Beloved friends,
Just after Imbolc, the midpoint between the winter solstice and the vernal equinox, winter landed here on the Olympic Peninsula. It snowed one night, melted the next day, did that again, and then it came down and stayed. Well, it stayed here, at least; we're on a ridge at 500 feet (152 meters), so we get more snow and it lasts longer than in town, right down at the seashore. We live in a rural residential neighborhood; our street has oh, maybe a couple dozen houses. The county ploughs or salts the windy two-land country roads nearby, but our street would be up to us, and the tradition is to wait for the snow and ice to melt.
So we hunkered down last week. Lots of things were canceled. It's still below freezing every night, which we only get for a few days a year, so nothing is ideally set for this. Our county is large and lightly populated, so not all the roads can be tended, or tended quickly. Folks don't have snow blowers. In my neighborhood most driveways are gravel and perhaps at the end of a long dirt road. There are a lot of cars parked just off the road where folks left them to hike in to their houses. There are folks posting to the local social media groups about being unable to leave because they can't get out of their garages, or kind thanks to strangers who pushed them up hills or pulled them out of ditches.
It's been a solace, the need to bow with respect to the life of the Earth. Last night in the Community Reading, we read Rebeca Solnit speaking of her experience in the 1989 Loma Prieta quake, which resonates: "The day after the quake, I walked around town to see people I cared about, and the world was local and immediate. Not just because the Bay Bridge was damaged and there were practical reasons to stay home, but because the long-term perspective from which so much dissatisfaction and desire comes was shaken too: life, meaning, value, were close to home, in the present."
It's been that kind of week here. A friend who lived long in truly snowy places who has a 4WD truck checked to see if I needed anything from town; she knew that my husband was away and I wouldn't be able to get out in my little convertible. I texted my neighbor across the road, who I saw leaving for work, to see what the roads were like when deciding if I should dis-invite folks planning to come here for yoga. We hadn't spoken in months; he was delighted to advise me. Another neighbor invited us to sled in the meadow between our houses. I've been getting up every day and taking boiling water out to break the seal between the ice and the birdbaths, flipping out the ice, and refilling the baths. The hummingbirds lingered long at our feeders during the snowfall. The Steller's Jays and Northern Flickers come by to visit the nut feeder mid-morning. I go downstairs to turn off the downstairs sink with its inexplicable outdoor pipe run each morning, and turn it on to drip each night before bed, with a pot in the sink to catch the water, which I use to fill those birdbaths.
The strong call to the here and now is a wonderful respite from the life of the nation, though we are attending to that, too; grieving, shouting, sighing, holding each other, and carrying on with our living. I've been making extensive use of the techniques I shared last week here and in all my classes lately: physical ways to stimulate the vagus nerve which makes up 75% the parasympathetic nervous system and is often called the relaxation response. During the 30 years of my teaching, each of those names has been trendy for a time. Oh, there was the stress management era, too! They all refer to the same biological mechanism: that which calms our bodies. I'm singing, humming, stretching, applying ice to the back of my neck, putting my legs up the wall, and it's incredible to feel the rapid effect of these on my nervous system. I loved Lucie's appreciation for this information; she said, "It’s so good to have simple things to do to disrupt the downfall of the spirit.” Thank you, sweetheart; yum.
I'm attending to the life of the Earth. I'm sharing meditation and yoga and books and conversation and healing touch. I'm calling my representatives daily and talking to my more-activist neighbors and distant friends and making connections and learning about where I can get connected and do good. Last night someone in the Community Reading said, "I feel so good after I make those calls." I do, too. I'm feeling another thing Rebecca said, "Resistance is usually portrayed as a duty, but it can be a pleasure, an education, a revelation." Yes. That. If you'd like to consider how you might act, I'll have suggestions down below in the new Resistance section.
SCHEDULE CHANGE: The Soft Animal will not meet this Saturday 2/15 and the Meditation Gathering will not meet Tuesday 2/18 because I'm going to go soak in a sunny hot spring in the desert and my house sitter does not, alas, tend to my job.
