered steam over California brewing an expected 'storm of the decade' that's momentarily taken our attention away from news.
Today the sky above the East Bay threatened with grey clouds and stillness while the streets were filled with purposeful industry.  The East Bay Municipal Department was out in force, working to clear out storm drain, tree services were working overtime all day to preemptively trim the largest of trees as hardware stores were busy selling record amount of batteries and flashlights. They have sand bags, too, I was told: "Bags upstairs, sand outside on the side," the cashier let me know when he rang me up.
But I'd just waited in a block-long line to pick up my allotted 5 bags for local residents provided by the Public Works Department. Hopefully, I won't need more."Stay dry," the cashier nodded.
Will it be as bad as predicted? Will it blow over? We'll see.  Regardless, I feel encouraged by humanity again, having experienced a diverse and energized community rallying resources to get through challenging weather, rising to the occasion to take care and watch out for one another. Yes.

Read.Eat.Listen: Warmth & Wonder

READ: "The Impossible Will Take A Little While: A Citizen's Guide To Hope in a Time of Fear." I'm reading this 10 years after it's initial publication but it seems more timely than ever. Fifty fifty stories and essays from activists across the globe.  "Even in a seemingly futile moment or losing cause, one person may unknowingly inspire another, and that person yet a third, who could go on to change the world, or at least a small corner of it." — Paul Loeb

EAT: A couple of weeks ago, playing at Off the Grid, we got re-clued into the wonderful empanadas made by El Porteño (I'm partial to the mushroom variety). Empanadas are really hand-pies, aka goodness in the form of warmth, comfort, nourishment and convenience.  El Porteño empanadas are available at a variety of locations, including its Bay-roaming food truck, a kiosk at The Embarcadero Ferry Building and at several area cafe/bars. We just noticed they're the snack of choice at the recently opened Woods Bar & Brewery in Oakland.

LISTEN: In truth, there's been a lot of listening to oneself going on around here. In the midst of getting ready for the next KCDC live performance on November 22, we're going back into the studio next month to record a new bunch of songs written earlier this year. But there's also been much wonderment, this week, over the news of a spacecraft landing on a comet, and I loved seeing this headline re: the comet's 'song':

Whales, warm water & bummer elections

Humpbacks of the deep

“Our kinship with Earth must be maintained; otherwise, we will find ourselves trapped in the center of our own paved-over souls with no way out.”
― Terry Tempest Williams, Finding Beauty in a Broken World

 

Monday, up on Hawk Hill to help with the hawk count, the first animals I saw were in the water rather than the air.  Two whales where meandering in the shipping channel, foraging and spouting air outside of the Golden Gate. It was another beautiful day in the Marin Headlands, and we'd see many birds, but everyone paused a moment to look at the cetaceans in our midst. There may be nothing so wondrous as seeing a whale. All that mass exists out there in the deep, all the time, despite our everyday concerns, and when you catch a glimpse of what the ocean contains, the mystery of all this existence just skyrockets.

The next day, a friend posted an article "Unusual Warm Conditions off California Bringing Odd Species," detailing how the non El-Nino caused warmer ocean temperatures are erasing the usual boundary ranges of pelagic creatures. Range-straying Guadalupe fur seals, sunfish and sea turtles have been showing up in 'normally' too-cold regions around the Farallon and parts of Alaska.
A Humpback near the San Francisco Bay isn't unusual (California's remember Humphrey The Whale who came into the Bay, twice), but the article also mentions that water temperatures may also be affecting the krill on which the whales feed, so they too are dispersing. Likewise, the water temperatures are a result of a lack of the usual winds that cool the water's surface. This was happening in Hawaii when we were there last month, where the water was great for swimming but devastating for the coral... and as a result the whole ecosystem.

These matters trouble me. I wonder what I can do. I speak up when and how I can. I vote and feel like I made a cause for change toward good. And then I read the election results.

