Tag Archive | interdependence

No Kings!

Jun14

Today I’m grateful for grassroots resistance, for solidarity and community in opposition to the current regime. I’m grateful for Indivisible, for our local chapter, for our founding mother Ellie, for everyone who helped put on a great event at the best town park in the county; for the volunteers and musicians, and the citizens who spoke, and for the roughly 450 concerned people who showed up in peaceful protest.

I was asked to speak as the co-founder of our Indivisible chapter, and after I was introduced by the Statue of Liberty, I kicked off the program. The video file of my speech, which I promised Gina I would share here, is just too big, so instead I’m posting the audio file, above. It’s just over seven minutes, including a moment of silence to honor with broken hearts the Minnesota public servants whose lives were stolen and shattered last night in an act of domestic terrorism. Apologies for getting Ms Hortman’s name wrong; let us not forget these victims as this fight escalates.

Despite the undercurrent of grief and existential angst that any open-hearted American is suffering these days, we had a wonderful time. Having fun, being joyful, feeling happy, each of these is “a revolutionary act in the face of despair.”

The first hour, people mingled, and visited the flag-making table, the sign-making table, the information tables for various organizations, and the postcard table. I saw a post on Instagram a month ago that tickled my fancy: A woman cutting trash cardboard to postcard size, to send to congressional reps: “Trash for the trash,” she said. So I brought my paper cutter, some pens, and some talking points.

An old friend sat down beside me and I put him to work drawing lines and stamping the blank cards while I kept cutting donated cardboard and roping people in to write to our CO District 3 congressman, Jeff Hurd. He said he wouldn’t vote to cut Medicaid and then he did. He campaigned as a moderate and he’s caved.

Many demurred, saying “I email him every week,” or “I just called him the other day,” or “It won’t make a difference anyway.” Then I dropped the “trash for the trash” line, and their eyes widened, their lips ticked up, and they picked up a pen. Messages ranged from angry to disappointed to almost kind, about the Big Bad Bill threatening Medicaid, Medicare, the VA, and food security, selling off public lands, selling out education, and more; several called out his consistent failure to show up for his constituents in many ways. It did my heart good to see so much engagement. Some people may have never written a postcard or called a representative, but now they feel empowered to do so. I’ll mail them all on Monday.

There were a lot of great signs brought from home and made at the park but from my vantage point I mostly saw great shirts!

It was a big day for me. I haven’t been to a gathering like that in years. I saw a lot of long-ago friends and acquaintances with whom I’d long ago lost touch, and was grateful that I’d only forgotten a couple of their names, both of which came to me before I needed them. A couple of people didn’t recognize me and I happily reminded them; and then there were a few whom I reminded of my name because they looked confused, then they quickly assured me they recognized me. There were many hugs and a couple of kisses and lots of talking in close quarters. If I get sick this week I’ll know why, but it would almost have been worth it.

I think my favorite sign was one Garden Buddy texted me this morning before I left home, just in the nick of time for me to print it. It lay on the postcard table, and one man considered it for a moment, read it aloud, and said, “Well no queens either.” I said gently, wondering how he’d respond, “It means drag queens.” A small slow smile brightened his face and he walked away chuckling.

Feed the Birds

May31
The flat light of dusk shows off the brilliant blues of the mountain bluebird.

Do you remember that song Feed the Birds, from Mary Poppins? The old woman on the cathedral steps feeding the pigeons touched me profoundly at the time, and the song is probably the first to embed itself in my young brain. Its message was formative for me.

I was surprised to see a northern flicker using the birdbath, but both male and female have become regular visitors.

Last year I put out this copper birdbath (I think it was last year, maybe the year before). Every morning first thing I turn on the hose to rinse it thoroughly and refill it. But I haven’t fed seedeaters for a decade, ever since the kittens came, because it wasn’t fair to bait the birds in knowing the cats would hunt them.

Be careful what you ask for. I’ve always wanted evening grosbeaks but even a decade ago when I last fed the birds they never came. This year, they dominate the feeder, and perch in the peach tree.

