Cramscaping For The Long Haul

Posted on June 22, 2020 by Ann Lovejoy
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When The Blue Wave Breaks, They Can Run But They Can’t Hide

Persisting Inside And Out

After almost one full year, my tiny garden is as full as it can hold. Annuals and perennials billow over the sides of my only raised bed, while large stock watering troughs hold edibles, herbs and flowers in an enticing jumble. The jumble is not random, however; it’s a working example of the technique known as Cramscaping. When you love more plants than you have reasonable room for, Cramscaping is your best friend. Properly carried out, Cramscaping involves interweaving plants of all kinds, carefully placing them to accommodate the changing needs of each as the seasons unfold. In my little garden, it involves blending edibles and ornamentals, ephemerals like peas and longer-lived clematis, gardenias, Kosmic Kale (our top favorite). On a larger scale, Cramscaping takes the Mixed Border model a step further, mingling trees and shrubs, perennials and bulbs, grasses and annuals, all intertwined with groundcovers large and small, and pots, pots, pots! Indeed, the technique can be scaled down to a single pot packed with culturally compatible plants. The goal (for me, anyway) is to rejoice in a steady succession of marvelous beauties all through the year.

Right now, the garden vibrates with bee buzz as dozens of pollinators feast on the well packed bounty. Many pollinators especially enjoy the blossoms of bolting cilantro and radishes as well as spinach and parsley. To promote succession, I allow the least successful plants of each crop to bolt and bloom, bringing in the pollinators and ensuring ongoing crops by modest self sowing. When long bloomers like calendulas, poppies, clarkia and sweet alyssum are spent, I pull the plants and shake them along the edges of the troughs and the raised bed, and into the verges of the gravel driveway. Already these edges foam with flowers and smaller grasses, softening the hard lines of wall and trough and expanding the scanty garden space.

Blue Wave On My Mind

On any sunny day, we can count over a dozen kinds of bees on the great spills of my favorite catmints, which range in size from Little Titch at 12-18” to Six Hills Giant at 3-4’. As their long stalks bloom out, I cut back the outer half, which refreshes in a few weeks. At that point, I trim back the inner half and it too responds with another wave of blue. It reminds me that so many of us are hoping for a Blue Wave in November, and I’m thinking that just as we have to refresh our plants to keep them going, we need to find ways to refresh our energy to keep working for positive change in our towns and states and country and the world. What helps us refresh when we grow weary and discouraged?

That question came up last week during a zoom meeting of my Senior Center’s Inclusion Study Group. Our usual gathering of oldies was refreshed by the arrival of half a dozen high school kids and several of their teachers. One of their questions resonated strongly for all of us: How do you keep up your hope and energy while working for positive change over many years? The kids said they feel like there have been wave after wave of occurrences that call for protests all through their whole lives. We agreed and said the same is true for our several generations. The world always needs mending and we are called to make and mend as best we can. For me, coping with the overwhelming barrage of badness has required several strategies, including periodic media fasts and peaceful retreats. I feel blessed that the garden has always been a sure refuge in times of trouble and grief, whether it offers the opportunity for ferocious chopping and furious weeding or slow, soothing tasks like gathering seeds and potting up seedlings.

Seeds For The Future

Gathering and sowing seeds is of course an act of hope and faith in the future. Having thoughtful, frank conversations with ardent young people feels the same way; passing along our experience, hope and strength is like sowing seeds of skillful activists who will carry on into the future. Eager to help us here and now, the young people suggested that those of us who can’t attend protests anymore could organize a car cavalcade, as graduating high school seniors have been doing locally. Instead of marching to support the Black Lives Matter movement, we could cover our cars with banners and drive slowly in a peaceful show of enduring activism. We may be slowing down, but we do know how to keep on keeping on.

Successful activism relies on succession, bringing in and encouraging young people to stand up and speak out about issues that they are passionate about. Working with young people makes me realize that times have seriously changed. For us oldies, the world our adult kids and grandkids experience is very different to what we experienced at their ages. Friends with young kids say the same thing; each generation grows up in a different world. How do we cross those generational divides to communicate? Talking with young people reminds me of seed sowing, scattering what we hope with take root and develop. Nature is generous, creating millions of seeds though only a relative handful will mature to produce seed in turn. As parents, as grandparents, as teachers and educators, perhaps just a few of the millions of messages we shower on our children will flourish and bear fruit, but those few can change the course of history.

