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July 8 2023 Work Party
Nature is all around us.
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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.
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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…
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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…
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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…
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August 20 2022 Work Party
A song for you.
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May 28 2022 Work Party
We came with gifts, with missions, with generous hearts. We were present to the next right work. We were together. It was good.
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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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March 27 2022 Work Party
This is how we make a difference. One moment at a time. Together.
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February 27 2022 Work Party
Stepping up and into new beginnings. Kneeling on soil beneath a young Western Red Cedar, tenderly disentangling shallow Himalayan blackberry root balls from ki. Prayer. Strangers turned connections, connections family. Magical alchemy. Rain. Dry shelter under branches that honor both earth and sky. Dirt on knees, shirts, masks, boots. Wet hair plastered to foreheads, dirt there, too. Pulling up yellow arch angel tangled into mats carpeting the forest floor. Tall Oregon grape stand sentry, watching as we come and go.
