A song for you.
May 6, 2023 Work Party
April 23 2023 Work Party Earth Day
“The economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment, not the other way around.” –former Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson
In 1970, Gaylord Anton Nelson, a United States Senator from Wisconsin, organized the first Earth Day as a national demonstration to raise awareness about environmental issues. At the time, there was no Environmental Protection Agency, no Clean Air Act, no Clean Water Act, no legal or regulatory mechanisms to protect the environment.
People across the country rallied on April 22, 1970, spurring the United States to create the Environmental Protection Agency by the end of that year, and that day, April 22, is now an annual celebration that honors the achievements of the environmental movement, reminds us of the importance of protecting and caring for the earth, and calls us to action.
This Earth Day we reflected and shared with one another:
What are some of the environmental issues you care about the most? What environmental issues can you see playing out in your community? How can we protect and restore local ecosystems?
I am so honored to be in this work with you. Happy Earth Day!
April 12 2023 Work Party
What a joy and delight to meet such heart-filled people and work alongside them for a better today and tomorrow. What a balm to now know that they are out there living their values of community and connection in all they do.
Thank you Jim, Teresa, Noah, Peyton, Sid, Karen, Cameron, Kaitlyn, and Alby. Your hearts are now forever part of mine.
To lean more about these fine humans, visit Tinte Cellars.
April 8 2023 Work Party
We rake dead canes, push into the sea of brambles, unearth gnarled root balls dense with energy from 93 million miles away. The goats show up, eat the apples, eat the cedar leaves, eat the reed canary grass, eat the blackberry leaves, too. Three black-tailed deer wander through, slender necks curved curiously toward us, their gaze reverently returned. Two Canada geese noisily converse as they flap by. The piercing cry of a hawk turns heads to the sky.
What a gift to know you on this earth, you who drew twelve orcas last week, you who are fuzzy on your company motto but certain that you all hold the best morals. Where else could I have met you who live in Lake Stevens, you whose home I have lived blocks from all these years? Where else would we find scuffed and faded cartoon figurines and wonder at the story? Where else is there to be but here?
Pictures above by a kind and generous volunteer. Pictures below by Tracy Banaszynski.
April 1, 2023 Work Party
A song for you.
March 18 Work Party
A song for you.
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The lesson I need to learn over and over is that I am not alone. This is the lesson you teach me every time we are together.
I am so grateful for you. And for goats!
March 11 2023 Work Party
You arrive, the Elders arrive, two Christophers from Texas find their way to us through separate winding paths. We build protective cages, secure them with wooden stakes, pull ivy and wrestle Himalayan blackberry from the earth. Betty and Thelma race side-by-side through the muddy field to rest at the center of a prickly pile of English hawthorn branches. You hold a far-ranging course for two in science and nature and culture, maybe untangling a theory of everything beneath the osoberry blooms. I hear just enough to be intrigued, not enough to really know. We prop up a listing conifer. You snuggle Betty and Thelma, they gaze with beseeching eyes, give you sloppy kisses. Layers shed, skin scratched. Beautiful, watchful forest dog a witness to our comings and goings. How does this happen? How are we so lucky to be spinning through this universe together?
February 18 2023 Work Party
We worked to the soothing sounds of Swamp Creek, creating survival rings and pushing back against Himalayan blackberry. A raccoon observed from a wary distance, birds graced us with song. We learned about this place and each other. We grew. Together.
February 4 2023 Work Party
“Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.” –Desmond Tutu
Thank you for being the light, my dear ones, and a wellspring of hope.
January 28 2023 Work Party
Thistle and yellow arch angel and reed canary grass and Himalayan blackberry. Beautiful plants from other ecosystems who have found their way to ours and managed to disturb the balance of here. We clip, dig, and pull against loss of biodiversity and habitat, dirt on gaiters and layers and foreheads, snags on sweaters, connection vibrating the space between us. Himalayan blackberry roots resist our removal efforts, breaking under the soil, absconding with the energy required to push up new shoots at some later time. Tiny spiders, deep rusty orange with two stripes ringing their abdomens, scrabble across mounds of soil that must seem like mountains, a woolly bear curls defensively in my hand, everyone ferried to the safety of a gently weeping Western Red Cedar. On a field trip past the corner of the neighbor’s chain link fence, we slip by the adolescent conifer trees that stand between us and the beyond onto a bed of laid-down reed canary grass, and tears viscerally rise up as I gaze upon Himalayan blackberry brambles as far as the eye can see. This time hope comes in the form of your openness to coming back to face the brambles with me for as long as it takes. Together is the only way I know to do this.