In the midst of cruelty and oppression, where does hope emerge? For me, it was seeing the protesters in Portland, Oregon dress in inflatable frog costumes, exposing the lie that Portland was a war zone, or that protesters were violent. In the face of armed and masked ICE agents, people responded with this creative and playful spontaneity. First there was one frog, and then it expanded to many frogs, and other silly costumed beings. Then someone else remembered this quote from Exodus about the plague of frogs. Perfect.
October 18th is NO KINGS day, and thousands of peaceful protests are planned for across the country. I can’t go out to one, but I can voice my support here. Support for democracy, support for the beautiful diversity that can make our communities full and alive, support for immigrants, support for trans siblings, and all queer people, support for disabled people and black people and indigenous people, Asian and Latino/a/x people. We need to keep expressing our vision of a multi-cultural country bound together by equality, justice, and full participation.
May the frogs multiply and spread the good word. Keep hope alive!
I don’t have a new photo to share, but this afternoon, I saw a young robin pecking the ground in the orchard. It had the slightly mottled chest coloring of a juvenile. It didn’t stay long, it quickly flew away, but it brought me a moment of hope. I can’t prove it, but I think it might be the young robin that I tried to help last week. That’s why I am resharing the last photo of that fierce baby, taken on June 21st. I feel that witnessing its presence in the garden is a gift.
Today has been a day that needed a little sign from heaven, a little miracle. The Senate passed by a tie-breaker vote its version of the big horrible bill that will kill so many people who lose healthcare, if it is now passed by the House. I don’t want to say anymore about that right now, but every call, every email, every public witness is like a prayer for hope, for goodness, against cruelty and greed. We are facing so much destruction and pain. But I feel the presence of Spirit with all of us who do whatever we can for our common good, for our intertwined life here on this planet.
One thing I love about snow is the way it reveals all sorts of hidden activities. We haven’t seen any deer on our land for quite a long time, but after the snow storms of the last weeks, we found their tracks making a path through the yard. The deer have been quietly passing through in the dark. They have come to drink the water that we keep thawed for the birds, and come to eat the sunflower seeds scattered near the bird feeder. They have nibbled the yew bushes in front of our windows.
There is so much that is hidden that is only revealed through storms. There is so much that we cannot see, and may never know. In the face of all that is coming undone in our country, in the face of all that is being destroyed, this gives me a kind of hope. Not optimism or naivety. I know that there is a coup happening right now against the ideals of democracy we have cherished, ideals we have tried to expand and perfect. Human dignity, diversity, equity, inclusion. Compassion for the vulnerable. I feel anxiety and rage in the face of the dangers that hang over us.
But as Rebecca Solnit says, “Hope locates itself in the premises that we don’t know what will happen and that in the spaciousness of uncertainty is room to act.” The deer tracks remind me that, in truth, we don’t even know what is happening right now, right outside our windows in the dark. We don’t know what may be happening that will change the trajectory of the future.
The deer tracks remind me that we are not alone in our yard, our home is the home of many other beings, those we can see, and those who are invisible to us. And just so, we are not alone in our struggles. In ways that we cannot begin to understand, we are all connected. That interconnection means that even our small actions of love and kindness may have beautiful consequences, and there are others unknown to us whose actions may bring liberation to all. May it be so!
On the last day of 2024, Margy and I went to Kettle Cove beach. I saw this tiny partial sunbow in the sky, bursts of color hanging on either side of a bright sun. Tiny and partial are the words for today. There is so much suffering in the world, so much violence and evil. I can’t stop the devastation of Gaza, or the cruelty of the Israeli army continuing to kill scores of people even after a ceasefire has just been signed, to take affect on Sunday. Why not stop the killing today? All I can do is bear witness, share posts on Facebook. Tiny and partial.
What can we do to bring good to the world? I think about my visit to my friend at the nursing home yesterday. He was happy to see me–I went to wish him happy birthday and we had a good visit. But immediately afterward I felt a sense of guilt that I can’t visit more often than every months or so. What I can offer him is tiny and partial. But perhaps it is important, especially in the face of large and unrelenting troubles, to honor the tiny and partial acts of goodness we do? And what can he offer now, my old friend, after years of activism and kindness? Perhaps merely to receive with cheerfulness the help he now needs. We each bring goodness in the tiny and partial ways that we are able.