 Billions of dollars were spent by green groups hoping to make climate change a front burner election concern and it fell woefully short:
"... as the most expensive midterm election in American history wraps up, it’s clear that environmentalists will fall far short of that goal. A Pew Research Center poll from September found that the environment came in a distant eighth among a list of 11 campaign issues that matter most to voters." — Slate

I've been more aware than ever in recent years that if you lack a connection to nature, it's hard to value it. I was especially fortunate that my formative years were spent surrounded by the natural world and I'm fortunate to be able to find ways to maintain that connection. I know not everyone has access to the sight of a huge otherworldly mammal cavorting in the sea and the appreciation and value such an experience foments. But there are so many blatant examples that climate change isn't 'just' threatening 'other' species. There is no way to ignore that stalling winds, major droughts, and aberrant floods threaten our lives and livelihood as well.

I wonder what it's going to take for folks to wake up? And what do we do now that a majority of our leaders are delusional?

"this vast, gaping polarization of American politics is toxic, especially where it comes to the crucial issue of global warming. Here, a Senate GOP majority can have an extremely destructive effect. It will put a cohort of science-deniers into positions of authority over the very science they want to trample. This is extremely worrisome to me, and it should be to you as well," wrote reporter Phil Plait before the election. 

Now here we are. 

Global Warming Resources from Bill McKibbon 

Read.Eat.Listen: Edgy

After using the word 'edgy' to describe work I liked at last week's house concert (which was great, thank you Self & Soul Center), someone asked me what I was implying. By edgy I didn't mean irritable rather than innovative. I meant someone who knew the less shiny parts of living — the contradictions, the uncomfortable truths, the heartbreak, cravings, nameless itches and all-too-blatant injustices — and didn't turn away, but felt it, and made art of it, maybe, rather than medicating or sugar-coating or otherwise denying the real.

There's a lot of uncomfortable truth going on right now and I appreciate those willing to go to the edges more than ever. Perhaps I should take a break from reading the news, so full of more of the failings of humans (Everest, South Korea, the bigot in Nevada), rather than the triumphs, but I don't want to deny it either. Challenging and painful as forging something new can often be, creativity lives and breathes by the truth, not ignorance.

Read:  I've taken a couple of workshops with wisdom teacher and writer Deena Metzger and always felt empowered at the possibility of effecting change and transformation through story afterward. To fix my current trip-up, I'm turning to her Entering the Ghost River: Meditations on the Theory and Practice of Healing and From Grief Into Vision: A Council  today.

 "There is a silence that is the heart of God. And there is another kind of silence that kills. We were shattered when we came home from Africa, but also we had been restored. We had been broken down, we had been reconstituted. Story can do this; it can take the sharp slivers and the shards and organize them into a light. This is a book or it is letter or it is a long conversation. A memoir, a series of stories, a meditation on despair and beauty and hope. A book of healing...."

Eat: Gluten-free and living in the Bay Area and missing the satisfaction that a good piece of bread can give? A lot of GF bread is not good--gummy, bland, not-all-that-easy-to-digest for its poorly proportioned mix of GF flours. Then a friend turned me onto Bread Srsly, a SF-based company that delivers most of its wares by bike! Very cool people behind this operation and their GF sourdough bread rocks. Plus they now ship. 

Listen: Hurray for the Riff Raff, née Alynda Lee Segarra, a New Orleans based artist, has the edge and the soul going on:

Earth Day is Every Day

 I didn't plan for Earth Day 2014 and my mammogram to go hand-in-hand. In fact, I didn't put the two events together until I was sitting in the "butterfly room" of the Breast Center, in Oakland, with all the other ladies who'd donned medical-center-issue white robes to wait our turns for our screenings. I appreciated how those who designed the breast health center had made efforts to make the whole visit as pleasant as possible: different rooms are marked with various flowers (I got a lotus), or butterflies, and the sound of bird song comes through the speakers as you wait for your named to be called. And I appreciated those who founded Earth Day to rally more folks around valuing the planet and the environment. But I'm too aware of the fact that butterflies are faced with their own climate-related problems and that mammograms may or may not be that helpful in preventing breast-cancer related deaths. So the transformative symbolism of beautiful creatures used as decor perhaps didn't have the desired effect on me. But the whole experience did jar me into thinking of my friend Samantha, who passed away 6 years ago, at 41 years of age, due to breast cancer.  

