#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

 

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.

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 

Loving Some More

“Between stimulus and response there is a space.  In that space is our power to choose our response.  In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”   -Victor Frankl
There was a time I considered applying to work in Antarctica. I'd been traveling in New Zealand where I met a bunch of people who'd been working on Earth's southernmost continent. Part of the deal of working there for half the year was a return ticket anywhere between the Antarctic science base and the rest of the world. Post Antarctic-living, New Zealand, Australia and South America were popular way stations. It seemed like a cool deal.
What the hell were you thinking? You might ask, to want to check out nearly as much as possible to spend 6 months working in one of the remotest coldest, parts of the planet. It's likely not hard to surmise I was pretty disappointed with humanity and myself at the time. Having gone through a nasty divorce and its subsequent fall-out, I was in a nothing-to-lose time, that was at once hellish and liberating.
But I didn't go work in Antarctica.  Job placements like that require stability, as well as curiosity, good attention and a will for it all, not exactly what I then exhibiting. Instead I headed back to California to work on getting real about who I was and where I came from, rather than running as far away as possible (though of course I did more of that, too, just not so far).
I remembered my Antarctic considerations this week while reading the chaotic and troubling news of the world near and far. My old desire to check out starts to rear its head. But while running away from things doesn't add to the problem but it doesn't solve anything either. I know now change is always possible, if not easy, and generally better than the alternative.  

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

Happy Valentine's Day: World Sound Healing Day Feb 14, 2014 + Some Poetry

It's no secret singing makes you feel better. Sound vibration — whether you're chanting or singing in the shower or part of a choir — is going to alter your felt sense somehow (usually for the better).
Coinciding with Valentine's Day, a tribe of sound scholars, healers and singers have organized an international event around healing sound: World Sound Healing Day! The 12th annual event — where people from around the globe are invited to 'sound' a healing note in unison at 12 noon (local time)— is today, February 14.
"Join thousands throughout the planet for the 12th Annual WORLD SOUND HEALING DAY on Friday, February 14, 2014. At 12 noon (local time in your time zone), sound forth for 5 minutes with the “AH”, created and projected with the energy of compassion and love."
 
Heal your heart, heal the world! Healing Sounds pioneer Jonathan Goldman offers a free sounding mp3 for those who want to join in.  Find a list of in-person events here.

I once heard a writer instruct her students to carry a book of poetry everywhere. I've followed her guidance at times, always happy when I do. Poetry just gives. To whit:

The Quiet World 

by Jeffrey McDaniel

In an effort to get people to look

into each other’s eyes more,

and also to appease the mutes,

the government has decided

to allot each person exactly one hundred   

and sixty-seven words, per day.

When the phone rings, I put it to my ear   

without saying hello. In the restaurant   

I point at chicken noodle soup.

I am adjusting well to the new way.

Late at night, I call my long distance lover,   

proudly say I only used fifty-nine today.   

I saved the rest for you.

When she doesn’t respond,

I know she’s used up all her words,   

so I slowly whisper I love you

thirty-two and a third times.

After that, we just sit on the line   

and listen to each other breathe.

                           —Jeffrey McDaniel, “The Quiet World” from The Forgiveness Parade. Copyright © 1998 by Jeffrey McDaniel. Reprinted with the permission of Manic D Press.

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:

Sparing the Air

I've been enjoying a lovely year-end spate of writing, rest and relaxation punctuated by social gatherings and good cheer. Over the weekend, we got out on the boat on a nearly wind-free day to drift more than sail around the Bay. It was gorgeous and quiet and relatively warm. Only thing was a thin layer of smog visible on the horizon. Amid all the year-end revelry and hopeful prognostications for 2014, I've a creeping awareness of how dry its been. While it's been a personally satisfying year, it's also been California's Driest Year on Record. Ouch!
What to do? While your making New Year's resolutions and lists, give some thought to the environment as well.
The Spare the Air site has many resources for how to spare the air every day. Take a look:

• Commute Tips
• At Home
• Garden

Save Our H20is also a good resource for husbanding our precious water resources.

Watch Neil Young - Mother Earth

How to say thank you, India style

It's been a week of hearing about friends going through big challenges and hard losses. Amid it all, a friend posted this on Facebook. Beautiful.

Notes on the Solstice

Doomsday prophesies aside, I'm down with ending cycles and the opportunity for new beginnings. Here's saying thanks to the latest chapter of living and hello to a future that is that much more brighter, peaceful and healthy. 
Further reading:

How Stuff Works: The Mayan Calendar

The Farmer's Almanac: Winter Solstice

and a poem:

Winter Twilight
by Anne Porter
On a clear winter's evening The crescent moon And the round squirrels' nest In the bare oak Are equal planets.   From Living Things by Anne Porter, published by Zoland Books, an imprint  of Steerforth Press of Hanover, New Hampshire. Copyright © 2006 by Anne Porter.

California Love & Freedom

Driving up the 101 from a weekend spent in Irvine for Far West, following the Presidential debate and the Giants game on my Twitter feed, I reflected anew on how incredibly grateful I am to have grown up and still live in California. As we made our way north, from the beaches to the agricultural fields and rolling hills of the Central Coast, the Giants were winning and the debate... was giving me pause. My renewed gratitude for growing up in California wasn't completely about the game. It was about how fortunate I felt have lived amid diversity and varied lifestyles, freedom of speech and choice, and general encouragement for finding and expressing one's voice, and that I generally experience this on a daily basis.
"This is the best place there is," my dad, a WWII vet and native of San Francisco, used to tell me. Of course, I didn't believe him for many years, until I'd traversed much of the globe, and lived in a different state, double-checking for myself. And so California has always found me circling back. Its varied physical beauty, is of course a major draw, but the varied terrain reflects an equally diverse population I've come to expect.  Living in the Bay Area most of my life, I've been privy not only to beaches and mountains, but exposed to seemingly every color, denomination and mode of expression there is...and — mistakenly — thought it was that way everywhere. I so often take this for granted when the precariousness of our rights is highlighted by the gravity of what's at stake during an election. Especially, it seems, this one. I'm glad I get to inform myself and to vote. I very much hope you are too.