Promoting Steady Growth

Successful Cramscaping depends on good soil, good drainage, and good air circulation, creating and maintaining conditions that promote steady growth. A Cramscaped garden is packed full, but carefully tended to make sure that all participants get what they need. As soon as the dark orange horned poppies (Glaucium flavum ssp. aurantiacum) ripen their slender seed pods, I’ll cut them back to allow more light and air so my moon carrots (Seseli gumiferum) can launch their tall stems tipped with puffy umbels unhindered. Over time, the mix will change as permanent plants claim the space they need and short timers fade away. Eventually, a working balance is achieved and the gardener can steer with a lighter hand. Working respectfully with younger people reminds me that nurturing rising generations also takes a lighter hand, and elders may do better to provide stories rather than advice.

The enormous surge of protests around the world is encouraging thoughtful conversations in families and communities, perhaps deeper and bolder than ever before. If we have means, we simply don’t experience the pandemic the way people with fewer resources do. How can we build our understanding of what Black people and other people of color are experiencing in terms of safety and ability to stay home and stay well, now and throughout their whole lives? Life experiences color our feelings as white or Black people or people of color, from small town to big city, from activist youth to perhaps complacent maturity. What shaped our ideas about police and policing? Some of us always viewed police as military (from civil rights/Vietnam war protests on) while others were taught that the police are our kind and good helpers; are our embedded beliefs accurate today? MLK said “A riot is the language of the unheard.” What do we think/feel about looting as part of protests? Peaceful protests are far more comfortable, but is there a truth missing? These are the things I’m pondering as I pull up bindweed (surely a living metaphor!) and fill yet another trough with fresh soil. Onward!

 

Posted in Garden Design, Health & Wellbeing, Plant Diversity, Plant Partnerships, Pollination Gardens, Social Justice, Sustainable Gardening, Sustainable Living, Teaching Gardening | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Of Peas And Peace

Posted on June 15, 2020 by Ann Lovejoy
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Peaceful Protests Millions Strong

The last few weeks have been crowded with so much pain and so much tentative hope. Hundreds and thousands of people are turning out for peaceful protests in cities all over the world. Peaceful protests are appearing in small towns, even places known for rampant racism. People who consider themselves to be conservative are discovering an increasing willingness to admit that embedded racism is destroying our country. More open acknowledgement of structural racism is occurring in many other countries as well. In Seattle, a remarkable ongoing protest has turned into a peaceful takeover of three to four city blocks (12 total) centered around an evacuated police station. When FOX News attempted to portray this protest as dangerous and violent, the exposure of their faked images (they inserted the same threatening armed figures in a few too many photoshopped attempts) won wider approval for the protesters and lost FOX cred with some of its followers.

Initially called CHAZ for Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, the burgeoning community is now titled CHOP, for Capitol Hill Occupied Protest, as the “autonomous” claim was sidetracking more important issues. Rather than a surging mass of dangerous radicals, the community offers open stores and coffee shops, free food and clothing, free libraries and kids’ toys. I especially appreciate that it’s centered on a garden; the six-foot circles intended for social distancing in Cal Anderson Park have been converted to beds of peas and tomatoes, lettuce and squash. (Gives “crop circles” a whole new twist.) This self-governed community is police-free but pollinator friendly, with herbs and flowers tucked in between the food crops. There’s still room for kids to play, and they do, along with Capitol Hill’s daily dog walkers.

Be A Good Neighbor

Visitors are welcome, and are asked not to treat the CHOP as a novelty or a sideshow. The organizers’ set of dos and don’ts are good guides for crafting a peaceful, less racist future.

DO
– bring money and give to black organizers
– Participate in anti-racism education
– Listen to black speakers
– Follow community rules
– Respect black bodies
– Take note of the space you’re occupying. This isn’t only about your physical space but your vocal space. Ask yourself: Are you taking up space a black person could be? Does your opinion need to be voiced if it’s silencing a black person’s voice? Is it even necessary to say? What does it contribute?
– Keep watch of the barricades and be on the look out for suspicious behavior, plain clothed police, informants etc
– When the need for bodies to hold the line occurs, go to the front
– Always be willing to protect the BIPOC community around you
– Recognize that this place was fought for by the black leaders and community organizers and that it is not yours to take over & co-opt

