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August 20 2022 Work Party
A song for you.
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August 6 2022 Work Party
The work goes on even when I am not there, all of you picking up the threads to weave them together into a beautiful whole, all on your own. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
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July 16 Work Party
A low current of anxiety hums through at least half the days, sometimes even the days I go to one of our restoration sites to prepare for you. And then I see you. My heart grows a bit every time–when you arrive, two kids and dog in tow; when you walk across the parking lot toward me; when I find you sitting in the dirt, digging out the finest filaments of knotweed root; when you offer to sharpen our tools from the back of your truck; when you embrace the root slayer I offer; when you grow the circle we stand in; when you come for the first time; when…
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July 2 2022 Work Party
“The principal point of this book is not that the salmon is a magnificent animal that holds its own compared to anything on the Serengeti–beautiful in its many phases; thrilling in its athleticism; moving in its strength, determination, and courage; poetic in its heroic and tragic life story–and it would be sad if it were to disappear. All that is true, but a more important point is that if the salmon does not survive, there is little hope for the survival of the planet.”–Mark Kurlansky, Salmon: A Fish, the Earth, and the History of their Common Fate If the forecast this year is correct, 10,165 Cedar River sockeye will pass…
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June 18 2022 Work Party
I am grumpy. I am grumpy about the parking lot. I am grumpy that I am grumpy about the parking lot. I am grumpy about the leaked motor oil shining iridescently in puddles on the seasonally wet field. I am grumpy about the proposed development a stone’s throw to the north. I am grumpy that the plans have changed and I don’t know why or how. I am grumpy about the flooding. I am grumpy that not even my phone can distract me, that it points my attention to the hundreds of unsheltered humans who have died in the extreme heat. I am grumpy about the heat, that all those…
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June 5 2022 Work Party
Presence. Love.
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May 8 2022 Work Party
What constitutes success in habitat restoration? Number of volunteers engaged? Collective hours logged? Cubic yards of invasive plants removed? Number of native plants put in the ground? Yes and. How to measure the compassion for the earth cultivated with each work party, the value of hearts turned toward the work of making whole again what we have broken, the deepening of connection to place that comes from revisiting the same small plot of earth again and again, month after month, season after season, noticing when the first leaves fall, the first buds form, birdsong erupts, frogs take up their chorus, the first sleepy detritivores uncurl. How do you measure the…
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February 19 2022 Work Party
I didn’t know I would meet you. I didn’t know you would come if I asked. I didn’t know if you would be where I usually find you, tucked under the vine maple. I didn’t know the rain would hold. I didn’t know relief would arrive with three sturdy wheelbarrows in a tool trailer. I didn’t know you would tell me we are all connected, that we need each other. I didn’t know you would be my mirror. There was so much I didn’t know it filled an ocean, spread to the stars, bled 13.8 billion light years away. But by the time the last sodden cardboard was laid, the…
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December 11 2021 Work Party
“Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.” — Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart: Heartfelt Advice for Difficult Times *** Something happens when we come together, something greater than the sum of us. When you…
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November 14 2021 Work Party
Rain. Garter snakes. Adventure. Layers peeled. Fallen logs. Fungi. Leaves. Soil. Earth. Us.