A few years ago, with censure from the phoebes and some serious discouragement from me, Topaz learned not to hunt birds. Now she’s getting old and slow enough she rarely hunts even mice. So after I saw Ruth’s Bird Buddy, and had been longing for birdsong in my days, I started feeding again.

House finches bring the earliest and most lovely song to the yard. The juvenile male above is starting to come into his adult plumage, and will soon resemble the gorgeous red adult, below.

Why did I start feeding birds again when there’s a bird flu crisis? Well, it’s not really affecting songbirds, but because of the scare I think some people have taken down backyard feeders; and beyond that, humans have destroyed and poisoned enough bird habitat, erected enough glass skyscrapers, and loosed enough domestic cats to kill more than three billion birds since 1970. Across all species of North American birds, the average breeding population has declined by nearly one third. The least I can do is feed the birds.

Finches are among the families especially hard hit by this devastating species decline.

The past couple of years I’ve seen an oriole show up at a hummingbird feeder once or twice, but not stick around. So last winter, anticipating, I purchased an oriole feeder. I put it out a few weeks ago when I learned they were in the area, with some nectar and an orange, but no visitors until yesterday: I only discovered that when I checked the orange this morning and saw that it had been picked clean. After having to rescue too many bees from the nectar I had emptied that, but I put out a fresh orange half, and some organic grape jelly, and waited… and waited…

…and waited, all day. I had to go inside for awhile late afternoon, and when I came back outside before sunset I saw half the orange had been scooped out. I sat down again with husband camera. Within a few minutes, here came the Bullock’s oriole to feast! The gratification of watching this gorgeous creature enjoy the fruit was well worth the wait. I’ll try for better light tomorrow.

The elusive western tanager also made a fleeting appearance last week, slipping into the juniper and slipping out while I was on a zoom meeting I had taken outside because it was too fine a day to stay in. As I sat with camera to eye and continued to participate in the meeting, Ana asked if I had seen the Netflix show ‘The Residence.’ I knew immediately why she asked, and I’ve been laughing for days delighted that I reminded her of the detective obsessed with birdwatching. If you haven’t seen that mini-series yet, I highly recommend it.

Good Neighbors

May13

The lilacs keep on giving. I’m trying this simple recipe for lilac cordial. One cup of lilac blossoms, juice of one lemon, half a cup of honey, and a liter of distilled water, shaken daily for a week. I put it together last night. We’ll know more later.

I’m exploring with some friends if there’s a distinction between gratitude, and living gratefully. We met tonight to discuss that, among other things. It may be as simple as the difference between a noun and a verb, but it deserves some unpacking. One thing I was grateful for this morning was being able to call my good neighbors and ask 1) for an asparagus refill, and 2) to borrow their garage and tools so I could fix my car. Though probably any of my neighbors would help any other in a pinch, I’ve had unpleasant encounters with a couple of them recently. So I was doubly grateful that I could call and leave a message with those requests, and it was my lucky day. Mary called me back in three minutes, having just come in from collecting wild asparagus along the fenceline, and Fred was already moving his truck out of the shop.

Why I needed to fix my car is another story, but the under-bumper-guard was ripped off and dragging. Fred examined it first, but I wanted to fix it myself. The Trans Handy-Ma’am always says, “You’re worth the time it takes to learn a new skill.” And now that I can get down on the ground I want to do so at every opportunity. And, as I heard a drag queen say the other night, “Of all the opportunities I’ve had in my life, this one is by far the most recent.” So with Mary handing me bolts and Fred’s new socket set and Wren supervising, we got ‘er done: the car is now safe to drive to Phil’s for a professional opinion and long-term solution.

I returned home with a pound of fresh wild asparagus, blistered it some in olive oil, laid it gently over sliced cheddar in a warmed spinach tortilla, and drizzled it with my new secret sauce: mayo, Grey Poupon, and balsamic vinegar. Then I piled on some chopped romaine, and some heirloom arugula that’s colonized the flagstone patio, rolled it up, and toasted it.

