One day last week a squawk caught my attention; I glanced outside and there was the crested outline and blue flash of a Stellar's Jay among the branches of the big cedar behind the house. There are Stellar's Jays who spend their summers in the mountains and come down to our forest near the sea in the wintertime. Upon seeing this first jay of the season I squealed – silently, inside, so as not to scare them – and ran for the bag of peanuts in the pantry. I took it out onto the deck calling the same thing I always do in hopes that it will be familiar, like the squawk was to me: "Hello, Jay! Hi! Hello, Jay. Would you like a peanut? I have peanuts for you!"
Stellar's Jays are corvids; so are crows, and like crows, these jays are beautiful, and intelligent. They remember people. This wasn't a random bird passing by; it was the return of a beloved friend. This will be our third winter hand-feeding them peanuts along the rails of our back deck. If you visit us in the autumn, you'll find little stashes of peanuts near all the doors at the back of the house so that you can feed Jay from whichever floor you might be on when they come by to call out for nuts. This friend, freshly arrived in the cooler turning of autumn, came by to see if shouting at my house would bring peanut-bearing apes as it had in the past. I'm pretty sure we were both quite delighted that the answer was yes.
In this case, they/them is both plural and singular; I can't tell the sex of any individual Stellar's Jay because the males and females look alike, so I use they/them pronouns for any individual. Also, there are numerous Jays who visit; we've sometimes seen as many as four or five out in the front grove. We call them all Jay. We call all of the squirrels Doug, because they are Douglas squirrels. Both the Dougs and the Jays are fond of the feeder full of shelled peanuts in the front grove and once in a while they shout at each other about whose turn it is to eat from it.
The Jays like to flock with the beautiful Northern Flickers who used to sleep in our attic in the winter. It was a bit of bother to cover the ventilation holes in the soffit that they were using to get in. Before we broke down and hired roofers with three-story ladders to do it after a couple of years of woodpeckers in a part of the attic you can't reach without ripping a wall out, we hung out the back windows wearing the harnesses we clipped ourselves to the boat with on offshore passages; we tied the harnesses to the big wooden-cross-beam of the bedroom ceiling with rope and used a staplegun to cover the holes with chicken wire. James is left-handed and I am right-handed, so one of us could juuuuust reach what we needed to staple on either side. It was either badass or horrifying; possibly both. We are very glad to no longer be dealing daily with those particular Flickers waking at 7:45 on the dot and celebrating morning by slamming the walls. We like to imagine our controversial reputation in that flock – the Jays arguing that this house is great because the apes offer peanuts; the Flickers countering that those apes suck because they won’t let you sleep in the house and come outside to shout if you bang on the soffit to try to get in.
Being a part of the life of the forest is really very soothing.
No Small Thing
It's no small thing to learn the names
of the birds you hear each day,
perched on the top of coneflowers
gone to seed, calling from the hedgerow.
It's no small thing to belt out
Cardinal, catbird, goldfinch, when you
stop between breaths to listen
teasing out their strands of song
from the rustling of river birches
and the distant roar of a lawn mower.
It's no small thing to go so quiet
you hear the chorus of your thoughts
crescendo, then fall away as you
notice the patch of sun on a stone wall
blanketed in sphagnum moss
and imagine the unseen beings–
nematodes and water bears– who
thrive in tiny pools of rain suspended
between the moss' tiny leaves.
- James Crews
This weekend James and I had another set of visitors: our dear friends Bruce and Alene of SV Migration. They were our mentors when we lived at sea and we spent several joyful years leapfrogging around each other in California and Mexico, sharing anchorages, meals, and adventures.
Our favorite adventure with Alene and Bruce was sailing to Isla Isabel, a small island in the Gulf of California, which has no permanent human habitation and is a breeding ground for Magnificent Frigatebirds and Bluefooted Boobies. Me singing Three Little Birds for Alene's birthday, since this is three birds, and to show the kind of silly fun that's afoot with these folks. SV Rejoice, our home at the time, is beyond me as I sing on the deck of SV Migration.
In this dark, sharp, tender moment in the world, I'm practicing what I preach and teach: turning to both the human and the more-than-human life of the Earth for solace and to keep me awake and feeling so I don't go numb. This weekend we hiked with our guests on Hurricane Ridge, a beautiful site in the Olympic National Park, which is the top photo of this week's missive. The next morning we plunged into the 51 degree sea on a 55 degree morning with a couple dozen other people. Gosh, does plunging into the sea in Washington in September attract zesty, earth-loving people! It was my third plunge with our local group. I'm hoping to make it weekly. This weekend I aim to join the Gleaners who pick fruit from folks' trees and donate it to our schools and food bank. There's a move in our neighborhood to plant trees that can serve the Gleaners and feed the community and we're eying a spot in our meadow for this. Connecting with nature, building community, feeding people. These are helping me stay strong. I wonder what's working for you?
