Cathy's Blog!

Posted on November 5, 2025November 5, 2025 by Cathy Edgett

Hooray!

Yesterday we went to Rodeo Beach to see the predicted “big waves”. There was an exhilarating breeze, but very well-behaved and gentle waves, which perhaps was a prediction of the election results which were certainly in favor of the “good guys”. Trump didn’t listen to the protests, and he again claims the elections were rigged, but the lies are now exposed.

Robert Hubbell today: The period from November 2024 to November 2025 has been challenging for many reasons. A difficult emotional challenge has been the constant barrage of lies about what happened in 2024. The presidential election was excruciatingly close. But for two hundred thousand votes in three states, Kamala Harris would be president. Trump did not win a majority of the popular vote. Indeed, most people who voted in 2024 voted against Trump! His narrow plurality was distorted by the “winner-take-all” rules of the Electoral College.

As Republicans unleashed an unprecedented reign of lawlessness, retribution, and mean-spirited actions motivated by bigotry, they claimed the right to do so because of Trump’s alleged “landslide victory”—a lie. They claimed Trump had a “mandate” to override the Constitution. Another lie. They claimed that “the people” supported Trump’s anti-democratic assault on democracy. The biggest lie of all.

The wind is blowing and rain is falling, and the plants where I live are clapping their roots together and rejoicing. Me, too.

Exchange as a freighter enters the Golden Gate.

Posted on November 2, 2025 by Cathy Edgett

Kairos Time

Today with the release of the oddly named “daylight savings time”, we return to nature’s time as leaves fall and we walk through their crunch to understand we, too, fall apart, rest, root, and in connection, rise again.

Ralph Waldo Emerson: The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.

The change in light allows us to notice and in and with subtlety to refine and define the layers we share.

Madeleine L’Engle: “The child at play, the painter at his easel, Serkin playing the Appassionata are in kairos. The saint in prayer, friends around the dinner table, the mother reaching out her arms for her newborn baby are in kairos.”

Posted on October 31, 2025 by Cathy Edgett

Thresholds

It’s a liminal time, a time when the veil is thin and as Richard Rohr writes: “we are invited to be aware of deep time – that is, past, present, and future gathering into one especially holy moment.” We honor our ancestors, all of our ancestors, and their presence within us.

Today as I sat with day coming to light I was filled with Rainer Maria Rilke’s words:

Ah, not to be cut off,

not through the slightest partition

shut out from the law of the stars.

The inner – what is it?

if not the intensified sky,

hurled through with birds and deep

with the winds of homecoming.

Posted on October 30, 2025October 30, 2025 by Cathy Edgett

Halloween

Last night I was out admiring the moon when I saw lights across the way on the trail at the top of the ridge. I thought hikers, or perhaps, riders on horses as there was an interesting rhythm to the up and down. Today I read about the Pumpkin Head Ride in Marin. You strap a lit pumpkin to your helmet and ride your bicycle on the trails on the hills of Mt. Tam.

To make your pumpkin, All you need is: One or more zip ties long enough to attach the pumpkin to a helmet. Plastic Pumpkin Pail – 8 inches or greater diameter – Led closet light or similar. And, of course, you need to carve your pumpkin head.

I should have taken pictures, but there was an odd eeriness to it, as though watching horizontal skeletons riding along. After all, the veil between the living and the dead is thin right now.

A spider is lurks at a neighbor’s house.

Posted on October 25, 2025 by Cathy Edgett

Empathy, not Lies, Greed, and Hate

I‘ve been making every effort to post positively on this blog. I know we’re all worn down by the horrors, lies, and deceit of the Trump administration, but tonight as I read Heather Cox Richardson I must post excerpts from what she says. It’s unfathomable that when they control the Congress, the Supreme Court, the presidency, and much of the media, they continue to try to set the Democrats up to take the blame.

Heather Cox Richardson:

It appears the administration is using those Americans who depend on food assistance as pawns to put more pressure on Democrats to cave to Trump’s will. Today, Annie Karni of the New York Times reported that Trump has joked, “I’m the speaker and the president,” and Trump ally Steven Bannon calls Congress “the state Duma,” a reference to Russia’s rubber-stamp assembly.

