"you have strong medicine inside you"

Terry Tempest Williams has said, "Perhaps the most radical act we can commit is to stay home." When asked what she meant by that, this was her answer:

" I really believe that to stay home, to learn the names of things, to realize who we live among... The notion that we can extend our sense of community, our idea of community, to include all life forms — plants, animals, rocks, rivers and human beings — then I believe a politics of place emerges where we are deeply accountable to our communities, to our neighborhoods, to our home. Otherwise, who is there to chart the changes? If we are not home, if we are not rooted deeply in place, making that commitment to dig in and stay put ... if we don't know the names of things, if don't know pronghornantelope, if we don't know blacktail jackrabbit, if we don't know sage, pinyon, juniper, then I think we are living a life without specificity, and then our lives become abstractions. Then we enter a place of true desolation."

by William Stafford

We live like this: no one but
some of the owls awake, and of them
only near ones really awake.

In the rain yesterday, puddles
on the walk to the barn sounded their
quick little drinks.

The edge of the haymow, all
soaked in moonlight,
dreams out there like silver music.

Are there farms like this where
no one likes to live?
And the sky going everywhere?

While the earth breaks the soft horizon
eastward, we study how to deserve
what has already been given us.

there are slugs on the forest floor right now
and a grouse humming rhythmically
and thousands of the biggest trees
and bears and deers and 
a river crashing under, over logs and rocks in the place where I'd never felt small in such a way
and shiny black beetles going uphill in the evening and downhill in the day
i didn't even mean to rhyme
and I'm not even trying to be poetic i'm just trying to tell you that there's a place right now
like this

i bet you missed these...

TO DO:
-Grad announcements! (ugg... i put the addresses on the smaller of the two envelopes. oh well...that's a stupid tradition anyway)
--GET STAMPS
--get glue stick (to seal the envelopes that were supposed to go inside sealing envelopes)
-get toothpaste (not the gross kind from Trader Joe's plz)
-dry out backpacking stuff/clean dishes
-shower!
-journal
-gift for Sandy
-decide about field trip (deep water soloing, class community development, more learning about the world in ways i never have before, trip to awesome place, camping, being an active participant in class, experiential learning, bret's derisive tone, etc. vs. time on campus, free time to do all the other stuff on my list, no class for a week = more time/energy to focus on stuff in the writing center and savor last two weeks, don't have to worry about getting back on time, don't have to plan ahead so far, etc.)
-get stuff in order for marathon of activity next week (folk life, field trip, kiss&cry, synergy, vbc)
-REEEEF
-Venezuela Prez on Wednesday
-call Caitlin
-call Nygil
-call Eric
-call 500 other people
-Inkwell article -- make editorial changes, talk to Chris
-climbing, por favor?
-feed myself
-deposit check
-respond to emails


class:
-finish building cob oven with group!
-finish reading The Great Bay (write a paper/distill relevant information)
-read most/all of A Paradise Built in Hell (write/distill)
-practice making a bow-drill fire
-make a bow-drill fire
-make glue (maybe)
-write "relationships" essay (send proposal to Luna)
-compile/synthesize support resources for class community
-type up notes/try to synthesize/understand larger picture of some ideas
-distill info from other books relevant to class (Old Way, Cosmopolitanism)
-finish fire-making response, send to Luna
-read all the readings that are suddenly being assigned/suggested/printed even though there was nothing ever before.

ahhh
there are probably tons of things i forgot, but at least now that these are no longer only being maintained in my head, maybe i can actually sit down and focus on one.


oh, and word on the street is that our production of Vagina Monologues won Best Even at the first Annual Golden Geoduck Awards. and Best Collective Hair, but I don't know what that means... :/

And finally, since I needed a laugh tonight, what better place to look than pictures from high school. I came across some gems, among them: 


bahahaha..
oh well.

The End of Abundance 
Leah Shelleda


"Dear grandchildren
born into climate change
accelerating generations
separate us
what I know of ice and snow seasons
the depth of water all we counted on
this knowledge will not be yours

I was born into war
sacrifice rationing
you arrived at the end
of abundance

But who would rather remain unborn
then enter a desperate age?

