There are 25,000 miles of blood vessels in the human body. Stretched out end to end they’d reach the moon.  We amaze with our circulatory reach.

I keep trying to avoid politics here, but it’s true that protesting works.  Slowly perhaps, but it works. There are two this week in my area.  Thursday, May 1, and Saturday, May 3rd.

As I read Heather Cox Richardson today, an exercise in meditative strength, I focus on another way to protest.  Don’t buy or eat chicken.  She states the ways Trump has sold out to corporations and billionaires, but this one seems an easy and safe way to protest as most of us prefer to not get salmonella.

HCR:  Those investments in a Trump administration are paying off. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is withdrawing a Biden-era rule requiring poultry companies to keep the levels of salmonella bacteria below a certain level in their meats to prevent illnesses commonly known as food poisoning. When the Biden administration proposed the rule, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention explained that salmonella causes 1.35 million infections a year and kills 420 people. The USDA said that about 125,000 of those infections came from chicken and another 43,000 from turkey. Officials estimated that the new rule would reduce salmonella illnesses by 25%.

The National Chicken Council celebrated the Trump administration’s reversal of the rule, saying it would have had “no meaningful impact on public health.” On Friday, Charisma Madarang of Rolling Stone pointed out that the poultry company Pilgrim’s Pride gave $5 million to Trump’s inaugural committee, making it the largest donor to that effort. Two of the company’s executives, chief executive officer Fabio Sandri and head of the company’s food safety and quality assurance Kendra Waldbusser, serve on the board of the National Chicken Council.

On Sunday, House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) began a live-streamed sit-in protest and discussion on the steps of the U.S. Capitol to call attention to the Republicans’ budget bill.  Why isn’t this front-page news? Isn’t it more important than Trump’s blue suit?

A true conservative, Bret Stephens writes today: But I doubt the president will fire Hegseth, at least not anytime soon. First, because it would mean Trump admitting that he was wrong and that people like Mitch McConnell, who voted against Hegseth’s confirmation, were right. Second, because Hegseth’s manifest incompetence guarantees his loyalty to the president. Third, because Trump probably enjoys seeing Hegseth like this, hanging by a thread. Fourth, because for Trump no institution of government is sacred, and having a clown like Hegseth atop the Pentagon drives home the message that there’s nothing in America he isn’t willing to trash.

And with that, photos of connection, renewal, and peace.

This morning I rose early to watch the day come to light.  As a wand of light touched the ridge, I immersed in clouds forming, floating  and dissipating like moments imbibed.   

This morning, after reading Molly Fisk’s poem “Growing Cynical”, I read how she was inspired to write the poem by Hannah Arendt’s book On Tyranny. Arendt wrote how the lies are not meant to fool us but to teach us not to believe anything.

We begin to question even what we know is true.  

In this place of entry, I come to poetry for support, and pull W.S. Merwin’s book The Moon Before Morning off the shelf.  I sit with the poem “The New Song”.  We bring forth a new song.

Last night I sat outside to watch for meteors.  The stars were out, owls were hooting, and I listened to the creek, and crickets.  I went out again this morning before four, and the fog had moved in so there was only one star visible, and then, none, only a blanket comforting the feeling of vastness, where I am a viable, conscious part of this spinning of connection, a vibration that trusts.

Yesterday was the 250th anniversary of the lighting of the lanterns in Boston’s Old North Church, which led to war and the establishment of our democracy.

Heather Cox Richardson ends her column today with these words: And once in a great while, someone will light a lantern—or even two—that will shine forth for democratic principles that are under siege, and set the world ablaze.

That’s happening, day by day.  It’s a thrilling time to be alive as we celebrate resurrection, awakening, and rebirth.  

May this be the example the country needs right now.

As I read Heather Cox Richardson this morning, I’m with these words from Writer’s Almanac.

On this day, in 1912, the RMS Titanic struck an iceberg and sank.  It was built to be unsinkable, but not to “scrape along the side of an iceberg for 10 seconds opening numerous separate compartments”.  

“The accident happened at 11:40 p.m.; less than an hour before, a nearby ship attempted to radio the Titanic to beware of ice ahead. The ship’s wireless operator on duty, overwhelmed with his job of relaying personal messages to passengers, replied, “Shut up, shut up, I’m busy …””

And here we are, very busy.

From Heather Cox Richardson: This evening, lawyers for the Department of Justice told a federal court that the administration does not believe it has a legal obligation to return Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia to the United States, despite a court order to do so. 

She explains what Trump is delighting in doing, and writes: When White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt says, “The president’s idea for American citizens to potentially be deported, these would be heinous violent criminals who have broken our nation’s laws repeatedly,” remember that just days ago, Trump suggested that a former government employee was guilty of treason for writing a book about his time in the first Trump administration that Trump claimed was “designed to sow chaos and distrust” in the government.

She goes on to conclude with this.  At least some people understand this. The president of North America’s Building Trades Unions, Sean McGarvey, received a standing ovation when he said to a room full of his fellow union workers: “We need to make our voices heard. We’re not red, we’re not blue. We’re the building trades, the backbone of America. You want to build a $5 billion data center? Want more six-figure careers with health care, retirement, and no college debt? You don’t call Elon Musk, you call us!… And yeah, that means all of us. All of us. Including our brother [International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers] apprentice Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who we demand to be returned to us and his family now! Bring him home!”

And now back to the sinking of the indestructible Titanic.  Are we so busy with personal messages, we’re saying “Shut up, shut up, I’m busy …” as the ship of Democracy sinks, its separate compartments, its balance of power destroyed by the glacial greed and hatred of Trump and those who support him?

Meanwhile, this morning, blue sky, and when I look up I see the fog responding to the warmth of the last few days and venturing in.