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April 4 2026 Work Party
“Every autumn Black-capped Chickadees allow brain neurons containing old information to die, replacing them with new neurons so they can adapt to changes in their social flocks and environment even with their tiny brains” (from All About Birds). May we all be so open to new information.
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March 14 2026 Work Party
Famous by Naomi Shihab Nye The river is famous to the fish. The loud voice is famous to silence, which knew it would inherit the earth before anybody said so. The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birds watching him from the birdhouse. The tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek. The idea you carry close to your bosom is famous to your bosom. The boot is famous to the earth, more famous than the dress shoe, which is famous only to floors. The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it and not at all famous to the one who is pictured. I want to be famous to shuffling men who smile…
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February 28 2026 Work Party
Thank you for joining me in making the world the way I want it to be. That we create this magic for three hours at a time is everything.
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January 19 2025 Work Party
My liberation is inextricably tied to yours, and nature awaits the revolution, too. I’m so grateful that Martin Luther King, Jr brought us together for a day to build the more beautiful world we need. Let’s keep going. Read Martin Luther King, Jr’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail (1963).Learn more about King and beloved community.Nature needs liberation as much as we do.
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December 20 2025 Work Party
Last work party of 2025. A fern freed from encroaching creeping buttercup, a willow from the thorny embrace of Himalayan blackberry canes. We find stories in a shard of glass, the metal cap of a fence post, a rusted hatchet. A snake rests in a gentle hand. We made a difference.
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November 28 2024 Work Party
This is what it looks like to be six.
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June 7 2025 Work Party
Boisterous clipping and digging of canes, pulling up a carpet of ivy, young people have brought their older humans along. We add our blackberry and ivy to the raft, ferry more to the field for pick up, get stung by nettles five times. A black-tailed deer grazes across the way. Hard rain starts to fall, scattering some of us, the rest of us carry on. The underground infrastructure of a very old Himalayan blackberry is exhumed, some concrete detritus moved. We leave with so much distance travelled in just three hours.
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May 10 2025 Work Party
We continued clearing a new patch of Himalayan blackberry, started on a patch of knotweed, the stalks of these like giants. Rescued a fern, excavated more trash, were stung by nettles. Fringe cup and large-leaved avens watched from along the trail.
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April 12 2025 Work Party
It is always good to be with you.
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March 22 2025 Work Party
Mallards, American robins, Spotted Towhees. An otter, a salamander. Raptors, maybe red-tailed hawks? Willows staked along the south bank just weeks ago budding, osoberry, red elderberry, and snowberry becoming green. We reached the tree that a month ago seemed so far away, revealed a goat track hidden by brambles, pulled barbed wire out of the ground. A collapsing empire, cancer, hospice. These things cannot be left behind, but despite their presence, for a moment that stretches to hours, I feel ease.
