I’m finding it hard to focus on anything other than the current dismantling of American democracy. It’s like watching your city burn; transfixing and horrible. Even with the news off, the pervasive energy haunts me. I feel crazy inside my skin. I feel sane, trapped in a crazy world. I will never escape her, I am her.
I tell my friends, to tell myself:
They can dismantle democracy, but they can’t dismantle sisterhood
They can cut down our trees, but there will always be more seeds
I finished reading Richard Power’s Bewilderment this week. I filed it next to Octavia E Butler’s Earth Seed series, on the predictions shelf. I read the latter during the first Trump presidency, and it hit just as hard.
We knew this would happen.
I remember sitting outside a coffee shop in LA, reading the second book in the series. A young woman came up to me, dragging a suitcase, asking for food. Behind her, the back of a stop sign spray-painted with the word: PYRO. In EarthSeed, LA is full of starving, unhoused people. Safe water is a rare commodity. The city is burning. A drug called PYRO is destroying communities. Just then a waiter arrived with my blueberry muffin. I gave it to the woman, and asked him for another.
For all the tears and the too-close-to-homes, reading books about sensitive, feral, neurospicy misfits like myself and the larger picture of how they fit into the modern world makes me feel less alone. To know that someone wrote an entire book about the experience of thinking and feeling in these ways, and it got published and other people are reading it too. It helps more than it hurts. I am not alone in being lost in this society that does not know how to talk to trees or sing with birds, how to walk barefoot on spring earth or thank the water for making its journey to our cups. I am not alone in feeling the pain of this earth, it’s creatures human and otherwise, as a bodily experience. We are not alone. But it can be lonely.
If you want a direction for your fight this week, Trump has issued an executive order to increase American timber production by streamlining permitting and activating the “God Squad” to increase endangered species act exemptions. They are called the God Squad because—you guessed it—they are a committee whose word can issue the end of a species. You can write or call your representatives today and ask them to speak out publicly and take action against this Executive Order; in order to protect America’s forests from clear cutting—especially our remaining old growth forests which will likely be the first targets due to being of greater monetary value—to protect the animals and especially threatened species that live in our forests, to protect these lands for hunting, fishing and recreation; to protect indigenous rights, access and use, and to protect the trees for the vital role they play in carbon sequestration & climate regulation . . . more about what this measure could mean for the PNW here:
“What Trump’s order on cutting federal forests could mean for the Pacific Northwest” The Seattle Times
At a time when I’m often feeling helpeless in the light of a burning world, it feels really good to do things with immediate tangible impact, even if it’s as simple as saving a few trees from the strangle of an imported vine. Last Saturday, in belated honor of Tu B’Shvat, I pulled invasive Ivy in forest park with a Jewish Federation of Greater Portland’s Climate Action Committee volunteer crew; it rained on us all morning, which felt geographically appropriate and made it all the more muddy and fun.
The Oscars had me in all sorts of tears (though let’s be honest, that was a low bar) Sunday. So many reminders of the power of film to shape culture, values, hearts and minds. To see cinema claimed as the tool of change that it is, and to hear filmmakers and actors embracing that power and calling for us to use it wisely, gave my heart a little juice. The acceptance speech by the joint Israeli & Palestinian team who won for Best Feature Documentary with “No Other Land” is worth sharing. Look for the film at your local independent theater!
That’s it for now. Take care of your hearts and each other.
Love,
ag