Sam and I met as idealistic undergrads at UCSC, majoring in Environmental Studies and adjusting to semi-adult life on and off-campus. While I'd grown up surrounded by nature, Sam was from LA and knew city sidewalks and paved highways better than the dirt trails and redwoods that were my familiar. Slightly jaded about the social scene, Sam was nonetheless completely floored by the natural world she discovered in Santa Cruz, and was wide-eyed and wondrous every time she spotted something new through her binocs. Wildness, the out-of-doors, birds and snakes and butterflies where new to her as a young adult, and her curiosity helped me realize how fortunate I'd been to be raised around trees and wildlife. Likewise, while I helped her identify birds, she showed me how to be comfortable at a party. She was fearless around loved ones and strangers alike. She'd tell you if she thought your boyfriend was no-good, loved elephant seals and Star Wars, Count Basie and the Steaming Hunks of Hot Love Chuncks college band, in equal measure. She ate with gusto, cooked nonchalantly, and would share her lunch anytime I stopped by her apartment on my bike ride up to campus.  On Earth Day circa 1990, you'd likely find her sitting in the great meadow, a butterfly painted on her cheek, watching the crowd, laughing and generally taking it all in. 

Sam knew how to live, and her natural openness toward people and nature went unabated after college... so it was especially cruel when she was diagnosed with breast cancer when at age 39, and crueler still that after a brief period of remission, the disease would come back swiftly and decisively two years after her initial diagnosis. I was grateful I got to say goodbye to her and acknowledge all she meant to me before she died, but like all deaths of loved ones, processing what meaning is to be found is ongoing and episodic.

The fact that she died so young almost hits me harder now, when I realize that she, too, went in for mammograms, on schedule, that all failed to detect what would kill her even as she reported other symptoms to her doctors. My sadness is only amplified by the fact that Earth Day 2014 finds us in a world where the disconnect between cause and affect seems at as great a distance as it was 25 years ago. Yesterday, a woman wished me a 'Happy Earth Day' while holding a styrofoam cup. I was too stunned to say anything. Just like I didn't question my technician as she set me up for my mammogram, at once skeptical and grateful I had insurance to cover the prescribed test.

In reality, taking care of one's health, and focusing on the well-being of the environment is every day.  Life goes on, with or without us, so how to appreciate the moment, this earth, this body, right now?

Tickets can be purchased from the Albany Twin Theater box office (and online) for $10 ($8 for seniors and students) after April 15th.
There will be a screening in Albany next week: Transition Albany & Transition BerkeleyTuesday April 29, 7 pm ARISE Albany Twin Theater, 1115 Solano Avenue, Albanyhttp://arisethemovie.org. Tickets can be purchased from the Albany Twin Theater box office (and online) for $10 ($8 for seniors and students) after April 15th.Check out the trailer here:

http://youtu.be/kAalNQQDttM

At the Roots: Music, Matthiessen & Earth Day Marin

©Dave Perkes photo, http://www.peaceofangkorphoto.com/

The weekend was punctuated by hearing a bunch of great music, attending and playing a tune at the Earth Day Marin Celebration and learning of the passing of writer and naturalist Peter Matthiessen.
Friday, we waved goodbye to a songwriter-friend who is moving across the country and then got ourselves to Lafayette's Lamorinda Music Store for "3 Voices in Song," an evening with songwriters Wendy Beckerman, Louise Taylor and Karen Almquist. Wendy is the ringleader of a 'songwriter's exchange' we've been participating in for years. I've written about 'song group' before — a regular, grassroots gathering of diverse songwriters who come together to share a meal, their latest work and feedback — as it powerfully and stealthily became a trusted sounding board for many of my songs.