Despite the wind, I enjoyed lunch on the patio with a new Kindle book, and then played ‘Wren catch’ with the crunchy asparagus and romaine ends. It really was my lucky day. Things didn’t go quite as planned, but under the circumstances they couldn’t have gone better. I’ve felt waves of warm fuzzies wash through me all day, for having good neighbors, good communities, and good conversations. As well as a good dog, and a promising science experiment in the windowsill.

(Click or double click to play video)

Us v. the Billionaires

Feb25

Bad news from Congress this evening. One more step toward the country’s collapse. Republicans just voted on a budget bill that will decimate Medicaid, among other things, in order to pay for tax cuts for billionaires and corporations. All Americans regardless of party will be hurt by this, especially rural residents in red states.

I’m not a political resource, I’m just a mindfulness teacher who wants to help people see reality clearly. Pay attention tomorrow to all the resources I’ve share in the past, all your own reliable news sources, and the voices of your health professionals. And watch this video where Jess Craven tells Scott Dworkin that Americans agree on way more than they disagree on, and urges Americans “to finally understand that pitting us against each other is a trick by the rich to get us to not pay attention while they rob us blind.”

Interbeing

Feb23
Meeting little Wren for the first time in person, at the shelter in GJ. She was beat up from fighting the cage she was kept in, skinny, and just spayed.

Wren’s life flashed before my eyes this afternoon. It was another gorgeous day, and I’d been working in the yarden, hanging laundry, catching up with people in phone calls, telling an old friend how good she is, how fast she comes when I whistle, every time, that’s she’s an oxytocin factory. I walked outside the gate to place an ornamental rock on the newly created pedestals of a fire mitigation stump. I read a text, then whistled for Wren. She tends to race up the driveway and get caught up in smells, so I walked a little way up, past the badger hole, whistling and calling. Nothing. Minutes elapsed. Never, not once, in the nearly three years she’s been with me has she failed to come running by the second whistle. Panic rose in me. Another couple of minutes calling, looking. It felt unreal. The only reason she would not come would be that she could not come. I imagined her killed in an instant by a bobcat or lion, or caught in a barbed wire fence. My life without her loomed too horrible to imagine. What made it even worse was that since I only stepped outside the fence for a moment, I hadn’t put on her ID collar… if someone found her, alive or…

Later that first day, as Garden Buddy drove us home from the shelter…

I called my best neighbors north and south to enlist a search party. Then, and only then, did I breathe, pause, and consider alternatives. I’ve become so accustomed to her stealth accompaniment with my every move that I often call her and she’s right behind me. Could she possibly be inside? So I hurried down to the house, opened the door, and there she was bouncing up and down, so relieved to see me, though not nearly as relieved as I was to see her precious face. I canceled the Wred alert, with gratitude knowing that my neighbors would be as relieved as I, and not annoyed with my calling for help. That’s what we do, and we all share the joy in a happy outcome.

Later this day, GB brought us a bag of goodies, and asked me to never write about the badger hole again.

That my go-to was panic when I couldn’t find Wren speaks to the underlying tension many of us are living with these days. A month ago it would have occurred to me much sooner that she was probably in the house. I am far better internally resourced to handle the stress of this hostile administrative coup than I was during the first regime, but all that means is that the anxiety isn’t crippling, not that it isn’t there. I’m hearing more specific accounts of people who’ve lost their jobs to the DOGE axe (including a fired federal worker who is now suicidal – I’m sure he’s not the only one), and the offensive letters they’ve been fired with. But I keep coming back to the message of courage and resilience as I also speak with more people each day who are jumping on the action bandwagon. Resistance is not futile: in fact, our future depends on it.

Sustenance after the scare: havarti, romaine, avocado, potato chip crumbs, mayo and mustard.