Little dear ones
time is a rope twirled
by invisible twin girls
we jump in
and skip
for as long as we can"

It has been quite the past couple of days. I feel like I need to get a lot of writing and thinking done, and here is as good a place to start as any. Well... I guess the place to start is Saturday, when Cam and I drove up to Seattle. I went to run the Free Them 5k which aims to fight human trafficking. I ran to support the cause, but wouldn't have done so except that I also wanted to support Becca, stand in solidarity with her and her passions (not that I am not passionate about it too). It was an interesting experience to say the least, but I guess I don't really want to get into the details. After the race we waited for the bus near a fallout shelter. I was already riled up from conversations I'd overheard in the car and at the race, and a discussion with Nathan I'd had that morning, and then with the general atmosphere of the running event. I realize I was experiencing culture shock having come directly from Olympia into a very large concentration of christians, and having been on the highway/in a car so long, and then witnessing the waste and the indulgence of the event. It was a lot. And then there was the boat party -- a birthday party for Nathan's boss. I can't really even go there. The juxtaposition of my life in Oly with the entire day of exposure to things I am already sensitive about just left me exhausted.

Then I got home and witnessed how dedicated my parents have been to making changes in their lives, largely in response to my passions. It was beautiful and Dad and I did some work on the new garden plan while mom had to go back to Seattle for a call-in at the hospital. This work and seeing this transformation and being outside was revitalizing after a hard day. After Dad and I were pooped I went inside to veg-out online and came across something that has since sent me into a spiral of despair. It was a video on what a particular country is doing with its nuclear waste. In class we have been discussing nuclear power and its implications on all sorts of levels from what radiation is to how it causes cancer and how long it lasts and how fragile our infrastructure for it is. So we are already playing god, and this video just took it to another level of hubris that I can't even.... think about if I want to function. The problem is, I WANT to think about it. I don't want to live in ignorance. I want to KNOW so I can have the power, or at least the awareness, necessary to make change. But it is a heavy heavy burden to know... and the rest of the night was pain.

The next morning, feeling desperate for expression of my emotions and for guidance and support with what I was facing (what we are all facing) I wrote to FaceTribe... online community of people who live, think, feel more like me than I have ever experienced. I had seen the way they (we) have responded to other tribe members in times of need, and I realized that I can ask for help too. I wrote:

"Dear Tribe,
I find myself so in need of tribe recently. I have never truly opened up here, but today I need to. I'm sorry this heavy post comes on Mother's Day.

Last night was one of the most painful I've experienced.


From recent discussions in class, to watching an online documentary I have been discovering the horrors of nuclear waste, and last night the reality and magnitude and longevity of the problem finally all made it to my heart. I've never been so scared for the world that I love so much.


Home for the weekend, I tried to talk to my Dad. I was sobbing, and he was so "business" about it. He understood why I was hurting, but he wasn't hurting in the same way, and he tried to talk me out of feeling the pain I was feeling without knowing the whole story. That just made me feel more pain...anger towards him for not feeling the pain, for discrediting the validity of mine, and then for not having done anything about this problem, and for bringing me into this world knowing what I would have to face. ...And that he just stood there while I sobbed, holding facts to my grief.


This left me feeling utterly alone. My own father did not have guidance or emotional support for me in this time of need. I felt like there were no elders to look to, and even if there were, I was angry at them. I called two friends, and one of them said the only thing that needed to or could have been said which was: "Just go ahead and cry, you don't have to say anything. Thank you so much for feeling this pain you are feeling." Then, she talked softly to me about how much she wished she could be here with me, holding me, falling asleep next to me, and waking up in the morning to make blueberry pancakes.


Her tenderness and understanding calmed me down a bit. But laying in bed later, 100,000 years became an unfathomable number again, and all the images that were haunting me resurfaced. I felt resentful of, and let down by, the past generations. I felt angry at myself too, and began to think that I didn't ever want to bring anyone new to this world with so much pain to feel for so many problems that we've caused and left for them.


I wrote: "What an awful thing to feel hatred for one's own ancestors. But I do, for being left with no guidance about what to do in the face of such an unprecedented, dangerous, wounded, and diseased reality. I do not want to hand this to someone else, to any others, to have to face, to have to address... I do not want others to have to feel the consequences of things they did no choose."


I put my journal down and cried more. Then for whatever reason, I started speaking out loud, into the future, begging them to know that I did care about them and that I did try for them. And I just said over and over through my tears "Please know that I loved you and that I tried....I'm trying."