The trio's show at Lamorinda displayed the long-time friends' musical mastery. This wasn't flashy or trendy music, it was real and heart-filled music by dedicated artists. Three-part harmonies, blues riffs, delicate finger-picking... a great expanse of musical range and heart. Everyone had a firm command of their instruments and the joy they were taking in playing together was palpable. Wendy has a finely tuned sensibility for melody and meaning. When she isn't writing songs, she's teaching mindfulness classes: her songs are exacting, excellent and poetic. Karen, a kick-ass guitar player and self-proclaimed song 'interpreter', covered Jesse Winchester and early James Taylor, offered up several beautiful originals and added some cooking harmonica to the mix. Louise Taylor, also new to me, is a longtime troubadour who calls Hawaii home and wields a hollow-body Duesenburg guitar with the confident swagger of a gunslinger. Only it's her voice which is the real weapon. When she's not writing and performing, she's a voice teacher so...think Bonnie Raitt's long-lost sister. It was a truly nourishing night of authentic and highly skilled music. 

You think that would have been enough but ...we had tickets to Gurf Morlix house concert presented by KC Turner on Saturday night.  As a longtime devotee of Lucinda Williams and lover of Austin music, I'd heard Gurf's name a long while: he accompanied Williams for 11 years, and produced her first two albums (also co-writing one of my favorite Williams' tunes ,'Big Red Sun Blues'), but that's just a note in a long and storied career. As well as being a sought-after producer, he's a master guitar player and to-the-bone honest songwriter in the tradition of Townes Van Zandt, Nebraska-era Bruce Springsteen and Blaze Foley (to whom he pays homage to live and in multiple recordings). Sitting back in a living room and hearing him sing and play a small-body guitar accompanied by singer-songwriter Amilia Spicer on vocals, I was musically transported to South Austin, and lyrically transported to the back roads of Texas where the living is hard and choices life or death. Again, a night of real-deal music.

Right before we left the house for the Gurf show, I learned that writer and naturalist Peter Matthiessen had passed. Matthiessen's The Snow Leopard was required reading for any self-respecting Environmental Studies major at UCSC. As a nature loving,  aspiring writer undergrad, I ate up that landmark book, as well as, in subsequent years,  his many New Yorker essays and writings on Buddhism and nature through the years. His words are steeped in integrity. When I had the privilege of meeting him in person after hearing him speak in SF a while back, I was struck by his immense heart and exacting presence. Reading his obituary and the many, recently penned tributes  (he has a new book that's set to be released tomorrow),  I'm struck again by his dedication to truth and activism: "it’s our duty [as writers] to speak for those who can’t speak for themselves."
Mostly, I'm reminded it's a privilege to read and to write, period.
On that note, while a contest is somewhat antithetical to the spirit of the artists mentioned above, I was nonetheless honored to have a song co-written with Kwame Copeland, "Your Own Reaction," chosen as a finalist in the Earth Day Marin Song Contest. And despite my cold-compromised voice, we ventured to Larkspur for a full day in the sun, listening to many speakers and musicians who are actively working on behalf of the environment and sustainable living, and performing our song. Marin residents are truly leaders on this front, and I was impressed with the effort made by producer Hannah Doress to pull the various organization and events together to share their knowledge and activism.  Kudos, Hannah!
Alas, our song did not win the grand prize (and a recording of it is just getting mixed so I can't post it) but I hope its message will add to the effort to make the world a better place:  

"Start your own reaction/See what you can do"

Read.Eat.Listen: Trophies & Icons

When I was in grade school, my class was shown a cautionary film about extinction (mind you this was Santa Cruz during the 70s). I don't remember much else about the movie other than a scene of mystified children walking through a dusty museum full of taxidermied bears and fox, snakes and raccoons. The children in this movie, set far into the future, didn't recognize the animals, which were known to me and the rest of my class. This really got me. How? Why? What? I liked the fact, growing up in a somewhat rural area, that I knew live animals and their environments to some degree, not just vestiges.  The movie did its job and laid another brick in the foundation of my appreciation of nature. Which is why the implications of the California drought, and then happening upon a seemingly randomly-placed wall full of trophy animals has gotten stuck in my craw of late.