This morning I listened to a fabulous talk by Rebecca Solnit, about MLK, interconnectedness, climate chaos, and the nihilist ideology of isolationism and authoritarianism, among other things. She wraps it up with a marvelous message of interdependence and belonging. I also downloaded an app suggested by a friend, which makes it super easy to call your representatives: it provides scripts on a wide range of concerns, and even dials for you: “5 Calls – Contact Your Congress.” Resistbot is another good app to use to send letters to your reps. Spread the word, and remember the economic blackout this Friday, from midnight to midnight. Don’t spend money for one day. Let’s see what happens. I’m grateful for comprehending interdependence, and the feeling of belonging, of interbeing, that arises from that understanding.

Standing on My Own Two Feet…

Oct5

With a Lot of Help from My Friends

Sunrise at home, from the rented hospital bed. Grateful.

I am two and a half weeks out of surgery. The new hip is settling in nicely, and I marvel daily at the total and astonishing absence of the arthritis pain that plagued me for so many years. I have been ‘pain-different’ since I left the hospital, with a continually diminishing pain that has been much easier to bear than the chronic, debilitating variety of aches, stabs, and sears I tolerated for so long. Each day there is a little less pain and a little more strength and mobility. I am strictly constrained in the ways that I can move the left leg until a total of six weeks have passed, after which I should be able to move in any way I want. Meanwhile, I take baby steps, first only with a walker, and this week using a cane more and more. Yesterday I walked all the way to the back gate for the first time. It’s a miracle.

Cousin Mel recovered from covid for one day before suffering a rebound, and remained consigned to the outdoors when she felt up to visiting us and helping without outside chores including garden watering and Wren-walking. We were profoundly grateful for the generosity of one friend in offering her empty home where Mel could isolate and recuperate.

Wren loved all the aunties coming and going, and Topaz did not. I’m especially grateful to Pamela, who offered to come stay over the first six nights, and much of the first few days, and with her competence and compassion kept my recovery on track. Other friends came for a few hours at a time to help with all the daily tasks I could not do, and/or brought food to both me and Mel in our separate dwellings, and yet others drove me to surgery and post-op. All day every day, it seemed, as I lay in bed explaining where things were and what needed to be done, gentle women moved through my house taking care of my life. It was exhausting to watch them filling in for me!

For days I was essentially bedridden, getting up only to totter to the toilet and back to bed with the support of a borrowed walker. After a week I was able to totter outside and sit on the patio for a few minutes, in a chair bulked up with a borrowed cushion. Pieces of many others’ homes are in mine now supporting me. Being the recipient of all the assistance, compassion and loving kindness from my local community and others farther afield brought home to me the truth of Interdependence and Interconnection, of “Interbeing” as Thich Nhat Hahn called it. I’ve felt more deeply connected as the receiver, in the center of all this supportive attention, than I am accustomed to feeling as one of many givers to others in need of support. It’s a wonderful perspective to feel such belonging. I could not have done this alone. I am so grateful for community.

Among the first foods delivered for our dining pleasure were the best deviled eggs from Garden Buddy, and borscht from Deb. More delicious, nutritious meals kept on coming for weeks.
During that first week, Mary came a couple of early mornings and prepared delicious oatmeal with yogurt, maple syrup, and fresh nectarine.
It had been hard to reach my feet for awhile, and a broken toenail was catching on the sheets, so she kindly agreed to trim my nails, and then insisted on filing them too. The left leg at this point is still stained with iodine from the surgical scrub, as I was not able to shower for a full week, until after the first post-op appointment.
I’m grateful for the cards and presents friends and family sent, including the especially thoughtful gift of maple cream ordered from my favorite maple supplier.

Recovering seems to take almost all my energy every day. Gratitude takes the rest. It’s late, and ‘the server’ is refusing to upload more photos. It’s the universe telling me it’s time to go to sleep. I am grateful to be standing on my own two feet again — with a lot of help from my friends.

