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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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September 25 2022 Work Party
We dug all the knotweed and pushed back the Himalayan blackberry regrowth. We identified a black locust tree, and once we knew, we saw them everywhere. We limbed up an English hawthorn and pulled up some reed canary grass. We connected, we learned, we grew, we stretched ourselves in all the best ways.
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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 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 21 2022 Work Party
Giddy with excitement, we sawed an old Scotch broom, exhumed its roots, and packed it lovingly out of the park. In its place, a smattering of brilliantly saturated yellow petals lay at rest on the mulch. The moment before we started, I watched those yellow blooms, delicately folding in on themselves, dance with a bumblebee in the breeze, and I felt a pang of regret for what we were about to do. To take the life from this particular plant in this particular place was good for the whole, on balance. But to disturb the soil, to take the flowers from the pollinator–these things still don’t settle easily in my…
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April 4 2022 Work Party
The knotweed has awakened. Buoyed by spring birdsong, we dig it with renewed vigor. Every two weeks, forever, or maybe for ten years. Until we have made whole what has been broken. This is the collective work of right now. Thank you for showing up. Until next time.
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March 19 2022 Work Party
The rain is steady and there is war. Bombs fall. Red banners announce the latest of the emergency we have spilled from within. The red stays tucked in my heart as I travel where birds nest, frogs sing, and water finds its way from mountain to sound. I dig root balls while you clip canes. The rain lightens, I hang my coat in the crook of a cottonwood tree. Ossoberry blooms, elderberry not far behind. Gartner snakes sleep, yellow striped millipedes unfurl everywhere. Decomposing wood on its way to new life. Bombs still rain half a world away, red banners surely still where I left them. For the moment, I…