Each morning I take a walk. I have been able to take a little walk most days, after a message a year ago that “walking will be needed.” I have been able, ever so slowly, to increase my walk to about 20 minutes, no longer going directly to the brook and back, but making a little circle around the neighborhood, on my way there. It feeds my spirit, and reminds me to be in love with the earth, the sun, the water, the place where I live. It is a tiny walk as walks go, but by tiny increments, a little more.
Before I walk, I empty and refill the water that we have in a heated tray for the birds. Perhaps that is my tiny gift to the creatures who live here with us on this land. It feels like a prayer each morning. It reminds me of the importance of giving what we are able to this wider community of life. The other day I saw the crows laughing and jostling each other as they perched on the edge and dipped their beaks in.
We are living in very troubled times. Some will be called to wise analysis, and great acts of heroism, and energetically building the systems that honor our deepest values. But all of us, no matter how tiny, must still cling to kindness, cling to our interconnected earth community, and give what we can, no matter how partial. And I hope I remember to celebrate the brightness of the colors revealed in those gifts.
It was a quiet week, the robins had finished the nest, but were elsewhere in the yard. But this morning, one of them has come into the nest and has been sitting there a long time. I took a lovely little walk around the yard, just to look at things. There was a sparrow taking a bath in the shallow beach of the pond. The spice bushes were covered with tiny yellow blooms. I greeted the old pine, and the cedar tree, and the pitch pine. The sea kale has emerged, along with rhubarb leaves. The daffodils were blooming.
After breakfast, I went back outside–it is cold and gray today, with rain expected later, but I thought I might just do a few things. After reading some more information on pruning, I finally tackled that aspect of tending to the little apple trees, as well as I was able. Then I transplanted some chives and thyme to keep the baby trees company in their circles–companion plants.
After I came in, I saw the robin wasn’t in the nest, so I went out to check, and was delighted to find this: one blue egg. She came back a short time later, and is sitting there now. After last summer’s disappointments, I know there are no guarantees, but today is a day for hope. May the robin family be blessed with young!
I woke at 3 a.m. and saw the bright full moon through my window. I woke again at 5:30 a.m., but could not see the eclipsed red moon because it was hiding low in the sky behind the many trees and buildings around our house. Still, I dreamt about the lunar eclipse all through the night. First I saw it like a giant pale cookie with a bite taken out. Then I was talking about it with others, and talking about other lunar eclipses. In my dream, I told someone about the memorable total eclipse on the night when the Red Sox were winning the world series for the first time in 86 years. That was October, 2004. We lived on Cape Cod. We were watching the baseball game, and periodically, I’d go out the front door to watch the eclipse. In my dream, I talked about how one of the effects of being old was that I remembered other lunar eclipses, and didn’t have as great a need to see this one.
In a later dream, a group of people were getting ready to create a ritual to honor the moon–children, adults of all ages–and I was getting a drink of water, and then, trying to find a mug to hold more water to bring to the ritual, but everything in the cupboard was plastic or otherwise weird. Random people, both known and unknown to me. When I woke up, my cat Billie was at the window looking outside, but neither of us could see the moon. Still, we were feeling it I think.
Yesterday, Margy and I filled in and dropped off our election ballots at the City Hall dropbox, and then we drove to Kettle Cove to be with the ocean. The weather was warm, sunny. I took my shoes off and waded in the water on the shore, took some photos of rocks and seagulls. We gathered seaweed to bring back to the garden. But mostly, we just sat in chairs on the sand, and listened to the surf, felt the breeze on our skin.
A lunar eclipse feels like a transition, an omen–but for good or ill? The 2004 eclipse was good news for the Red Sox. Undoing the reputed curse of the bambino. But election day is not like a sports game, despite the way the media often frame it. Lives are at stake. When I was quite young, I was a sort of anarchist, and I heard the Emma Goldman quote, “If voting changed anything, they would make it illegal.” I am less dismissive with age. Even if I am voting for the lesser of two evils, I will do so. And I think of the people who died to bring the vote to women and to black Americans. They knew it was that important. But perhaps the quote holds true now, because there are politicians who are trying to make voting illegal–at least for the people they are trying to exclude. Still, I don’t hold with fear-mongering. No matter what, we keep doing whatever we can do, with whatever energy we have, for justice, against oppression, for compassion and respect for all beings. We can’t see the future, we can’t know what wonders might emerge over the horizon. As Rebecca Solnit reminds us, that is a source for hope.