With Republicans refusing to negotiate with Democrats in the normal way, with House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) keeping the House out of session, and with Trump leaving for Asia for a week, Republicans are clearly making the calculation that Democrats who refused to give up their demand for the extension of the premium tax credit to stop dramatic hikes in the cost of healthcare premiums will cave when America falls into a hunger crisis.

I drop down to this: While a great deal has changed in nutrition support programs in the past sixty years, what has not changed is the importance of food assistance programs to retailers, and thus to local economies. In 2020, Ed Bolen and Elizabeth Wolkomir of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that about 8% of the food U.S. families buy is funded by SNAP. In fiscal year 2019, that amounted to about $56 billion. Beneficiaries spent SNAP dollars at about 248,000 retailers. While about 80% of that money went to superstores or supermarkets—in 2025, Walmart alone captured about 25% of that money—the rest of it went to small businesses. Bolen and Wolkomir note that about 80% of stores that accept SNAP are small enterprises. SNAP benefits are an important part of revenue for those smaller businesses, especially in poorer areas, where they generate significant additional economic activity.

Not only will the loss of SNAP create more hunger in the richest country on earth, it will also rip a hole in local economies just as people’s health insurance premiums skyrocket.

And yet, at the same time the Department of Agriculture says it cannot spend its $6 billion in reserves to address the $8 billion needed for SNAP in November, the administration easily found $20 billion to prop up right-wing Trump ally Javier Milei in Argentina.

What are we doing here? Yes, what are we doing here, and why?

My friend Karen at one of the many protests holding a sign we made!

Posted on October 25, 2025 by Cathy Edgett

A Photo Respite

I read the political news and contrast it with the beauty around me.

Posted on October 22, 2025 by Cathy Edgett

Responding

I rise at 4 to 4:30 these days, and sit in the dark responding to stars one morning and clouds the next, receiving what comes. Impermanence.

My grandson is six today. He’s entranced with snakes so Jungle James came to his birthday party on Saturday, bringing four amazing snakes, and entertaining children and adults for an hour. The snakes were carefully passed around so we could touch and stroke in alignment with the scales. I’m with the beauty of this earth we share, the love of touch.

Posted on October 17, 2025 by Cathy Edgett

Testing

I was speaking with my son who is dealing with some challenging health issues. How do we meet what comes? How do we see this world that Trump and cronies are turning upside down? Life is a series of tests, and we test our response.

And now the days are shorter. This morning, I see stars shining in the sky, beacons prompting us to look within, and bring forth our own light in the dark.

Tomorrow is a huge day, No King’s Day. Today, a friend and I are making signs for the protest though I’ll be at my grandson’s birthday party, where snakes are coming to be viewed and held. Snakes aren’t slimy; they are our friends.

I’m with the Oscar Wilde quote: I think God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.

Let’s prove Oscar Wilde wrong as the country unites in connecting us all as constellations in the sky.

Posted on October 6, 2025 by Cathy Edgett

Democracy, Now

Yesterday, with a sold-out crowd, we attended a documentary on Amy Goodman at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. It was inspiring and told with the blazing torch of truth. While the credits rolled, Patty Smith’s powerful song People Have the Power rang out. Tears come even now as I reflect on Amy’s life and the battles she’s fought to defend our democracy. The film isn’t yet out in full release. This was the third showing and it will show tonight at 5:30 at the San Rafael theatre for the MV Film Festival.

Keep your eye out for “Steal This Story, Please.” It’s a non-biased account of what’s gone on in the last 30 years in our country, in our name.

Posted on October 3, 2025 by Cathy Edgett

Contrast

On one hand we have Trump and his cronies carrying out the destructive policies of Project 2025 and on the other we have the role model of Dr. Jane Goodall, who passed at 91 years old while on a speaking tour promoting and demonstrating curiosity, generosity, compassion, and courage.

In Marshall, we stayed in a home where a dock partially destroyed in a storm was repaired with new wood. The two woods, old and new, were combined just as our constitution is meant to withstand storms and adapt. Jane Goodall is the example we’re meant to follow, an honoring and recognition of all the creatures and the environment we share.