DONT
– Come here to get drunk
– Come here just to hang out with friends
– Spend all your time chilling in Cal Anderson like it’s any other day
– Silence the speech of any BIPOC
– Demand answers or explanation of the movement from black organizers
– Come here if you don’t value and respect black voices
– Come here if you’re trying to get brownie points for being a “good ally”
– Don’t call yourself an ally, period.
– Argue when you’re called out
Don’t take selfies & do your best not photograph faces

Word On The Street

A local advocate adds, “CHOP is a beautiful place to see and I hope everyone gets a chance to come see what this amazing black community we have here in Seattle has created and it holding for us to witness. But do be mindful of your presence here and understand Seattle’s deep history of racism and that by being in this space you’re witnessing history.

This isn’t a place to have “fun”. This is a battle and an active war zone. For the past two weeks almost every night people all around you have been maced, tear gassed, flash bombed, shot with rubber bullets, police are targeting people and hunting them down. This isn’t CHBP. This is history and you need to be aware of what you are witnessing so we all can get our demands taken seriously and met.”

Meanwhile

This resonates for me: I’m feeling as if we are at war, yet most of us are not living in the war zone. We can see it and hear it on the news and on social media, we can hear it and see it when/if we join local protests, but for many people the experience is not direct. Similarly, for most of us, our experience with the pandemic is not direct. For me, it feels surreal to be walking in my nearby waterfront park, listening to birds and watching otters at play, knowing that across the water Seattle is still experiencing the harsh realities of both covid19 (Washington’s patient numbers are rising again as restrictions ease) and the furious and duplicitous backlash against the peaceful protests from police and local government. I can live comfortably in my beautiful community of largely white, educated and well off people and not feel the effects of either dire experience.

That said, I live in an older mobile home park, one of very few pockets of affordable housing on this island of privilege. Most of my immediate neighbors, like me, are people of moderate means, living in modest homes. Many of us are elderly or aging past our active stages of life. Few of us are able to be big donors or to actively support causes we care deeply about. However, we can still be helpful by educating ourselves (there’s a ton of information available through libraries and any number of booklists these days). As allies, we can show up for protests and meetings, online or in real life (it could happen again, really). We can help just by talking with and listening to family, friends and neighbors about deeper issues than weather (though yes, even that can be tricky with climate change in the mix). I find it more useful to share my personal stories than opinions, as it often elicits other people’s personal stories and experiences, which often changes the temperature and quality of the conversation. It’s also useful to check your stories before sharing, as “virtue signaling” can come off as smug and complacent or better-than. Ask me how I know….

Be A Listener an An Amplifier

I’m still learning that listening is a skill that requires practice and patience. We live in a contentious culture and it’s very easy to slip from listening to arguing, especially when we don’t agree with what we’re hearing. Facilitating a Trans-Parent support group is helping me listen deeper, listen past anger and bluster to the underlying fear and pain. When I make space for people to fully express their concerns, it helps them hear themselves better as well. Most of the time, their own insights are far more powerful than my advice, which is generally about listening anyway.

Even deep introverts can be strong allies. My transgender daughter, who rarely leaves the house, is considered a Social Justice Cleric by her online gamer cohort, and on her multiple social media outlets, she has a reputation for being wise, kind, and helpful to people who are scared, confused and in pain. She’s also recognized as an “amplifier of signals”, someone who posts and re-posts important social justice messages. It’s not nothing, and every little bit of social change accretes into something bigger and more potent.

About Those Peas

In my own garden, like those beautiful, hopeful crop circles on Capitol Hill. peas are ripening daily. Sweet and crisp, their slight earthiness makes them a perfect partner for tart-sweet cherries in this crunchy raw salad. The flavors need a little time to meld, so let it stand 20-30 minutes while you fix the rest of your meal.

Raw Spring Pea & Cherry Salad

1 cup snap peas in the pod, thinly sliced on the diagonal
1/2 cup chopped pitted Rainier or any cherries
1/2 cup celery, thinly sliced on the diagonal
3-4 green onions, thinly sliced
1 tablespoon minced mint
Dash of kosher or sea salt
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
1 teaspoon maple syrup

Combine all ingredients and let stand 10 minutes then adjust seasonings to taste. Let stand another 5-10 minutes and serve at room temperature. Serves 2-3.

