Green Gardening With Ann Lovejoy

A weedy mess can host a wonderment of life

Finding Life Amid Loss

Are you hurting? I’m hurting too. In recent weeks a dear friend died suddenly, as his family gathered to celebrate his birthday and his recovery from successful heart surgery. My daughter’s simple one-day surgery turned into a 10 day ICU stay fraught with trauma, drama and stress (as usual). That same day, as I sat on an uncomfortable hospital bench waiting to hear the results of my daughter’s surgery, I learned that a close relative had gender affirming surgery that I hadn’t know was going to happen. Now I’m so glad they did, as the possibility of that surgery for others may have vanished. Young trans people had passports revoked (marking X for gender is now a federal crime). Others are being denied gender affirming medications despite legal prescriptions. Hard on these events crowded others too numerous to contain and too horrifying and dangerous to ignore. As the daily news grows ever more dire ever more quickly, my daily walks have increased in number and duration. I walk and I weep and I wonder.

The current regime has a new game plan, a brutal fire hose approach to political, social and environmental change that is almost impossible to stop because there are no effective checks and balances anymore. The government is broken, the courts are broken, and any illusion of national unity is broken. The current top players (and they are playing) have given license to the entire administration to do harm at will, knowing there are no consequences that can curb them fast enough to avoid irreparable damage to millions, even billions of lives, human as well as fauna and flora. The onslaught feels so deliberately overwhelming because it is; regime participants have affirmed that the suddenness and intensity is a strategy chosen to stun protesters into immobility, shock and despair.

Walking For Peace & Democracy

On Monday, there was a pro-democracy rally here on this small island, a much larger one in Seattle, and many others of all sizes across the country. Ours was a pleasing mixture of the usual protesters (mostly women around my age), and younger folks of many persuasions, some lovely families with kids in tow. Unlike the enormous pussy hat rallies of 2017, this rally was attended by only a few hundred people, though many of those who showed up were energetic and passionate. Most of these rally events were deliberately not publicized, probably because news outlet fear reprisals (and they’re not wrong). Also, the signs many people carried used now-forbidden words, dangerous words such as biased, genders, diversity, female, disability, trauma, reproductive rights, women, equity, inclusion, fetus, transgender, covid…. As the new taboo list grows, hundreds of governmental or government funded websites and scientific data bases are vanishing or being gutted, stripped of meaning, denatured.

We the people

So I walk, because walking takes me into nature, natural surroundings where I (usually) find my own center and my strength to continue. Sometimes it feels like I’ve been walking, marching, standing for peace, for democracy, for social justice, my whole life. You probably have too. On my daily wander (or march, depending on mood) to a local beach or small woodland, I often pass a patch of ground that seems denatured to my eyes; weedy, piled with construction rubble and wind-broken branches. This abused, neglected spot appears ugly and damaged yet when I made myself look at it, each time I passed I saw little birds flitting in and out of the broken brush, native squirrels gathering seeds from fallen fir cones, even a few early bees browsing on the weeds (which of course bloom far earlier than our garden beauties). Rotten logs sprout shelf fungi, their patterns as beautiful as any human design (and probably the inspiration for more than a few artists).

Fungi, Cockroaches & Coyotes?

If this regime and their international cohort succeed in destroying the planet for gain (and how does that make sense?), many scientists are positing a new world order. Not too surprisingly, quite a few scenarios suggest that if humans are wiped out, more resilient beings may replace us, from cockroaches to coyotes, and more notably fungi. Mushrooms and other fungi seem almost magical in their remarkable ability to transform and heal degraded environments. In slime molds lie the hope of the world? I wonder.

What Can We DO?

So what is there to do besides walk and weep and wonder? Here’s a good thing that so easy: Don’t Buy! Join the national, non-partisan no-buy event to let corporations know that towing the party line with the current regime’s efforts to erase any and all mention of social justice doesn’t meet our moral standards. As the Montgomery bus boycott showed, hitting corporations in the pocketbook is still the best way to get their attention.

Economic Boycott Friday February 28
Do not buy anything from any major retailers, online or in person. Boycott all box stores and large scale commercial enterprises from Amazon and Best Buy to Walmart and so on. If you really need something, DO shop locally, supporting small local businesses that support YOUR values and community.
For more information:
abovethelaw.com No Buy Friday

Five Calls fivecalls.org
The easiest and most effective way to make our voices heard and have a political impact, Five Calls offers topic lists and suggested scripts for each, along with quick links to your elected officials.

Americans of Conscience americansofconscience.org
Pro-democracy, pro-equality, pro-planet
This easy to use website also offers topics and links as well as articles and additional information/research. It also includes a Good News list of heartening actions and events. Onward, right?

Like the red hand says, STOP this illegal takeover NOW

Fire and light keep kids engaged

Fire Shines Brighter In The Darkest Nights

On the Winter Solstice, my grandkids and I made a fire in our fire bowl to celebrate the longest night and the return of the light. Instead of focusing on age-old traditions that found darkness fearful, our modest celebration encourages us to make friends with both dark and light. We fold origami birds, then write our wishes and hopes on some, adding things we want to let go of on others. All are fed to the flames one by one to carry the sparks of our prayers through the tender darkness to the stars (or at least to the clouds, on drizzly nights).

