I’m outside on these warm nights enjoying the new moon increasing and the sparkling stars. I’m with Rilke.
Yes — the springtime needed you. Often a star was waiting for you to notice it.
Mark Bittner and his parrot friends inspired the 2003 documentary, “The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill”. If you want to feel the beauty he understood and felt, watch him on YouTube. I suggest you begin with All Life is One Whole. He died peacefully in his sleep with two dogs at his side. He was 74.
I’m struck by the flowers blooming along the path into the library. The rise seems so effortless. I’m with these words of Bruce Lee from his book, Be Water, My Friend.
Who is there that can make muddy waters clear? But if allowed to remain still, it will become clear of itself. Who is there that can secure a state of absolute repose? But keep calm and let time go on, and the state of repose will gradually arrest.
I meditate to the sound of birds chirping and feel how the vibrations of their sounds invite the leaves of spring to come. My insides leaf and reach.
I continue to find the political news challenging. Then I come to Thomas Friedman’s column today as he responds to Trump and Stephen Miller. Thomas Friedman:
Well, Stephen, maybe you don’t know the real world after all, because your private ICE army — “governed by strength” and “force” — was sent packing by a bunch of moms and dads armed only with cellphone cameras and whistles, ready to walk out on a freezing morning in bathrobes and bunny slippers, to defend their neighbors, some of whom they barely knew.
Yes, Stephen, maybe you don’t know the “real world” after all, because the real score here is Neighboring, 1. Trumpism, 0.
I’m reading Billy Collins’ book, Dog Show. I come to this haiku by Soshi, and I’m lifted on the wonder of life, so simple, so true.
Walking the dog,
you meet
lots of dogs.
When I’m outside these days, butterflies are fluttering all about me. It’s springtime, a time to connect.
Saturday, I came upon two Monarchs mating, and stopped to take pictures thinking it would be short-term, but finally exhausted from watching all the fluttering, I left. At home, I read that when monarchs mate, the male uses the claspers on the end of his abdomen to attach to the vaginal groove of the female. Once attached, the female cannot get away, and the male transfers spermatophore components to the female in a process that can take up to 16 hours.
16 hours and without Viagra. Amazing.
I just watched Rebecca Solnit interviewed by David Marchese. The whole interview is worth watching but I’m sharing two of her responses.
One of the great weaknesses of our era is that we get lone superhero movies that suggest that our big problems are solved by muscly guys in spandex, when actually the world mostly gets changed through collective effort. Thich Nhat Hanh said before he died a few years ago that the next Buddha will be the Sangha. The Sangha, in Buddhist terminology, is the community of practitioners. It’s this idea that we don’t have to look for an individual, for a savior, for an Übermensch. I think the counter to Trump always has been and always will be civil society. A lot of the left wants social change to look like the French Revolution or Che Guevara. Maybe changing the world is more like caregiving than it is like war. Too many people still expect it to look like war. I denigrate politicians I don’t respect as windsocks. I just want us to understand that most of the important change is collective.
Do you think Governor Newsom is a windsock? Not exactly. I’m watching the left gear up to attack Gavin Newsom just in case he’s the nominee in 2028, and it makes my heart sink, because I watched people tear down Al Gore, I watched people tear down Hillary Clinton, I watched people tear down Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. There are definitely major things to critique about every one of them, but at the moment, when the job is to defeat the other guy, we defeat ourselves.
May we be and cultivate the change we want to see in the world through and with collective caregiving, kindness, and oversight.
As I continue to go to the natural world to counteract the news, I’m with the last stanza of William Stafford’s poem, “A Message from Space” from his book The Way It Is.
And then the green of leaves calls out, hills
where they wait or turn, clouds in their frenzied
stillness unfolding their careful words:
“Everything counts. The message is the world.”
Because I’m too old to be an astronaut viewing our fragile, diverse planet from space, I left the fog to drive up to the top of Mt. Tam, and circle through landscapes.
Today I’m not sick, but I feel sick. Where does one put the continuing lies and disgrace?
From Heather Cox Richardson: Trump was hosting a fund raiser at Mar-a-Lago on Friday, as the U.S. offensive began. The New York Times reported last November that tickets for the dinner dance were $1 million apiece. The optics of Trump partying with his rich cronies while American soldiers died is at least partly what is behind the fact that today,
“#SendBarron” trended on social media.
She goes on and comes to this: Natasha Bertrand, Zachary Cohen, and Jennifer Hansler of CNN reported this evening that briefers from the Pentagon today told congressional staff that Iran had not been planning to attack U.S. forces or bases in the Middle East unless Israel attacked first. Trump administration officials said on Saturday that Iran was planning to strike the U.S. preemptively and thus posed an imminent threat. The briefers said there was no intelligence to support that claim. Trump seems unclear about the end game of the conflict he has started.
From Robert Hubbell: Trump started an illegal war on Iran just as the DOJ was under intense pressure to release three FBI interviews with a 13-year-old-girl who accused Trump of sexual abuse. The attack on Iran should not reduce public pressure for the release of documents that may shed light on that accusation and the DOJ’s complicity in covering up Trump’s involvement in the Epstein sex trafficking enterprise.
He goes on: But most importantly, I will address the new round of fears by Americans that the war on Iran will be used as a pretext for the declaration of a national emergency to interfere with the 2026 midterms. That is undoubtedly Trump’s half-baked plan; he may attempt to do so; but he will fail if he tries—because we and the courts will stop him.
I know we need to continue to fight, and for today, I’m wrapped in a cocoon of protection to renew and balance on what’s good and true. Family and friends were snorkeling in the Caribbean. I offer a respite from the sea.
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