I watched all three hours last night. It’s inspiring to see the two parties cooperating, to see ethics and morality in action. What a contrast to the other side.
If you missed it, or want to refresh, Heather Cox Richardson reports with her usual insight and depth.
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com
Photos speak.
Years ago, I did the Coastwalk. We walked the coast of Marin, spending the night in tents, a hostel, at Audubon Canyon Ranch. We walked along the bay, up hills, slept by the beach, walking, tasting, talking, and not.
This morning I walked alone along Tomales Bay – low tide.
From The Power of An Open Question by Elizabeth Mattis Namgyel:
Life is full. In fact, life is so touching, curious, sad, exciting, scary, and bittersweet it’s almost unbearable at times. But as human beings, we need to ask ourselves:”Must we turn away from life’s fullness?” To turn or not to turn – to stay open – this is the question. And this kind of questioning takes us deep into the heart of personal inquiry and shows us how to fully embrace our humanity.
When I drive to Pt. Reyes I go up over the mountain, down to Stinson, along the Bolinas Lagoon, and this time of year past hills of gold to Pt. Reyes Station, and then out to Inverness. The bookstore in Pt. Reyes is pure delight. I brought three books and a Kindle but just in case, three more enter my life: Wanderers: A History of Women Walking, In Praise of Walking, and The Unwinding and Other Dreamings. I branched between four books last night even as I was entranced with and embraced in the landscape, the land of the Coast Miwok, the land where the native people welcomed Drake, not knowing what was to come.
Now, early morning, still dark, I warm by a fire and contemplate what we’re seeing from the James Webb telescope. Perhaps it’s like when people realized the earth went around the sun. We’re drawn back into time, time as one with now. Surely this will expand our vision to this communal living we share.
If you held a grain of sand up to the sky at arm’s length, that tiny speck is the size of Webb’s view in this image. Imagine—galaxies galore within a grain …
—NASA Webb Telescope’s Twitter account
The fog is moving in and out playing games with the sun. I watch and move within.
Because people I know are dying, I’m very aware of death, and these last few days I’ve been going over the losses of the years. Perhaps it’s also because my mother’s birthday was Saturday and my “baby” brother’s was yesterday that my focus is there. My mother passed when she was 78 and would have been 95. My brother would have been 69.
I’m heading out to Inverness for a few nights. It’s where I process death. The land is on an earthquake fault and one travels back and forth from one tectonic plate to another. It’s like playing hopscotch, a chance to pick up stones, and hop from one square to another, journeying a joy, augmented with sorrow, filled path.
I feel stretched by the photos of our universe, remember as a child standing outside feeling the universes within me, and the universes of which I’m part.
I’m up early to water in the fog, the moon, now partial though more than half, shining through. The days are shorter now and all branches, including us, to reach and utilize the summer light. I eat plum offerings from the trees.
Edith Wharton wrote: Set wide the window. Let me drink the day.
I open all my cells to receive, filter, drink, and feast on and with this beautiful new day.
We’ve had four cats between two neighboring homes. One was put to sleep a few years ago, and our two this spring. Now today Pele will be put to sleep at 10:30. She has been the huntress of the four cats. The other three were mellow and uninterested. Pele is now 6 pounds and her vet for her 17 years says he no longer has the heart to euthanize pets so they’ll use our vet. I think of what it is to be a vet. One enters the field because they love animals, and of course putting an animal to sleep is an act of kindness and love, and yet I see how it would wear one down.
I’m grateful for those who do jobs most of us could not handle. I think of what it is to go home after a day where that is a part of it, and yet it is essential to relieve our pets of suffering and pain.
I’m grateful for all the joy our furry friends bring to us and grateful for those who help them move on, and I feel sad as we have to let them go. There’s no way around the pain and grief.
I watched all three hours of the seventh of the January 6 Committee Hearings. I was shaking through most of it – riveted and astonished.
I know most people can’t watch it all, but if you can, watch the four closing statements.
Mr. Raskin.
Mrs. Murphy.
Ms. Cheney.
Mr. Thompson.
We’re not out of the woods but their words are a beautiful and promising start.
I’ll watch the January 6 panel hearings again today as I contemplate photos from far out in space, looking back to near our beginnings.
Yesterday I found myself with gratitude, gratitude that where I live garbage is divided into three bins, garbage, recycling, and compost, and that I still have the energy and strength to pull these three cans on their turning wheels up to the top of my driveway where they’re whisked away.
This morning I’m lifted and grounded on two quotes.
As to me, I know of nothing else but miracles.
Walt Whitman
It is not happiness that makes us grateful. It’s gratitude that makes us happy.
Br. David Steindl-Rast
Yesterday I watched Dan Pfeiffer on Zoom. He was speaking at Book Passage on his book Battling the Big Lie: How Fox, Facebook and the MAGA Media Are Destroying America. He was very clear that if Democrats don’t work to win the midterm elections, democracy is over.
One point is to stop talking about Biden as a one-term president. Pfeiffer listed all the things Biden has done. Let’s focus there, and then, in April 2023 we can start talking about who might run in 2024.
One key issue is the Supreme Court. Not only must it be expanded but there must be ethical accountability and a limit to how long each justice serves. His suggestion is that there are 13 justices and at a certain point, the oldest moves into a group to advise and step in when needed. They would still be paid but that would allow a new, younger, more up-to-date court to make decisions that align with the wishes of the voters of that time.
We need ethics on the Supreme Court. We don’t have that now. That Clarence Thomas won’t recuse himself from a case in which his wife participated says it all.
Georgia O’Keefe said, “I got half-a-dozen paintings from that shattered plate.”
Our country is looking tattered and shattered. What do we do with the pieces? What do we create?
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