After a while of repeating this, I began to hear it newly, not as a message from me to the future, but as a message to me from the past. And I realized, that someone sometime somewhere had said this prayer for me too. Maybe many people had. Maybe most people had. But if so why is the world still as it is?


I don't know what else to say. What you all offer here in FaceTribe so often helps me feel less alone, less daunted. Any words, poems, advice, love... I would gladly accept today.

Thank you."

Just writing it helped. Posting it even more so. And then receiving the unbelievable outpouring of love that I did over the next few days has allowed me to survive and begin the slow, maybe never-ending process of moving through and working with this pain. These 15+ people who responded (all of them "strangers" but one) bringing me into their hearts, hearing me, acknowledging and affirming my pain, loving me, sharing resources with me, and feeling with me have empowered me to continue.

Yesterday, in the Cultivating Voice class for the Writing Center, we were talking about difficult types of sessions. Sometimes it seems like people come into the center (maybe like an hour before a paper is due) seeking affirmation that what they have written is "ready" to turn in, seeking easy answers, rather than seeking a discussion about ways to move forward with the paper or ways to improved their overall writing process. Sandy said something like: "if you are always granted validation about your ideas, how do you learn how to trust yourself?" It reminded me of what Cam had said about not wanting to become an emotional crutch for me (I realize that isn't an exact quote either, but it is basically what I took away from something he said at one point).

I think both these ideas are valuable to consider and to keep in mind, but their importance does not negate the value and power of affirmation. No, it isn't our job to tell the student "yes, this paper is ready to submit." But as Ben demonstrated in his role play with Norma Alicia (who was acting as a panicked student wanting affirmation about her paper), we can acknowledge their emotions... validate, at least, the fact that they are feeling panic and pain. She said, once he did that, she felt the panic recede and she could look at the situation more clearly.

We don't have to give easy answers that are not authentic, we only have to acknowledge, with openness and love and acceptance, where someone is, and encourage them to proceed.

Life is already so difficult and confusing. We live in a world so full of unanswerable questions. It is nice to be validated in our experience some of the time... and at the very least, to not feel like what you are experiencing is invalid. When I was crying to dad he said: "you are getting yourself so worked up over something without knowing the whole reality of it." When I told Bret I was struggling emotionally with the content of the class he told me he didn't know what to say, "the subject matter is what it is." I wasn't looking to ignore the reality in either instance. I was facing it, head on and trying to navigate it. All I wanted was compassion.

One of the students in Cultivating Voice said something about the power of looking to elders (or "those who have gone before") for guidance (which is what I so desperately wanted this weekend and in my convo with Bret). Maybe its not even just having someone who's gone before, but having a witness. To some degree I think we all want to be heard, seen, acknowledged, validated by someone in this crowded, confusing, chaotic world where everything is judged and scrutinized and difficult. Having a witness... having a mirror... having an acknowledgment that what you are saying, doing, feeling is not invalid, and that it is okay or even powerful, can make all the difference in whether or not we continue to pursue truth, writing, life...

My tribe, when posed with my questions and pain, did not have easy answers for me. They did not tell me what I needed to do. They just encouraged me in my experience. They held me up. They thanked me. They said they trusted my emotions. They told me I was not alone in feeling them. They bowed to me. They breathed with me. They invited me to them and to places of healing. They reflected with me and reflected me. They felt with me. They loved and loved and loved me. And that made all the difference.

Love is incredibly powerful. I'd like to believe that its impacts are more powerful and more lasting than any other type of power (including nuclear). I don't know how that is true, or how it could be true evolutionarily or otherwise, but my heart believes it... even if my brain questions it. Class this quarter has made me question (at times) if love even exists at all. Silly, I know, and shocking to hear, probably... but true. I mean, the class has forced me to question a lot of assumptions I hold around humanity and life and self and, well, just about everything. And that has been good. But I guess I am realizing that nothing (no logic, no reasoning, nothing) can steal love from my heart, from the world. The only thing that seems to have come close to doing that is hatred, but, then again, I believe even that can't exist without love.



Phew! Lots more to say, but I'm going to release this into the world so I feel that I at least got some of it out. Thank you for reading.