Befriending the deeper dark is heavy work right now, when the scariest darkness is embodied in the current regime and others like it around the world. This regime knows exactly how to do the most harm to as many people they deem negligible as possible and they let fall new snippets of evil action day by day, as a kind of mental and emotional drip torture. Natural darkness can feel comforting, wrapping us in calm, soothing quietude and offering a buffer from daily busyness. The unnatural darkness that infects the susceptible human spirit is something else entirely.

Finding The Light

Finding light in THAT darkness is a true challenge, unless we look to all the millions and billions of people who strive to embody kindness and compassion come what may. I keep hearing the voice of my childhood neighbor, a thoughtful Quaker who often comforted me when I was horrified, whether from family chaos, school bullying, or news coverage that exposed deep racism. She explained that in the Quaker tradition, people are encouraged to ‘brighten our corner’ by doing whatever kindnesses might be possible, given a person’s age and relative lack of agency. The world really isn’t short of ranting, furious, frustrated people but it sure would be lovely to have more kindness on display.

In my various positions at the local Senior Center, I hear people talk about their feelings of loneliness and isolation pretty much every day. That saddens but doesn’t surprise me, given the national epidemic of senior loneliness, isolation, and depression. What does surprise me is hearing the same things in almost the same words from people in their teens, and twenties, and on up the line. At the Center, we try to meet as many social needs as possible, sometimes with programs but most effectively through small groups that meet weekly or monthly. Whether the stated goal is to do handwork together, to work on memoirs, to discuss our lived history, or simply compare ideas about a book we’ve all read, the result is nearly always a sense of connection and shared community.

Creating Connection And Community

Some folks are finding community in living language classes, where we discuss news or books or travel or food in Italian or French or Mandarin or whatever. Others find connection in shared movement, from line dancing to tai chi, zumba or yoga, or in peaceful meditation and sound bathing. One of the most poignant groups connects people living with memory loss through comfortable, open conversations that can wander wherever as facilitators ‘join the journey’ rather than correcting a misstatement. Another connects people caregiving for partners, parents, siblings or offspring. In every situation, the ‘magic’ element seems to be feeling safe enough to be truthful. Speaking our truth and being respectfully heard can be healing even if no helpful advice is possible.

This simple pattern is being followed in other settings too, from families and neighborhoods to schools and churches to libraries and even businesses. Make space for gathering people with common interests (even if it’s just in breathing!). Make sure everyone understands that everything said is confidential at every session. Model respectful deep listening. Share with truth. This last is really important as it sets the tone and shows others that they too can speak about whatever they need to without being judged or having their confidences betrayed. And by the way, you don’t have to be an extrovert, or young and energetic, or especially brave or clever to make this simple formula successful. Just find something you care about, and a place people can gather. Invite a few people and invite them to bring friends and neighbors. Once in the space, speak truth and be kind and watch the community come together before your eyes. Onward, right?

A New Moon Memoir

A few months ago I facilitated a memoir writing session so rich and wonderful that it was a truly moving experience. When the session was over, several people asked when we would meet again. I reminded them that the class was a one-off, but everyone wanted to keep going, so we decided to meet monthly. Each time, we have a timed writing session, then anyone who wants to can read their words to everyone. It’s really quite remarkable how truthful and poignant the readings are, and how strong the writing is; nearly everyone says they write much better in the company of other writers. The eros of shared creativity is a powerful factor in any endeavor and especially in the work of writing memoirs.

This weekend we had a little collision of events; my grandkids arrived just as I was leaving to facilitate our New Year writers retreat. I invited them to come or stay home, which they decided to do, but I jokingly told them I expected them to have a chapter of their own memoir written when I got home. Two hours later, my darling granddaughter showed me her ‘memwaw’ and it still makes me smile every time I look at it. Her story is as cheerful as her own sparkling spirit, but what I brought home is…not.

Black Moon, New Moon

Sometimes writing simply flows for me, but this time it took me the whole 15 minute session to write a paragraph:

This dark tide time of the year is always one of reflection for me. New Year’s Eve was a dark moon night, a Black Moon with no light at all. They are quite rare-between the old moon and the New Moon, a rest, a full stop. It doesn’t happen every year and it feels especially right to be totally in the dark right now. I don’t know what will come to us in the new year, come to all of us, to the broken world. Nobody knows, really, but this bubble of quiet feels like a hanging droplet, not quite full enough to fall yet but swelling slowly, pregnant with the future. The waxing moon gains a little light every day, first a mere sliver, then gaining light faster, growing fuller each day. The future feels suspended but certainly it will fall and I wonder what will be washed away in the rush of events that are building strength and gaining energy. For years, I’ve vaguely waited for an earthquake, a tsunami, an atomic bomb blast striking at Ground Zero just a few miles away, but now I’m waiting for war. So many possibilities….