Maple Syrup

Dec10

Yes, oatmeal again with a different twist. Apricot jam instead of blueberries, protein powder, flaxseed meal, and 100% pure dark amber maple syrup from Vermont. I’m grateful for everything about this bowl. The bowl itself: a simple factory-made Fiesta bowl, one of a set of five, with a long and loving story of its provenance and how the set grew from four to five, which hinges on a dear old friend in the antique business. There’s a whole story in this bowl that makes a simple vessel meaningful. And why I even wanted this kind of bowl is another story, about a bowl of granola with yogurt and strawberries, served to me in the backyard garden of a Maryland townhouse a decade ago. I’m grateful for the people who work at the factory who made the bowl, the materials they used that came from the earth; everyone involved in its transport from the factory to the antique mall in western Virginia where it came into my hands…

Bob’s Red Mill organic oats: who grew them, all the water and attention, the cultivated soil, the hands and hearts involved in growing and packaging these oats; the drivers, their vehicles, the roads or rails the oats rode on to get to my house, and my beloved personal shoppers who delivered them to me. It just goes on: the same train of events for the whey protein powder, the flaxseed meal, the splash of milk I forgot to mention til just now, hundreds of people involved and copious resources, just to make my oatmeal tasty. And your oatmeal, of course, or whatever else you eat to start your day.

And then the apricot jam. I’ve expressed enough gratitude about the jam and the tree in past posts I don’t need to go on about it. But the syrup? Have I truly expressed enough gratitude for maple syrup? I don’t think so.

I was raised on real maple syrup. The Colonel was a stickler for things like real butter v. margarine, real mashed potatoes v. instant, and real maple syrup v. flavored sugar syrup. He used to tell people I’d eat cardboard if it had maple syrup or honey on it. The biggest treat of Christmas was real maple-leaf candy in my stocking. And so I’m grateful to neighbor Mary for turning me onto Mount Mansfield in Vermont where I now buy the best real maple syrup regularly. I’m grateful for the family who’s been tending and tapping the trees for generations, for the time and care they give their trees and their products and their customers. I’m grateful for maple trees: for their sometimes towering trunks and their leaves that turn crimson in autumn, and for their nutritious sap that they cede generously to the hardy Yankees who harvest it year after year. I’m grateful for the technology it takes to get the sap to the sugar house, and the fuel it takes to boil the sap in gleaming vats, and for all the people who stir and pour and mold and package all the delicious maple goodness that comes sometimes to my home from the far corner of the country, and for all the people and vehicles and fuel that it takes to get it here, all the way to Taylor the Crawford UPS driver. I’m grateful I’ve learned through the years to use maple syrup for so much more than pancakes.

Other People

Nov2
Obligatory Wren portrait, the little lady among her rumpled bedclothes, suggesting “Do we really have to get up already?”

My dear departed friend Michael had a postcard on his refrigerator that I coveted. It became my secret motto, and it looked something like this:

It’s hardly an appropriate mantra for a mindfulness teacher, so as my practice has developed I’ve modified my interpretation. Whether it’s ear-splitting music shattering the peace of a secluded beach or earth-shattering climate chaos, it’s the ignorant choices of some other people that ruin things. It’s not the polar bears or the giant redwoods ruining their own habitats, it’s people. It’s not the natural desert sucking the Rio Grande dry, or grazing bison depleting the Ogallala Aquifer, it’s people. These are just the tip of the melting iceberg, of course: Everyone has their own examples, from wars to weeds.

But while it’s true that most of the horrible things I lament in the world are the result of other people, it’s also true that other people are responsible for almost every good thing in my life. They’re certainly responsible for my survival from birth, the education, employment, and other opportunities that shaped me and enabled me to settle here, and my ongoing thriving in this wonderful community. And just like me, most other people are doing the best they can with what they have to live their own little lives without causing intentional distress for anyone else.

Other people are responsible in some way for everything on this table, from the copper watering can and ceramic bonsai pots to the coffee, its mug, the ingredients for the cookie and its plate, and the table itself. Other people created from natural materials all the construction elements of the sunroom where the table sits, from the adobe bricks to the window frames and the glass windows. All the art in my home (including photographs I made) came in some way from other people. Even the tiny percentage of food that I grow in the garden (that other people helped me create) relies on the efforts of other people for the seeds, water delivery, soil amendments, and help maintaining. It’s an infinite pool of reliance: I’d be nothing without other people. So I’m profoundly grateful for other people.

