Bill, so proud to be standing with Third Act, doing this work of witness and care., work you have inspired me to do and milllions more. Thank you. Thank you.
Thanks, Margaret. Oh glory, I need a proof reader. I thought my reference to Billy Collins' poem in the sentence above would make it clear that was Collins' poem.
Perfect comment on America’s consumerist society: “antithesis of attunement to Mother Earth.” Thank you, Kathleen! I found my attunement on Black Friday walking 4+ miles on Popham Beach. Magical!
Oh Popham! The last time I was there, new erosion had changed the beach so dramatically I hardly recognized the place. These endangered places are so painful to visit. I hope we get to continure our walks at Winslow a little while longer without the sea rise wiping out that wonderful experience.
I really like lupines! I also like purple Salvias- feeding bees and hummingbirds! Also blue cornflowers (bachelor buttons) bringing the blue sky down to the trailside next to the California Poppies! In a pinch, dandelions with roots so deep, they are practically immortal!! Red clover too, has its fans as does blue Lithodora!
Thanks, Maryann. Steve Smith, CEO of Beans, responded to a letter from Third Act which made the kind of appeal you are suggesting by saying that it is important that nothing impede his customers ability to buy things because if they buy things they will be able to get out into "Nature" more and if they do that they will want to protect it.
I love this blog and the photos. I'm proud of you for doing the uncomfortable demonstrations at Costco and Beans. I thank trees often, and sometimes hug them too! Wish I had read this before I left my family gathering of 30, as I would have loved to have been inspired to get everyone out hugging a tree. When we went around the table sharing what we were thankful for, I was proud of my daughter for saying "Nature" and happy no one mentioned on-line shopping or Black Friday sales. My uncle from NH did mention how thrilled he was that we "finally" got a Costco in Maine. ugh.
I used to work in software in Boston, one of the most abstract and imaginary jobs you can have, because most of the software you write and spend sleepless nights over and do overtime for never gets released ("vaporware") and what does get released is still something you can never hold in your hand. My colleagues didn't read and their whole worldview came from television. Nothing was real. Everything was imaginary. It became painfully obvious that one good hacker attack on the grid and we would be cold and starving in our overpriced urban hovels, and within a couple of days, violence would start. I was beyond the age where they tolerate women in software, so my husband and I bought a house in the Maine woods, heated with wood, with enough redundancy to function off grid. I read about foraging, farming, herbal medicine, all the knowledge lost. Our community are trees. Every spring, you see the carnage from the winter, tree death everywhere. You see the cutthroat competition for light. The young feeding off the decomposing bodies of the fallen. Neighboring trees bent and groaning under the weight of the corpses that died in storms or from insect damage or just from the weight of the snow. You see the scarred old beeches leprous from beetles and fungi, eking out another year, victorious. The scaly ancient maples that give up the ghost and fall in the brook, to be swept away by spring floods, and the jubilation of the young who finally see light. It is a jungle out there, a northern rain forest, every creature struggling, every creature full of drama. We feed the critters pears and apples from our trees, and what we feed is not enough but it's something. We don't allow hunting; the coyotes, owls and hawks do quite enough. It is a busy society out here. If I left it now, I would miss it dearly. When I visit a city now — and I spent my whole life in cities — it's just fun, I eat out, I visit stores and museums, and then I make my getaway and go home to my trees, my friends. Who don't need me. I need them.
Thank you Kathleen for your beautiful writing and for all that you’re doing for our environment. Keep picketing in front of Bean’s. If I still lived In Cumberland county I’d join you. I’m wondering as well if, given that Bean’s brand is fused with the natural world, approaching their senior management about the complete disconnect between doing business with Citi as Citi continues to support practices that will eventually undermine Bean’s existence. Easier said than done perhaps, yet I’m guessing some one in Maine’s Third Act community might have some connections.