Posted in Climate Change, Health & Wellbeing, Social Justice, Sustainable Living, Teaching Gardening, Vegan Recipes | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Strawberry Fields Aren’t Forever

Posted on June 8, 2020 by Ann Lovejoy
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Marshall Strawberries At Their Best

Strawberry Stories Are Complicated

As I write, I’m eating a handful of sweet strawberries and thinking sadly about racism and my much loved island community. Years ago, Bainbridge Island was called “the fruit basket of Puget Sound”, famed for extensive strawberry fields where succulent Marshall strawberries flourished. Their history here is complex, sometimes sweet as a berry, sometimes sad, infuriating, even heartbreaking. Juicy and flavorful, the Marshall strawberry was selected in 1890 by amateur grower Marshall F. Ewell from a group of seedlings on his Massachusetts farm. Despite a relatively brief period of production (usually just a few weeks, like most midseason varieties), by the early 1900s, the Marshall became an important field crop in the maritime Northwest, appreciated for its rich, full flavor.

Commercially, they were a challenge to ship, as they’re so juicy that even cardboard punnets leak juice when the berries are piled more then 2-4 high, but they were by far the region’s favorite berry for the next 50 years. When field crops were ravaged by a virus after WWII, Marshalls fell from favor and were no longer a commercial crop by the mid- to late 1950s. Locally beloved, Marshalls have been grown in modest amounts in home gardens ever since. In recent years, they’ve been embraced by trendy chefs, gaining a reputation for being among the tastiest of all strawberries.

More And Better Berries Too

Not everyone agrees, of course, and most people who grow Marshalls also grow longer-season and more disease-resistant varieties. My garden holds a rewarding patch of Seascape, a reliable cropper of plump, juicy, and flavorful berries. A day length neutral variety with excellent disease resistance, Seascape fruits heavily in June and into July, slows down in the heat of high summer, then starts up again as August slides into September. Quinalt is another family favorite, an Everbearing variety that produces abundant crops of delicious berries from June into September with barely a break (as long as the plants are well fed, of course). I keep my Marshalls separate from the others, and pick them every day in season (as in right now!) because their perfection is so enticing and so fleeting. I do interplant them with onions and garlic, which are supposed to repel pests but are also slender enough to share ground with wide-spreading berry runners.

My prized Marshall plants were a gift from from Lilly Kodama, whose brother, Frank Kitamoto, was among the first to speak out about the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII. At age 7, Lilly was taken, along with Frank, their sisters Jane and Frances, and their parents, to Manzanar War Relocation Center, and later to Minidoka, a concentration camp in California. Almost 12,000 other people of Japanese ancestry were taken from their homes in Washington State to the camps when President Roosevelt issued the now infamous Executive Order 9066. Lilly has become a frequent speaker in school classrooms and other groups, telling and retelling the story of how the islanders were given six days to pack away their belongings and were only allowed to take what they could carry to the camps. The strawberry fields were full of fast-ripening fruit but there were no longer any farmers to take them to market.

Historic Fruit

On March 30, 1942, 227 Bainbridge Islanders, many of them strawberry field owners and workers, were the first to be taken; given Puget Sound’s U.S. naval bases, they were seen as possible threats to national security. David Neiwert, author of Strawberry Days, said in a Seattle Times interview,“The relocation destroyed the livelihoods and careers of thousands of citizens, based on an unconstitutional mass presumption of guilt. It humiliated a whole population of largely loyal and patriotic citizens by identifying them with the national enemy. It uprooted families, destroyed their close-knit structures, and laid waste to whole communities.”

Before the families were taken away, overseen by soldiers with fixed bayonets on their guns, the island’s Japanese American community had some of the Puget Sound’s largest, most productive farms. Indeed, Japanese American farmers were the first to bring commercial strawberry farming to the region, though for many years, the Asian Exclusion Act did not allow non-naturalized citizens to own land, or to qualify for US citizenship. Thus, if first generation Japanese Americans bought land, they had to put it in the name of friends or relatives who were born in the US (sometimes making for very young property owners). Several generations of Japanese American families cleared land left bristling with stumps left after the forests were clearcut for the Port Blakely lumber mill. They did it by back-breaking labor, turning the clearcut island into fertile strawberry fields with horse power, dynamite, and shovels. It had to be heartbreaking to leave the hard-won fields, yet after the war, only about a fourth of the original farm families were able to reclaim their land, as many farms were lost when back taxes could not be paid by people newly released from incarceration.

