I just watched Roman Krznaric’s Ted Talk on looking at history to create our tomorrow. He offers the Maori proverb: I walk backward into the future with my eyes fixed on the past.
“Be a Good Ancestor”
Lichen
There’s a saying that Annie Algae and Freddie Fungus took a “lichen” to each other, and so we have a symbiotic organism where algae provides food through photosynthesis and fungi provides structure, moisture, and nutrients. It’s not classified as a plant or animal. It thrives in unpolluted areas and can slowly, slowly, break down rocks.
I’m reminded of it when I read Heather Cox Richardson today – symbiosis and cooperation between differences, living and growing in harmony for the benefit of both.
Trump revels in telling lies. Most of us were raised to not tell lies but for him it is a game, a game he has won all these years.
We all know Russia invaded Ukraine. Putin thought he could walk in and own it in a few days but Ukraine has responded by uniting. What I didn’t know was this:
Trump lied that the U.S. has provided $350 billion to Ukraine and that half the money is “missing.” In fact, the U.S. has provided about $100 billion, which is less than Europe has contributed, and the U.S. contributions have been mostly in the form of weapons from U.S. stockpiles that defense industries then replaced at home. None of that support is “missing.”
From Heather: On Google Maps, users changed the name of Trump’s Florida club Mar-a-Lago to “Kremlin Headquarters.”
When will the Republican party wake up and stop the madness?
The Need for Poetry
Yesterday in the New York Times, I read M. Gessen’s opinion piece, “They Invented a New Language for War”. Gessen reported from Odesa, Ukraine where the poets of Odesa are writing a chronicle of life in wartime, and changing the language they use.
I am reminded of two poetry books by Ilya Kaminsky. He was born in Odessa, former Soviet Union in 1977. In 1993, his family was granted asylum by the American government and came to the United States. Dancing in Odessa was published in 2004 in Canada. The book is a marvel. I see how much we need poetry. I offer excerpts from the poem “Praise”.
We were leaving Odessa in such a hurry that we forgot the suitcase filled with English dictionaries outside our apartment building. I came to America without a dictionary but a few words did remain:
And he lists his own definitions for words we know: Forgetting, past, sanity …
The poem goes on and comes to this:
On the page’s soiled corners
my teacher walks, composing a voice;
he rubs each word in his palms;
“hands learn from the soil and broken glass,
you cannot think a poem,” he says,
“watch the light hardening into words.
His book Deaf Republic was published in 2019. The book begins with the poem We Lived Happily during the War. It’s about living in the “great country of money”, America, and ignoring destruction in other countries.
The last poem in the book is “In a Time of Peace” and shows how we go about our daily lives even as the horror of what is happening is seen on our phones.
I contrast his amazing writing and insight with the news that, as of 1921, Yosemite’s annual budget is around $30 million. Trump’s trips to the Daytona 500 and Superbowl cost about $25 million. Accounting, anyone? Accountability? Sanity?
Who and what defines, and what language do they use?
Connecting with Water
To put your hands in a river is to feel the chords that bind the earth together.
Barry Lopez
Coming Together
My son made a film on The Singularity. I keep seeing the images, the rapid movement to the change. It ends with a brother and sister together again, watching, not knowing, as AI takes over. The image of Musk with a chainsaw at a gathering of conservatives is hard to shake and then I come to Robert Hubbell and Rebecca Solnit and I rise in an inner knowing that we come together for good.
You can read Rebecca Solnit’s essays at the link below but this is a taste of inspiration to keep us all going, gathered, and together.
Rebecca Solnit: Everywhere I went it felt like people were trying harder than usual to show up, to connect, to be their best selves. This is emergency behavior. This is how people behave when their city is bombed or flooded or burning down, this extra care, this extra presentness, this best self connecting with other best selves. Then, online, an actual pastor I knew reminded me that the word comfort means to fortify (com- as in with; fort as in fortress, fortitude, and fortify), maybe to fortify with kindness. We were fortifying each other with what we had to offer, which was ourselves, by really being with each other.
https://www.meditationsinanemergency.com/this-is-really-hard-but-we-are-not-quitting-reflections-on-kindness-and-resoluteness/
Soft Power
I was just on a Zoom call with Russell Delman, founder of The Embodied Life. There were people from Spain, France, Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Ireland, and Switzerland on the call.