Resources
All That We Do Not Know We Know
I love that the mysteries of existence apply not only to the cosmos, (like that new ultrafast neutrino, the fastest subatomic particle ever discovered, whose path right through the Earth, because neutrinos just zip through anything was revealed this week) but to ourselves as well. Did you know that a few years ago we learned that humans have magnetoreception – that we, or at least some of us, can sense the Earth's magnetic field, like birds and bacteria and dogs and fruit flies? In 2019, researchers at CalTech said, "We have confirmed that human neurophysiology is indeed sensitive to magnetism. We have discovered specific rotations of earth-strength fields that trigger distinctive brain wave activity that shows that we are subconsciously processing geomagnetic stimuli." Their site is here. Science did a nice piece giving wider context for the study. The Guardian did a quick roundup of magnetoreceptive animals.
Mysteries Solved
Solutions! Also juicy! Seismologists have found that a South Carolina town's ghostly shaking and lights are likely due to shallow earthquakes just at the edge of our perception accompanied by earthquake lights – a phenomenon which we can name but not yet fully explain, either. I love the natural mystery within the solution to the ghost story! (NYT gift link)
Taking Care
Our last Republican administration ended with an attempted coup followed rapidly by the global pandemic, and alcohol consumption in the US shot way up for a bit there! In the ensuing years there has been a cultural shift toward normalizing sobriety, complete with fashionable alcohol-free cocktails. Still, drinking alcohol is a common response to stress. I was fascinated to learn that alcohol increases anxiety. "When you drink alcohol, the brain ramps up the release of a chemical called gamma-aminobutyric acid, or GABA, which helps us feel calm. Alcohol also inhibits the release of a neurotransmitter called glutamate, which is associated with anxiety. These disruptions can make people feel more relaxed. But if you become physically dependent on alcohol — after years of drinking heavily, for example — the constant ramping up of GABA can cause the brain to produce less of it, and glutamate becomes more dominant. The brain then becomes 'hyperexcitable,' which can lead to symptoms like panic attacks", says addiction expert and professor of psychiatry Dr. Kathleen Brady in the New York Times. (gift link) Perhaps a good reason to check out that link up top about natural ways to engage the relaxation response, precious friend?
Strange Comfort
Itaru Sasaki is a Japanese garden designer. When grieving the death of a beloved cousin, he installed a phone booth in a garden, connected to nothing, where he would go to speak to his cousin. He called it Kaze No Denwa (風の電話), wind phone. After the vast, tragic earthquake and tsunami of 2011, he moved the booth near a town that took devastating losses and opened it to the public. There are now hundreds of wind phones around the world, and kind soul has created a website where you can list and find them. "Connected to nothing tangible, the phones invite the living to pick up the receiver and continue unfinished conversations, to recall happier times or to offer life’s updates." It's a way to make those conversations we have in our heads with our beloved dead or the divine or life itself a bit more concrete. I learned about this while reading about the wind phones in Michigan. I'm going to keep my eye out for a vintage wall phone that we can hang in the forest with a little bench to make a wind phone here. If you've got one kicking around, drop me a line!
Resistance
Not My Presidents' Day: Nationwide Day of Action
There are folks organizing actions in all 50 states on Monday, February 17, which is a national holiday: President's Day. Newsweek has the only list of #50501 demonstrations I can find. This may mean that what's planned near you is civil disobedience, which is of course unpermitted and unpublicized. Talk to your activist friends to find out what's up near you or make your own choice: you could let that be the day you make some calls, make a donation, look into volunteer opportunities.
Speaking up
If you'd like to start calling your representatives to encourage their efforts toward the things you'd like to see saved, 5calls.org is a great resource. You give them your zip code; they give you a list of issues, phone numbers, and scripts.Social support helps in all lifestyle change; finding a friend that you can check in with and encourage one another is great way to make this happen. Calls are far more impactful than other forms of contact, but Resistbot lets you send emails, letters or faxes by text. Using Resistbot was a good onroad to calling for me.
Fantastic Sources of Action
I aim to shine light on resistance because this newsletter is an aspect of my work as a spiritual teacher and I believe that true liberation is both individual and collective. If you'd like a resource truly focused on resistance from someone for whom that is their cetnral work, Jess Craven's Chop Wood, Carry Water is a daily newsletter that is a cornucopia of actionable information. Indivisible's Guide to Action is also a fantastic resource, a one-time read that's a great primer for folks looking to learn to engage.