Beloved friends,
On Monday James and I drove across the Astoria-Megler bridge, which spans the mouth of the Columbia river where it meets the Pacific Ocean. This 4.1 mile bridge connects the Oregon and Washington portions of the Pacific Coast Highway, U.S. 101, in an elaborate confection of human effort and beauty. It was incredible to see for the first time when we crossed it on a foggy Friday heading south, but utterly dazzling on our rainy return, with a long, low rainbow arching over the northern end of the bridge. For the first time in my life, I saw the end of the rainbow where it sat upon the Earth.
I find myself cherishing this experience in a new way right now. I no longer take for granted the extraordinary efforts of the science that lets us create these materials from the substance of the Earth and design and build such durable, useful structures. I am grateful anew for the goodwill of the people of Oregon and Washington who chose to connect their lands in this way. I cherish the labor of the people who built the bridge and the movements and unions that made this decent work for those people. I bow in my heart to the accumulation of human wisdom and experience that led to all of this. I see anew how incredible it is that we accomplish so much together when we gather in goodwill and commitment.
And then, above all the concrete and steel and math and sweat of humanity, there floated everyday miracle of the rainbow: the light of our sun shining through raindrops. In a blessing upon the miracle there was maintenance work afoot on the bridge which cut traffic down to one lane and we were able to sit and gawk and take photographs. They are rather terrible photographs; I hope they nonetheless capture for you a bit of the magic and joy of this moment, which is what I hope to share.
I hope you find this missive filled with invitations to the awe, wonder, determination, and hope that I have brought to it. I hold you in love. I hold all things in love. I remain determined to do so.
Resources
I believe in the forest, and the meadow, and the night in which the corn grows.
- Henry David Thoreau
Cosmic Grounding
We live in the Milky Way, a spiral galaxy. At the heart of our galaxy is a black hole called Sagittarius A* (pronounced Sagittarius A-star) which has a mass of 4 million suns. I'm paraphrasing there from EarthSky; after typing that I sat and blinked rapidly for a few moments. Entire suns as units of measurement?! FOUR MILLION SUNS?! Ah, perspective. We are so tiny! Among the many delights to come from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope – which, I'd like to point out, is something we as a people created, hired people to plan and build on behalf of humanity – is the "longest and most detailed glimpse" of Sagittarius A*. It turns out that the accretion disk of dust and gas that swirls around our black hole is emitting flares which EarthSky describes like so, "The supermassive black hole at the center of our home galaxy, the Milky Way, appears to be having a party, complete with a disco ball-style light show." Goodness, how I love astronomers and astrophysicists. Have I whet your appetite to give this a peek? I hope so! It's right here.
Passing It On
I hear a lot of people saying right now that they are struggling because holding leadership roles is putting them in a position to hold space for people around our national crisis, which is something they have not been trained for. Scientific American did a lovely piece called "Why the News Feels Overwhelming—And How to Cope". It is an intelligent and simple explanation of the political strategy and neuroscience of what we're dealing with and suggested good coping strategies. It won't be new for regular readers here, but it's a fantastic, concise resource that could be great for sharing, and reminders can be useful for all of us. It's a little ad-heavy; viewing through 12ft.io will make it a gentler cognitive input. Thanks to Kirsten
Grounding: Eating Local
Local foods can be a powerful way to ground and connect. Being in direct relationship with local farmers and fisherfolk offers resistance to the corporatization of our sustenance. Shopping at small neighborhood markets who are in relationship with those folk is often an option for city folk, and these places often have a wonderful sense of community. And farmers markets are everywhere! We're eagerly looking forward to the April start of our second year of the Red Dog Farm veggie CSA from up the road. I invited neighbors to join in hopes of nurturing a relationship between the farm and our neighborhood. After stomping around with the good folks at our beloved Hama Hama Oyster Farm we subscribed to their Oysters & Friends; the first box made for a lovely feast with guests one night and we adored learning to cook fresh clams the next. Did you know you have to let them soak in fresh, salted water to expel sand before you cook them? It was so cool! We just joined a cannabis CSA started by a friend who has a passion to protect old strains in the best of ways: by growing them. Our local fish market, Key City Fish, has a membership program we belong to and a recent email said they had sea urchin. We've loved uni in sushi restaurants but had never prepared it at home, so I surprised James with them. Cutting sea urchins open over the kitchen sink with scissors amidst a busy day because the urchins were fresh and best eaten now was a call to presence and gratitude. Yesterday when we went back to get them a final time before their cold-weather season ends, the guy at the market greeted us like old friends and took care to give us the biggest ones he had. Connecting to people, place, and the seasons in our foodways is always good grounding and medicine and oh, especially now. We are the life of the Earth, together.
Hope in the Dark
This coming Tuesday March 11 will be the final session for our Community Reading of Hope in the Dark. This gathering has held a mix of longtime community members from my days in SF and friends from my newer home in Washington. It has been a profound personal joy to watch my old and new friends discussing how we as a people can live well together. I've been moved, too, by how many people have told me they purchased the book to read on their own. If you read on your own and want to discuss, reach out, friends.
I believe in hope as an act of defiance, or rather as the foundation for ongoing series of acts of defiance, those acts necessary to bring about some of what we hope for while we live by principle in the meantime. There is no alternative, except surrender. And surrender not only abandons the future, it abandons the soul. - Rebecca Solnit
Resistance
On Tuesday night the Indivisible huddle – the charming name for our local chapterer – for my 10,000 person town held an event called "March 4th for Democracy". They had a simple plan: gather for an hour at rush hour to wave signs along the 2-lane highway that runs into town. They were gobsmacked when 200 people showed up. San Francisco has a population of about 800,000, so a proportionately sized gathering there would be 16,000 people. Word is spreading. People are rising up. Dr. Jamal Bryant, an Atlanta pastor, is leading a 40 day boycott of Target to protest their cancellation of DEI programs. It began yesterday, Ash Wednesday, and is framed as a Lenten fast. (Lent is the 40 day period before Christ's death and resurrection and a time when many Christians traditionally undertake some kind of fast/abstention.) There is a project called #theidesoftrump to send protest postcards to the White House on March 15. You can send to: The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20500. Here's a virtual meetup for postcard writing and photos of cards from the original event in 2017 . There are protests at Tesla dealerships and folks are stopping or minimizing use of Amazon. The resistance is heating up! If you're feeling disconnected and powerless, feeling like there is nothing you can do, I cannot invite you warmly enough to make the small steps to get connected. There is good company to be had. It brings comfort, keeps us strong in our determination to resist, and it will make a difference.
Need Support?
5calls for support with calling, Resistbot for support with email and letters, Chop Wood, Carry Water for a daily actions email and a Sunday roundup of positive events in the resistance, Rebecca Solnit for hope and perspective. Indivisible, SURJ, and the Working Families Party are all outstanding for national and local organizing. You'll see me mentioning Indivisible because that is the organization that has a group in my rural area. Don't see your favorite activism source or tool here? Please send it my way! We're wiser together.