Also this week I'll sit down and write letters for Vote Forward, helping to support democratic processes, encouraging people to vote in critical local elections. You can, too! I'll read Chop Wood, Carry Water to make other calls or letters. There resistance afoot. You can do good, fight the spread of harm, or both. Doing anything helps.
This weekend I'll also be opening my autumn Workshop for Living: Love on the Inside. There are several brand-new people this time, so if you're curious, you'll be in good company as a newbie! If you're an old-timer and you think you don't have time for this round it might be handy to know that I now offer three levels of participation. The one that asks the least is the Light Weave: you get to watch the Saturday Gatherings where I teach (live or recorded, as you wish), and you get to spend an hour with me 1:1 at some point during the workshop. There's nothing you have to do, just access to me and the community Gathering. Simple, love-drenched. One person is choosing the Light Weave as they begin working on a Master's degree. Another person will be joining the Light Weave from a cruise ship to Singapore! Someone else is going for this option simply because they are pressed for time at work but still need support.
This Light Weave option came about because people asked for what they needed a couple years ago, wanting to participate while low on spoons. I'm always happy to hear your needs and interests; I continually craft the work so that it works for you. I've added an FAQ to the event listing and the option of a free 15 minute introductory conversation to my Calendly. When I was choosing a local naturopath I found this 15 minute session was a common option and loved getting to meet folks this way so I'm offering it to you as well. It's a great way to say hello and either discuss how I might serve you or just chit-chat to see if you like my vibe in person; same kind of thing you might spend the first 15 minutes with any new practitioner doing, but freeeee as a gesture of goodwill. If you already know me and want to chat about if this can work for you, you're welcome to schedule for that, too.
Resources
Movement is Life
Holy stars, have you read the new research about exercise and cancer? The headline, "A single exercise session may slow cancer cell growth, new study shows: Exercise may not only help prevent cancer but also could fight it at a cellular level." got my attention fast! We've long known that exercise helps prevent cancer and recurrence of cancer, and now we know we beginning to understand how: “exercise doesn’t just improve fitness and well-being” in people who’ve had cancer. “It also orchestrates a complex biological response that includes direct anticancer signals from muscles.” Blood drawn from women post-exercise was high in compounds that killed cancer cells. It's an exciting development! Washington Post gift link , or here's the study, whose title is also thrilling: "A single bout of resistance or high-intensity interval training increases anti-cancer myokines and suppresses cancer cell growth in vitro in survivors of breast cancer". Good news is such a gift right now.
Context is Everything
In another new study a very different single dose was also highly beneficial: LSD provided in a therapeutically supported environment offered relief to people suffering from GAD, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, which lasted until the study's monitoring ended 12 weeks later. NPR's coverage of this excellent news does a nice job of pointing out both how exciting this finding is and how important the context of a hallucinogenic experience is. In my header here, "context is everything" I am referring slightly to that and more widely to the ways that psychedelic experiences can help us recontextualize our living. I am grateful that many of the consciousness-altering substances which have long been outlawed and demonized are once again being explored for their benefits, and that some of these things are becoming available with therapeutic support, and I am hopeful that this will continue to expand.
Speaking of Context
If you're still using Facebook you need the FB Purity browser extension. A browser extension is a software program that works with your browser to add some kind of functionality; if this is new: you click a button to download it, and then it JFWs (Just Fucking Works). This one gives you choices that let you adjust what you are seeing. It can strip advertising, turn off suggested posts, lets you decide to see only posts from people you know (that's the Friend Feed setting), let you decide to see things in chronological order. It's pretty easy; you simply check or uncheck boxes that control how the information in your feed is shown to you. FB remains a valuable communication tool in my rural community and FB Purity makes that tolerable for me. One guy, Steve Fernandez, has been making this browser extension for 15 years. He gives it away free and simply asks for donations, bless him.
Resistance
I asked my darling husband James if he'd consider turning the excellent protest sign he made for the June No Kings rally into a flyer to help folks learn about the next one on October 18 for my temple. He did! You can download it here, too, if you wish. Someone mentioned that seeing That Man's face across the room on the bulletin board during yoga was a bummer, so I taped over it, which, gotta say, was satisfying. You can do it your way. Let's get into the streets!
We're In This Together
I invest half of a day in the creation of this newsletter each week, for which I currently earn far less than I'd get paid at McDonald's. I want to keep this up, and I want to continue to give it for free to folks who need it. That will only be possible if folks who can support the work so that I can support you. I hope you'll consider it! You can upgrade to a paid subscription for as little as $5/month. If you tried that when the link was broken, it's been fixed! Thank you for your support of my work, which means the world to me and puts food on my table.