Unbeknownst to me prior to last week, a roadside restaurant along Highway 5 houses a large collection of trophy animals including three polar bears (!), moose heads and pronghorn antelope. We'd stopped for some road food and whatever pie we could find. Upon procuring the latter (in a bit of foreshadowing, a slice of 'Fruits of the Forest' mixed berry pie), we stepped into the cafe/bar side of Granzella's and.. stopped in our tracks: covering the high-ceilinged walls were hundreds of deer, elk and moose heads plus stuffed pheasant, pin-tail ducks and other birds.
'What the.... " We shuddered. Most people in the restaurant weren't evening looking at the stuffed animals.  I flashed on the grade-school movie. I Googled Trophy Animals & the restaurant name to get up to speed. I couldn't really find much other than the collection belonged to the owner of the restaurant. But I did fidd some other, unsettling, information about the practice of trophy hunting from In Defense of Animals. 
Some tips from their site:
What you can do:

• Contact IDA if you are interested in helping to end trophy hunting.
• Before you vote for a legislative representative, find out if he/she is supportive of trophy hunting, canned hunts or even involved in the killing of “big game” or any exotic animals. If yes, do not vote for this person!
• Before booking a safari in foreign countries, make sure the outfitting company does not endorse safari hunts and has no ties to any trophy hunting organization such as the Safari Club International and others.

Read: We came home from a gig Monday to the sad news of Pete Seeger's death and my wind down for the evening was reading his obit. Every songwriter, folk or otherwise, has felt the ripple of Seeger's influence. Reading the news reports and the many tributes, I was struck by what I knew but was once again wowed by: his resolute and fearless activism. What a model for us all.  Alec Wilkinson expanded on his New Yorker profile of Seeger to write The Protest Singer: An Intimate Portrait of Pete Seeger.

Eat: On our tour through the Northwest, I was on a quest for the best gluten free bread and found a good representative at Hideaway Bakery in Eugene (note they had a ton of non-GF bread too). Back at home, I've been scratching me head at my options, but have come across some good quick-bread recipes, including this dessert-like one for Date Bread w/Coffee and Ginger from Healthy & Seasonal Recipes. Yum.

Listen: Pete Seeger sings This Land is Your Land:

Mysore: Karunya Mane

I've known founder Tracy Kunichika since she began Operation Shanti, a nonprofit to benefit some of the poorest people in India about six years ago and heard how it's grown from a program to feed destitute street people to a variety of programs helping those in need. Last year, I began sponsoring one of the children's room and board. So it was a treat to be able to see one of the organization's projects, a shelter for close to 30 children, & meet the kids in person on Sunday. After meeting up with Tracy and Jonathan, another yoga student/volunteer, in Gokulam (one of the nicer parts of the city where the yoga shala is located), we drove to the outskirts of Mysore to the shelter, Karunya Mane. It was arts and crafts days, and Jonathan had folded enough origami cranes for everyone to decorate, a task that kept the kids quietly absorbed for all of a half hour before there rascally kid nature got going. We had quite a bit of fun both decorating the cranes as well as running around the yard, learning new, Carnatic dance techniques and hindi words. The most hilarious & somewhat shocking moment for me (and the one that reminded me that these kids had been rescued from incredibly hard lives on the streets) was when one of the kids, who was no more than 10 years old is my guess, noticed the bee tattooed on my forearm. After asking me what it was exactly, he pulled up his shirtsleeves and proudly showed me his tattoo, a small outline of a dagger on his upper bicep.(no photos are allowed at the shelter, otherwise, I'd show you!)