Enough to Eat

Aug30

I’m grateful for leftovers: veggie enchilada with shredded romaine and fresh garden tomato for lunch today, the last of the cauliflower soup tonight. I’m grateful that I have enough to eat, and a roof over my head, and good friends around the valley and around the country, and everything I need to bake cupcakes tomorrow.

I’m grateful that Hurricane Idalia wasn’t quite as catastrophic as she could have been in terms of human fatalities; though she’ll result in plenty of long-term suffering for millions of Americans along her ongoing path. Supporting my plea argument yesterday, R. Hubbell wrote in Today’s Edition:

         “The effects of human-caused climate change are manifesting themselves everywhere—as should be expected given the interdependence of the Earth’s atmosphere, oceans, land masses, and ecosystems. We can feel overwhelmed if we simply catalog the many ways in which climate change manifests itself. We cannot give in to helplessness. It is never too late to make changes that will benefit current and future generations. The most important thing we can do is to elect leaders who will prioritize the reduction of reliance on fossil fuels…. It is time for all Americans to put climate change at the top of their issues list when deciding how they will cast their vote. Remember that at the GOP debate last week, Vivek Ramaswamy declared that ‘Climate change is a hoax.’ The only hoax is politicians who refuse to address a problem that is an economic and national security emergency affecting the lives of every American.”

Robert Hubbell, Todays Edition, August 30, 2023
I’m grateful for a quiet, uneventful evening walk among the late summer light and the altocumulus sky.

Connection

Jul30
The beautiful apricot tree is a direct and constant connection with neighbor Fred who prunes it every spring and taught me how to tend it so it flourishes.

I’ve been pondering the value of Connection for a few days now. Both Covid and Mindfulness have changed my understanding of connection. As most people around me ‘move on’ with their lives or return to pre-Covid ways of being my sense of connection in my community has shifted. At the same time, mindfulness has expanded my sense of connection with people in general as I practice the Four Immeasurable attitudes, wishing happiness and well-being for all, and working to reduce suffering of others as I’m able. I feel less seen by a few nearby, and more understood by many afar. I’ve learned that meaningful online connections can be cultivated authentically with old friends and new, that I can make a positive change in people’s lives from a distance, and that all nourishing connections are worth sustaining. Of these, my connection to the natural world is bone-deep and paramount; and my connection with my innermost self is stronger than its ever been.

So many of the things in my home represent connections with dear people, past times, beloved places. Even a simple breakfast is loaded with connection. Setting aside the larger interdependence involved in the technology of a Kindle and all the humans and resources necessary for it to exist at my breakfast table, there’s the connection I feel occasionally to my sister-in-law when I remember that she influenced me to buy a Paperwhite: “I know you like to sit outside and read,” she said, “so that would be the best Kindle for you.” And what am I reading this morning on my Kindle Paperwhite? Foster, recommended by my most literary friend Sarahbelle, and so I feel connection with her as I open it up.

Acknowledging gratitude for all the interconnections that brought coffee beans into my home and enabled them to be ground and brewed, I feel special gratitude for the unique mug I drink from which symbolizes connection with two wonderful women in Florida, one who hand-built the mug and one who gave it to me. Those connections flare in awareness each time I use the mug. The connections among plants and humans that brought flour, salt, water and sugar into my house as ingredients in the toast and jam are many and far-flung: The sourdough itself traces back to one friend I haven’t seen for years but connect with in my heart every time I use the starter, and the sour cherry jam reinforces my connection with two dear friends the next mesa over. The plate is an anchor to Amy, whom I never fail to think of when I pull it from the handmade cupboard that links me to the Wood Monks who built my kitchen. I’m grateful for connection in all the ways it manifests in my little life.