New Beginnings, New Partnerships

On Bainbridge, the forced removal of the Japanese American farmers left strawberry fields ready for one of the largest harvests in years. In many cases, Filipino American hired hands moved into the empty farmhouses and kept the harvest from rotting. Soon Native American pickers were recruited from British Columbia and over time, marriages produced a blended community of self-proclaimed Filipindians, families that often paid land taxes for the absent owners. As American war involvement increased, many field hands went to work in the shipyards and most farms fell fallow. After the war, only a few island farms started up again; a notable exception was the Suyematsu’s, now worker-owned, the oldest continually farmed in the region, and among the region’s first to become certified organic.

During the incarceration, many West Coast communities were strongly racist and fiercely anti-Japanese (as some remain to this day). Although racism was and is definitely present here, Bainbridge Island was largely a welcoming community and had the highest rate of returning families after the war ended and the concentration camps were closed. In large part, this was due to local newspaper editors Walt and Millie Woodward, who ran columns and letters from the camps, recording everything from births, weddings and funerals to baseball game scores. Almost alone among West Coast periodicals, the Woodward’s Bainbridge Review published numerous editorials (many written by Walt Woodward) in support of the Japanese-American families during and after the internment.

A Change Is Coming

Racism continues to be a problem in our local schools, where students of color are taunted, teased, and bullied far more often than most locals are willing to acknowledge. This is a community of great privilege, and perhaps it’s not surprising that many of us are not especially interested in looking deeply at uncomfortable issues. On Saturday, however, a large, peaceful and mask-wearing crowd marched from the police station to City Hall, sometimes chanting “I can’t breathe”, sometimes marching in silence. The march was organized and run by high school students, who made up a very large proportion of the crowd, which numbered in the hundreds. I was heartened to see so many young people standing up for justice and calling for an end to racism. It’s definitely a good time to do some serious thinking about what kind of country we want to live in, and what we need to do to make it so.

The combination of a deadly pandemic and a huge uprising of protests urging social justice is both sobering and exciting. It’s clearly a time of great change, and I’m hopeful that the young people who turned out to protest the murder of George Floyd won’t tolerate racial slurs or bullying ever again, in any context. I’m hopeful that from now on, more and more young people will call out teachers and parents and grandparents who look the other way, or accept racist remarks and acts as normal. What about older folks? For starters, all of us need to work on getting comfortable with discomfort. We too are called to speak out when we see or hear racist behavior. Polite or not, easy or not, comfortable or not, calling out racism is our business, now and forever. Onward, right?

Posted in Growing Berry Crops, Health & Wellbeing, Sustainable Living | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

When Fear Drives The Bus

Posted on June 1, 2020 by Ann Lovejoy
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photo by Leesa at wildvizionz.com

If critters can interact peacefully, so can we

Black And White Thinking

Yesterday I found myself doing that slow crying where you don’t realize it until you discover that your face is wet. Disheartened. Heartsick. Heartbroken. Like everyone else, I’ve been watching more news than is good for me; it’s nauseatingly, horrifyingly fascinating. I keep saying I won’t watch anymore but I can’t seem to stop. One especially painful element is the clear prevalence of black and white thinking on display right now; all white people are A (right?), all people of color are B, all police are X, all protesters are Y, all looters are Z, all corporations are XYZ. It’s much easier to fall back on generalizing and blaming/shaming than to recognize that we are all complex; we each have the seeds of everything in us, from peaceableness to passion, from anger and aggression to generosity and gentle kindness. I’ve been feeling very uncomfortable with my own emerging desire for perpetrators of evil to be punished in ways that really hurt them. I’ve never seen my own desire to hurt anyone else before and though I don’t want to do the punishing, I do want it to be done. Realizing that is bone-deep nauseating.

I can’t condone violence and I can’t truly understand it either because I’ve never needed to understand it. Nobody lives for close to 70 years on the planet without experiencing or witnessing some form of violence, but I always had the ability to look away, or to walk away. My life hasn’t been uneventful but despite some pretty rocky patches, I have almost always felt physically safe. I’ve never lacked food for any significant length of time. If I occasionally lacked housing, I never felt myself to be homeless because I assumed (correctly) that the situation was temporary. Looting is similarly obscured by privilege for me; I dislike being in crowds, I don’t enjoy noisy situations, and I am uncomfortable around people who are emoting strongly about pretty much anything. Nothing in me wants to grab a tv set and run, but then, I don’t watch tv and if I wanted one, I could buy it. I can’t feel judgement about people who do loot in riot situations, except when I can see plainly that the destruction is very deliberately being done, not by local people, but by paid agitators whose goal seems to be dividing and conquering our country.