However just and anxious I have been, 
I will stop and step back
from the crowd of those who may agree
with what I say, and be apart.
There is no earthly promise of life or peace
but where the roots branch and weave
their patient silent passages in the dark;
uprooted, I have been furious without an aim.
I am not bound for any public place,
but for the ground of my own
where I have planted vines and orchard trees,
and the heat of the day climbed up
into the healing shadow of the woods.
Better than any argument is to rise at dawn
and pick dew-wet red berries in a cup.

~ Wendell Berry, Farming: A Hand Book

"The cop, the prostitute, the drug dealer, the scared grandmother who listens to the screams in the alley, the limping old man who was one of those screaming a few years ago and the teenage ‘bad-boy’ in the making all stood silent in their semi-circle of one intent. They watched the white lady kneeling in the muck of the dark alley. They’d seen her over the last week or so, walking this alley. She cooed, crept her arm forward, tentatively petted the hungry ball of fur and then grabbed it. The kitten screamed. The cop slammed her flashlight to the prostitute. “Hold this!” and came forward to close the carrier door. The limping old man tapped his cane in delight opening and closing his toothless gums. The scared grandmother clapped her hands in front of her chin and began to cry. The drug dealer praised Jesus. The prostitute, being terrified of cats, stood slack-jawed and wide-eyed having witnessed perhaps the greatest bravery she‘d ever seen. The cop in her home clothes was quiet, matter of fact, made intense eye-contact with the white lady while giving the slightest of nods, and was ever watchful of her surroundings. The white lady with grimy knees stood up with the noisy carrier and handed the 6” switchblade she’d just used to cut vines back to the bad-boy in the making who sheepishly accepted it under the cop‘s gaze. And behind them all, hanging through windows up and down the nighttime alley, backlit by the bare bulbs of their bedrooms, the Chester Alley background chorus joined in with waving hands and shouts of happiness. “Did you get it? Did you get it?” Yes, we got it. The kitten was rescued."

I asked if this was a true story:

"Yes, Alex Eisenberg, this was real. People press the boundaries to help as needed in this world, some do it politically, some socially. One of my callings is for the overlooked. Being a good street cat trapper is not something I saw coming in my life. But I am. So I do it...when I can sanely...and when I can at least imagine I am safe. I've helped over 500 in the last few years as an independent rescuer. There are millions of animals killed every year in 'shelters' because of overpopulation. Probably five times that die a suffering death on the street each year. So I do my best to spay/neuter them before more are born. This colony of 30 took me to a whole new level, bordering an alley where people get killed and a beautiful cemetery filled with the dead. It is only a few blocks from where I live. I must in some yet unimagined way claim not only these cats but these people as my community. Because of the gross abuse I reported (cat/kittens fed to dogs before dog fights to "give them the taste of blood, ya kno") many local rescue agencies came together to help. To my knowledge this is the first time all these historically territorial and back-biting groups worked side by side. This whole thing has been surreal. Is this a worthy part of The Great Turning or just a waste of time? It is easy for me to sit with artists as they ponder this same question as Robin did. As everything filters into my heart from this rescue I am grateful for the witnesses here."

"how long into the future will your way of life have consequences?"

the facility. wayy too much like resident evil. (unearthing/distorting things that are best left underground or pure)

we can't just design our way out of everything.

"a fire so powerful it can never be extinguished"

dear people, stop making shitty decisions that destroy hope for life on this planet.

bouncing through the night after work,
the 41 line whispers
from the front not silent but low light and engine
roar and drowning out muting
of sound hide secrets.
people, peers hold books flip on fixed light, fall into
their solitary stories and I
writing that there is nothing solitary
about sitting in rooms on wheels together waiting
for the voice that tells you when. but i bet
its more than just that --
the intimacy of these identical rooms in different
combinations, we can't ever know, just guess, just
feel when at night bumps and soft bubbles of ideas
pop pull string ring bell
lose one gain another
and what would change if I pushed out those doors
too soon, too late or not at all? could you tell?
i will this time
the night is warm and I needed a bit more

~~~

its all an experiment, no matter
the cloth on seats that hold a hundred stories each
day and I only hear mine
through wires that connect my ears to my
pocket where my free pass to anywhere in this town
is about to expire.
it's okay, there's someone else waiting out there
to come in
and I don't even pull down
or indicate any such thing but I can't
ride these circles forever and we all know it.
That's why it works. 

(4/23, me)

lots of adrenaline right now.
desk duty at work right now. not striking right now because...