“Our glorious, gasping, wounded world is reeling from many budding catastrophes. Among the most crucial and least acknowledged: our collective amnesia. We have forgotten who we really are: sacred vessels of a sentient cosmos—not just us humans, but also the stones, rivers, foxes, oak trees, wetlands, microbes, everything.”

This opening paragraph from Rob Brezsny’s weekly astrology newsletter introduces a beautiful analysis of the tragic results for our planet of millenia under the thumb of the patriarchy. “It’s the operating system of empires and corporations, the not-so-covert programming behind clear-cut forests and strip-mined mountains—and the code that ensures women’s bodies are controlled and exploited.”

I’m feeling more and more fierce these days about toxic masculinity and the abusive relationship we’re experiencing on a national level. So I enjoyed reading a fierce feminist fiction this week called Camp Zero by Michelle Min Sterling. It’s perversely refreshing to read about women doing a little retaliatory violence to the patriarchy instead of the disturbingly pervasive male violence against women that saturates so-called entertainment these days.

Meanwhile, I’m finding moments of happiness barefoot in the kitchen baking muffins, and nurturing the planet in my tiny sphere in my own feminine ways.

House finches and evening grosbeaks are among the regular visitors at the new smart feeder. Their songs and conversations brighten the days even more than their colors.