A song for you.
December 2 2023 Work Party
November 18 2023 Work Party
“So war and peace start in the human heart. Whether that heart is open or whether that heart closes has global implications.” — Pema Chödrön
October 28 2023 Work Party
The first trees of this planting season are in new homes, tucked on the east side of Swamp Creek before it bends to find the Sammamish River. Douglas fir, Western hemlock, Grand fir, and Sitka spruce removed from pots, roots unbound and draped over mounds of soil in deep holes, rocks sifted and piled nearby, compost mixed with the earth we found and pressed firmly down. Gentle tugs at the base of 30 trunks confirm they are all securely tucked. One tree in not quite the right home. We decide to move ki a foot over, safely out of the way of passing wheelbarrows full of Himalayan blackberry and English hawthorn debris. Mulch is laid over all the compost we spread, thickness sacrificed, the work left undone reaching us into the future, binding us to return to this place with intention. We leave with incantations of joy, wishing that all beings be well, wrapping ourselves and the new baby trees with love.
October 7 2023 Work Party
First meetings. Tree branches swoop to make swings. The forest swallows children, spits them out. A cardboard brigade. Small feet stomp mulch. The children become lost to the creek.
You arrive. We begin as we left off, the mulch pile moved, canes cut, root balls dug. Pill bugs and spiders scrabble over rick, dark earth, a dear long-toed salamander travels from glove to arm on ki‘s way to safe shelter. Canes moved by clipper, the last ripe blackberries of the season foraged, a heavy chain pulled from the brambles, a crushed frying pan declared non-native. Our time together inevitably comes to a close and most of you have ridden away, but you call from across the creek where you have nestled thirteen tiny Western red cedars here and there. You cross and we linger on on the slope among tangled roots, tangled relationships, tangled thoughts. None of the tension dissolves immediately, but there is relief in being witnessed. Together, we are healing more than just the earth.
July 8 2023 Work Party
Nature is all around us.
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.
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.
November 13 2022 Work Party
We honor, on Orca Recovery Day, Tahlequah (J35), daughter of Princess Angeline (J17), sister to Moby (J44) and Kiki (J53), mother to Notch (J47), Ti-Tahlequah (no J number assigned), and Phoenix (J57). We remember the death of Ti-Tahlequah less than half an hour after her birth in 2018. We tell the story of Tahlequah’s grieving, how she carried Ti-Tahlequah’s lifeless body on her rostrum for 17 days while traveling approximately 1,000 miles with her pod around the San Juan Islands and interior waters of British Columbia. We recount how Tahlequah dove deeply to retrieve Ti-Tahlequah’s body when the dead calf slid from her and sank, how members of her pod likely fed her and carried Ti-Tahlequah when she could not, how she finally let go.
We do not look away from Tahlequah’s personal grieving nor the fact that her sadness is the sadness of all orca mothers who have lost their babies–approximately 75 percent of Southern Resident Orca newborns over the past twenty years have not survived–nor that it is our sadness, too. Our beloved orca family members are in distress. They are endangered. We may be watching them go extinct.
One of the Problems
The orcas’ main food source is Chinook salmon, whose survival is threatened or endangered depending on the run. Due to a variety of factors, including but not limited to habitat loss, climate change, and increased pollution, every stage of life for a Chinook has become more difficult for ki to survive. In order to keep our orcas, we must care for our salmon.
What You Can Do: Reduce Pollution
Over 14 million tons of pollution ends up in Puget Sound every year, much of which is stormwater runoff after rain. Rain is not the problem though. The problem is the pollution the rain picks up from impervious surfaces like rooftops, parking lots, and roads and rushes directly into our waterways on its way to Puget Sound. Pollution is a complicated problem, but there are things you can do to reduce it. Depaving your yard, encouraging your community to depave wherever possible, planting trees, installing rain barrels, and building rain gardens are all green stormwater solutions within our reach that help salmon and orcas.
What You Can Do: Get Involved in Local Restoration Work
Organizations across the region, from Conservation Districts to Salmon Recovery Lead Entities to Fisheries Enhancement Groups to other non-profit and governmental agencies are working everyday to restore salmon habitat with local communities. What we do on land affects the health of the water salmon need to be healthy and thrive. You can make a powerful difference by volunteering to heal the land. It takes all of us.
What You Can Do: Small Actions Make a Big Difference
Washing your car on grass, picking up after your pets, and discontinuing the use of fertilizers and pesticides in your yard are small actions with profound effects when multiplied across the 4 million people that live in the Puget Sound region. We are the problem, but we are also the solution. Individual actions alone, however, as powerful as they are at scale, do not replace actions to transform systems. So lobby your elected officials and otherwise agitate for larger systemic change at the same time you engage in change in your daily life.
What You Can Do: Tell Everyone You Know that Orcas and Salmon Need Our Care
We care for those we know and love. Recruit your friends and family in the work of salmon and orca recovery by sharing your love for these amazing creatures.
And stay connected. We need each other.
October 8 2022 Work Party
A song for you.
And something I am working on right now:
“When things fall apart and we’re on the verge of we know not what, the test for each of us is to stay on that brink and not concretize. The spiritual journey is not about heaven and finally getting to a place that’s really swell. In fact, that way of looking at things is what keeps us miserable. Thinking that we can find some lasting pleasure and avoid pain is what in Buddhism is called samsara, a hopeless cycle that goes round and round endlessly and causes us to suffer greatly.”
–Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times
Maybe you, too?
August 20 2022 Work Party
A song for you.