Listening To Looters

Throughout human history, the difference between looters and those able to profit from disruption, deprivation, and danger has always been power and the lack thereof. In truth, the biggest looters I know of are the kleptocrats, corporations, and politicians who gleefully rape and pillage the planet and its people in the name of profit (or sometimes just because they can). I keep thinking about Dr. King saying, “A riot is the language of the unheard.” It took me years to wonder what, exactly, we weren’t hearing (ok, I wasn’t hearing), and to look past my assumptions to find out. What I’m hearing now is that some of those who took advantage of disruption to loot want to disrupt society, damage the social justice movement, and scare the crap out of peaceful, unarmed people. From others, I’m hearing the rage of being systematically unheard, unseen, unwanted, and unvalued, especially by people who don’t even want to know anything about fellow humans because on some level, they can’t feel superior unless someone else can be considered inferior.

Another painful piece is the astonishing, seemingly blind and deaf ignorance of so many of us wannabe helpers about what is helpful and what’s definitely not. We watch a white woman carefully spray paint “BLM” on a storefront, maybe feeling pleased to be pointing out a solid truth, then be dismayed as she’s reminded by a Black woman, “Don’t you realize WE will get blamed for that?” “But I’m only trying to help…” Ouch. I can hear myself saying that at so many times and places through my life. I’m only trying to help, but if I don’t take the time and invest the energy in learning what help would/might look and feel like for the people I’m wanting to help, I can’t be helpful except by accident. If I knew better, maybe I wouldn’t keep offering my simplistic, reflexive idea of help instead of what’s truly needed. We who are people of privilege must be brave enough to open our eyes and our ears and look and listen. Talking about racism won’t kill us but our silence can be deadly.

A Tale Of Two Cats

Fear drives every part of human history. It’s part of our DNA that we share with much of the animal world, particularly prey animals. I thought about that a few days ago, when a wild storm brought explosive, crashing thunder and more lightning than I’ve seen in one day, let alone a crowded hour (turns out it was about 2/3 of our typical annual allotment). While the storm raged, the windows shook and hail slammed the roof like a thousand hammer blows. During all this, one of our cats huddled under a bed, too terrified to poke her head out. The other cat sprawled on a wide windowsill, watching the storm for a while, then curling up for a nap even as hail rattled the window. A few minutes ago, I caught one cat bullying the other, who was backed into a corner of the laundry room, growling a bit but not fighting. She could easily have jumped up on a tall counter (the other cat is too fat to leap so high) but she stuck her ground, looking a little cross but mostly ignoring the aggressor, who threatened and snarled. Surprisingly, the aggressor is the scaredy cat who huddled under the bed, while the peaceable one napped through the noisy storm

Even after a year of living together in a small house, despite the imperturbable cat remaining calm no matter what, the fearful cat remains hyper alert, easily terrified and often aggressive. This morning’s situation reminded my daughter of something H.P. Lovecraft, master of horror fiction, notably said: “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” The entire world is living with multiple unknowns these days, and fear is clearly driving the bus. When we realize that our government is clueless about the results of their action and has no idea of how to help us (or much desire to be helpful to any but cronies), it can feel terrifying. I’ve been afraid for so long now that sometimes I forget al about it, as people do when living through slow-motion disasters.

Let’s Stop It!

After years of relentless abusive rhetoric and illegal, inhumane legislation, many of us already feel helpless. What’s the use of trying? Let’s stop that right now! That is part of The Hateful Plan; we are intended to feel helpless and despairing so we’ll get discouraged and stop working for change. The truth is that little things do add up. Small changes do make a difference. Over time, one honest, clear voice can change many minds and habits for others, who can change minds and habits in turn. Little changes, little ideas, little voices add up and do indeed change the world, if slowly. I often think of a concert pianist friend who said, “Bach’s music is made up of layer upon layer of simplicity.” Layer on layer of small, simple changes can weave the world we want to share. Stop, Look, and Listen. Onward!

 

 

Posted in Health & Wellbeing, Sustainable Living | Tagged , , | 1 Comment