Russell emphasized the soft power of an Open Heart. The theme was on how we can be moved by the power of a poem. A poem can build our immunity and give us strength to pull out of the rabbit hole of fear that a few are creating to disempower us. In this, we connect.
The heart is about courage, and we good human beings will not be trapped in this web of fear they’re spinning. Kindness wins, and begins with us being kind to ourselves, and ripples out like rings from a rung bell.
Read the Thich Nhat Hanh poem “The Good News” which begins:
The good news
they do not print.
The good news
we do print.
The poem concludes with:
Leave behind the world of sorrow,
of preoccupation,
and get free.
The latest good news
is that you can do it.
The Presidio
Each day I struggle with the news of Trump’s cruel actions. Yesterday was horrific enough – well each day – but now I see he not only wants to destroy the world but anything that brings joy, so attacking National Parks, and now this.
From SF Gate: The Presidio Trust, one of the agencies tasked with overseeing the 1,500-acre San Francisco park, has become the latest target of the Trump administration in its quest to reduce “the scope of the federal bureaucracy.”
State Sen. Scott Wiener, who represents San Francisco and is a former member of the Board of Supervisors, reacted to the news of the executive order on X:
“Trump is now trying to kill off the Presidio Trust in SF — a national treasure that’s transformed the Presidio into a self-sustaining, world-class park,” Wiener wrote. “Trump is so vile that he can’t tolerate success if it doesn’t benefit him personally.
“This move is illegal. We won’t go quietly.”
February 28
Plan ahead and this will be easy to do and make a statement that we who are “woke” spend money until we choose not to do so.
Posted by Jon Stewart:
“The 24 hour Economic Blackout”
As our first initial act, we turn it off.
For one day we show them who really holds the power.
WHEN:
Friday February 28th from 12:00 A.M. to 11:59 P.M.
WHAT NOT TO DO:
Do not make any purchases
Do not shop online, or in-store
No Amazon, No Walmart, No Best Buy
Nowhere!
Do not spend money on:
Fast Food
Gas
Major Retailers
Do not use Credit or Debit Cards for non essential spending
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
Only buy essentials of absolutely necessary
(Food, Medicine, Emergency Supplies)
If you must spend, ONLY support small, local businesses.
SPREAD THE MESSAGE
Talk about it, post about it, and document your actions that day!
WHY THIS MATTERS!
~ Corporations and banks only care about their bottom line.
~ If we disrupt the economy for just ONE day, it sends a powerful message.
~ If they don’t listen (they won’t) we make the next blackout longer (We will)
This is our first action.
This is how we make history.
February 28th
The 24 Hour Economic Black Out Begins.
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Contemplation
The coup continues, seemingly unstoppable. Sobering.
I’m comforted by these words of bell hooks, “Agent of Change”
There is no change without contemplation. The whole image of Buddha under the Bodhi tree says here is an action taking place that may not appear to be a meaningful action.
Yesterday I was watching a duck couple happily enjoying the day when an egret flew in and disrupted the scene. That’s how the political situation feels though egrets are beautiful, and this team of evil is not.
On Tuesday, my grandson and I were in the Headlands and received a private tour of the Marine Mammal Center. It’s a gift to see how volunteers and donations fund what helps save our marine life. What a contrast to the destruction of our prestige in the world as USAID is denied and children die.
Morning
Day comes to light as birds awaken the air inviting plants to respond to the coming of Spring.
Yesterday the neighbors below us celebrated their five year olds birthday with a pirate party. In October, our grandson did the same. I could hear parents discussing how we grew up to view pirates as evil, but today youngsters celebrate with “Ho, Ho, Ho, I am a Pirate.” Is it the character of Johnny Depp in the movie Pirates of the Caribbean that is so enchanting?
Anyway, there was lots of shrieking and running about and the sound of a pinata breaking.
Music, like birds singing.
This morning I’m with the words of Lily Tomlin: The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat.
I read that we shouldn’t mention this president by name, but hold the whole party accountable, so instead of saying his name, each time say the Republican party, and we’ll see what the midterms bring.
And live the words of Thich Nhat Hanh:
“People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child—our own two eyes. All is a miracle.”
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