Dandelions with puffy seed heads, after the birds were gone
Sometimes the best pictures are only in the mind, never caught on a camera. I was sitting with Billie in my blue easy chair in the bedroom, and something caught my eye outside the window. It was a goldfinch couple, perching in the peach tree, and then hopping down to the plants beneath. The bright yellow male landed on a dandelion stem–it was a long stem with the flower already gone to seed in a fluffy sphere. The olive green female was perched nearby on another long stem, with a closed flower head above her.
The male carefully made his way up the stem, even as it was bending down under his weight. He made a few tries on different stems. Finally, he succeeded in reaching the fluffy sphere and began pecking at the seeds. I never knew that dandelion seeds were a source of food for goldfinches. I’m glad that I didn’t cut them down! A short while later, they had gone, but I took this photo of the place where they had been. Even though you can’t see them there, in my mind, I can’t forget his purposeful climb along the stem.
Later, I went to sit by the pond, and noticed something tiny and new and green. Several of the perennial pond plants that I planted last year haven’t come back at all. Cardinal flower, blue-eyed grass, arrowhead, and pickerel rush. They were supposed to survive Maine winters so it was a great disappointment, but I kept waiting and watching, since this is the first spring for the pond. Well, today, I found three new tiny stems with distinctive leaves. There are three new arrowhead plants coming up. They are near where the previous plants were, but don’t seem to be emerging from the roots. Maybe they are sprouting from seeds that fell into the water last fall?
You never know when something new might emerge from the hard work that you did before.
A shift has happened in my spirit, and I feel grounded in a way I haven’t felt for several weeks. I’m not sure why, but a few things have happened this week that might be related.
Three days ago, after windy rain, the power went out about 9:30 in the morning. Happily, I’d already eaten breakfast and installed a new shop light in the garage. (As a friend framed it on Facebook one day, it was a project that took two months and fifteen minutes.) So I took a short walk and discovered a few blocks away that a tree had fallen on some wires. It might be a while. I had an appointment to pick up groceries from the store, but also happily, when I called, they said it would be okay to wait until our power was back on.
Waiting for the next several hours, I noticed that my mind was in a kind of tormented withdrawal from its usual access to constant stimulation. No social media (saving my phone battery for more important things), no book to read (saving my phone, etc.), no television shows. Not enough energy to do a project. A really uncomfortable stillness. Margy and I ate lunch on the patio, and I noticed it was much easier to deal with my mind outside, so after lunch I pruned out some raspberry canes. Finally, the electricity came back–and then it was groceries to pick up and process.
Two days ago, in the morning I facilitated a very productive meeting of our Decolonizing Faith Project. We are moving toward completion of a Zoom version of our workshop for faith communities. That felt good.
Later that day, Margy and I decided to go on a rare outing. We took a drive to search for beautiful autumn color, and found our way out to Range Pond, about forty minutes from where we live. (And by the way, for those who aren’t from around here, I don’t know why but Range Pond is pronounced Rang Pond.) I took my shoes off and waded in the still warm water, delighted to watch the sun ripple off the sand. Sun, water, trees: a healing balm for our souls.
Yesterday morning, after a long night’s sleep, I woke quite early and was writing in my journal, surprised at how peaceful and grounded I felt. I remembered–and this is key I think–I remembered that throughout my adult life there has never been a time I did not hate the atrocities committed by our government. (Wars, empire, ravaging the earth for profit, oppression of people of color, you know the list.) Yes, lately, those atrocities have intensified. But I had protested every administration, and realistically, felt little power to stop those atrocities.
I also remembered that when I was part of the Catholic Worker movement, I learned that resistance can take the form of personalism: we attempt to live out our values personally, and in community–we fed the hungry, housed the homeless, welcomed the “stranger.” We treated all people with respect, and practiced peaceful ways to resolve conflicts. We also protested, not merely to try to change the government, but also to keep clarity in the values we affirmed.
And I remembered that that has always been my own best path of resistance. (That’s why Margy and I chose to green our own living situation, to plant a garden, to learn to more deeply love the land we are living on.) When I was active as the minister of a congregation for many years, I needed to widen my perspective, to hold and affirm many ways of living our values. But now that I am retired, now that I am chronically ill, I am coming back to the core of my own journey. And it is okay to do what I can, and not to be tormented by what I have no power to change.
So all of that was grounding my spirit as the sun was rising yesterday.
