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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…
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March 6 2022 Work Party
Grey shifts blue. Beautiful earth, beautiful people. Belonging.
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February 6 2022 Work Party
A warm spring sun. Birdsong. Bare branches striking against a bright blue sky, their very tips yearning for the center of the solar system. Tightly furled ossoberry buds crown thin, delicate branches. Leaf skeletons nestle among sodden leaves, all decaying into something new. A small rat, dead on the side of the road. Tiny front paws curled, body still soft. A final resting place, shrouded in leaf litter, in the crack of a fallen tree. Himalayan blackberry thorns etch their secret language on bare skin, a protest, perhaps, in dots and dashes at being severed from the earth. A hawk, a juvenile we think, circles above us, wing tips touching…
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January 22 2022 Work Party
“Love creates a communion with life. Love expands us, connects us, sweetens us, ennobles us. Love springs up in tender concern, it blossoms into caring action. It makes beauty out of all we touch. In any moment we can step beyond our small self and embrace each other as beloved parts of a whole.” –Jack Kornfield *** Here we are, beloved, healing the earth and ourselves. Where does one end and the other begin?
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January 17 2022 Work Party / MLK Jr Day of Service
“I would even come up to the early thirties, and see a man grappling with the problems of the bankruptcy of his nation. And come with an eloquent cry that we have nothing to fear but “fear itself.” But I wouldn’t stop there. Strangely enough, I would turn to the Almighty, and say, “If you allow me to live just a few years in the second half of the 20th century, I will be happy.” Now that’s a strange statement to make, because the world is all messed up. The nation is sick. Trouble is in the land; confusion all around. That’s a strange statement. But I know, somehow, that…
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November 26 2021 Work Party (two years)
Swamp Creek Habitat Restoration Project turned two today. What better way to celebrate than to continue as we began? Thank you to all who came out in the drizzle and rain today. It’s magic when you are there. Happy birthday, us!
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November 14 2021 Work Party
Rain. Garter snakes. Adventure. Layers peeled. Fallen logs. Fungi. Leaves. Soil. Earth. Us.
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October 30 2021 Work Party
The ground is saturated again after a dry summer spell, strewn with fallen cottonwood branches and leaves. The Big Leaf Maples have cast down their own humongous fall foliage, sending sky messengers to ground to be devoured by yellow spotted millipedes. Sporocarps are everywhere, disguised by mulch, the bark on fallen branches, in the nooks and crannies of nurse logs and stumps. What was once alive is being returned to the earth to be born anew from rich soil co-created by death. And we are here, witness to and participant in this endless, beautiful cycle of decay and renewal, practicing being human together. With gratitude for all things, until we…
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October 16 2021 Work Party
Sometimes it is enough simply to show up. Goodness often grows from grounded presence.