And then, later, I did check Facebook, and saw everyone posting about the president getting a positive test for COVID19, and speculating about whether it was true, and what it might mean. And I really do honor the angst that people are feeling about the state of our country, and the election coming up, and the possible undermining of democracy, and so much more. But this time, I didn’t lose my balance. I didn’t get hooked into the chaos. I remembered that I don’t have to loudly condemn every atrocity or agonize over all the pain that I cannot alleviate. It is not a moral necessity to be panicked and despairing over all the evil in the world.
I remembered my own path, my own calling, the small ways that I can live into a vision of mutuality, of respect, of healing. I am writing to help myself remember, for those times that I forget again and again. And perhaps to help you remember your own calling, if you have forgotten in the midst of these strange times. May our many small actions be joined together by the great Mystery into the beauty that is possible.
Yesterday evening, eight of us danced around the pitch pine in our yard, dressing it up with rainbow ribbons for May Day. Did you know that the original Maypoles were not cut wooden poles, but live trees? It makes sense to me, coming from people who worshiped among the trees, who honored and revered the trees. And so what better way to celebrate the full arrival of spring, the arrival of the May, than to celebrate the tree with an ancient dance?
Earlier, I had attached eight ribbons to a small metal ring, and then Sylvia tossed a rock-tied string over a branch so we could lift the ribbons to a good height for dancing. Margy went to a field close to where we used to live to pick forsythia branches to decorate the bottom of the tree. In this time of the earth awakening, we joined our life energy to that of the earth, that we might all be full of life and regeneration. It was a magical moment to be weaving in and out between each other, with our bright colors, dancing on the earth, and finally surrounding the tree, hands joined in a circle.
After a rain-filled night, I took photos this morning. We keep hoping for more warmth…it is only in the 40s today. But we’ve finally finished planting all the bushes. I set up the rain barrels (by putting in their spigots and re-attaching their overflow hoses), and yesterday I found smaller containers for storing a big bag of Kaolin clay (an organic product used for certain orchard pests). Tending and planting and tending.
When I pay attention to what is happening to our planet, I feel so much despair, I feel overwhelmed. I know it is better to plant trees, than to cut them down. I know it is a good thing to tend this small plot of land. But even with many of us planting trees, or protesting, or changing our lives, do we have the power to stop the destruction? No, I think not. But what came to me the other day was this. If we are out there, planting a tree, putting our hands in the soil, watering a seed, dancing on the ground, or even lying in a hammock under a pitch pine, perhaps we can learn to hear the voice of the earth. Perhaps she will see us there, and take pity on us. Perhaps she will open our ears and hearts and guide us into regeneration and healing. This is my hope.
[Photo of our cherry tree with its companion plants.]
I really believe that permaculture offers a way to live in this time of ecological crisis. In Portland, we have a wonderful resource for learning permaculture skills, and offering mutual aid as we learn. The Resilience Hub helps people to regenerate the land, grow healthy food, and build community. In that way, it also cultivates hope. In June of 2017, the Resilience Hub was the sponsor of our Permablitz when over 20 people came to help us establish our garden.
Over the last ten years, the Resilience Hub has become a thriving community organization. This past summer, its founder, Lisa Fernandes, moved on into new, but related work. Lisa’s departure prompted a series of community conversations about the future of the Hub: its assets and challenges, its goals and visions. Margy and I attended many of those meetings, and I was so committed to continue this important work that I volunteered to be on the new Board of Directors. We now have new part-time staff, Kate Wallace as Executive and Programming Director and Benjamin Roehrl as Operations Director. See more about our plans going forward at the website.
BUT–the Hub is at a critical point and needs all of us who care about permaculture in Maine to show up with financial help and renewed involvement. To that end, we created a Go Fund Me campaign, and we are trying to reach our goal in the next few days. I’ve shared it via Facebook, but thought I would add my blog “audience” to this appeal as well. Please check out our page, and donate what you can! And if you are local to southern Maine, sign up to be on our active members list!
One of my favorite definitions of permaculture is “revolution disguised as gardening.” Charles Eisenstein says, (in his recent book, Climate: A New Story,) in this time of ecological degradation, perhaps the most important work we can do is to care for and regenerate the places we live in, the places we love. (More on that later!) That’s what the Resilience Hub is all about. Thank you for helping us to keep it thriving!
Yesterday evening, eight of us danced around the 
Finding Our Way Home 