I'm with you, Kathleen. Tree Hugs R Us! Before I left Nashville I'd walk to an open space (a rarity) in Germantown where I lived and head across the grass to a very large, very old oak. She had an indentation place between sidewalk and tree base and I'd slip in there and stand against her, feeling her old, great energy filling me with the peace I didn't have. There she stood while across the street the trucks for Nashville's water treatment plant were kept within wire fencing and locked gates. I'd just stand and breathe and be before walking on and returning home. Now, in Maine, I live on two acres of trees. Sometimes I go out to the back 40 (so to speak) to a sort of dell behind the shed and near the septic hill and sit on an old outcropping and watch leaves fall while a hundred trees have my back and the fairies whisper. Thank you for your activism and for fighting the good fight, and for your writing which inspires the world, or at least the world that reads your words of hope and resilience. Love you, Kathleen -- Rita
Thank you so much for this witness, friend! It is uncomfortable to get out there and bear witness, but the right kind of discomfort I think
Bill, so proud to be standing with Third Act, doing this work of witness and care., work you have inspired me to do and milllions more. Thank you. Thank you.
Is this your poem, Kathleen? So wonderful thanks for your code red.
Thanks, Margaret. Oh glory, I need a proof reader. I thought my reference to Billy Collins' poem in the sentence above would make it clear that was Collins' poem.
Fabulous poem. Thank you. And bravo for suspending disbelief and attuning, and inviting others.
Thank you for your solidarity on that street corner a week ago, Nancy. Your presence there inspires me!!
Perfect comment on America’s consumerist society: “antithesis of attunement to Mother Earth.” Thank you, Kathleen! I found my attunement on Black Friday walking 4+ miles on Popham Beach. Magical!
Oh Popham! The last time I was there, new erosion had changed the beach so dramatically I hardly recognized the place. These endangered places are so painful to visit. I hope we get to continure our walks at Winslow a little while longer without the sea rise wiping out that wonderful experience.
So very very true, so much a testament of these troubled times, this thoughtless era. Persevere in your prophetic witness, o eastern rose!
YOu are such a kind reader and your language is so beautiful. An eastern rose! What does that make you? A Western lupine?
I really like lupines! I also like purple Salvias- feeding bees and hummingbirds! Also blue cornflowers (bachelor buttons) bringing the blue sky down to the trailside next to the California Poppies! In a pinch, dandelions with roots so deep, they are practically immortal!! Red clover too, has its fans as does blue Lithodora!
What a good piece to wake up to this AM! Thank you for writing.
What a pleasure to write a piece for you, the author of so many moving pieces about what we are doing to the earth!!
Thanks, Maryann. Steve Smith, CEO of Beans, responded to a letter from Third Act which made the kind of appeal you are suggesting by saying that it is important that nothing impede his customers ability to buy things because if they buy things they will be able to get out into "Nature" more and if they do that they will want to protect it.
I love this blog and the photos. I'm proud of you for doing the uncomfortable demonstrations at Costco and Beans. I thank trees often, and sometimes hug them too! Wish I had read this before I left my family gathering of 30, as I would have loved to have been inspired to get everyone out hugging a tree. When we went around the table sharing what we were thankful for, I was proud of my daughter for saying "Nature" and happy no one mentioned on-line shopping or Black Friday sales. My uncle from NH did mention how thrilled he was that we "finally" got a Costco in Maine. ugh.
I used to work in software in Boston, one of the most abstract and imaginary jobs you can have, because most of the software you write and spend sleepless nights over and do overtime for never gets released ("vaporware") and what does get released is still something you can never hold in your hand. My colleagues didn't read and their whole worldview came from television. Nothing was real. Everything was imaginary. It became painfully obvious that one good hacker attack on the grid and we would be cold and starving in our overpriced urban hovels, and within a couple of days, violence would start. I was beyond the age where they tolerate women in software, so my husband and I bought a house in the Maine woods, heated with wood, with enough redundancy to function off grid. I read about foraging, farming, herbal medicine, all the knowledge lost. Our community are trees. Every spring, you see the carnage from the winter, tree death everywhere. You see the cutthroat competition for light. The young feeding off the decomposing bodies of the fallen. Neighboring trees bent and groaning under the weight of the corpses that died in storms or from insect damage or just from the weight of the snow. You see the scarred old beeches leprous from beetles and fungi, eking out another year, victorious. The scaly ancient maples that give up the ghost and fall in the brook, to be swept away by spring floods, and the jubilation of the young who finally see light. It is a jungle out there, a northern rain forest, every creature struggling, every creature full of drama. We feed the critters pears and apples from our trees, and what we feed is not enough but it's something. We don't allow hunting; the coyotes, owls and hawks do quite enough. It is a busy society out here. If I left it now, I would miss it dearly. When I visit a city now — and I spent my whole life in cities — it's just fun, I eat out, I visit stores and museums, and then I make my getaway and go home to my trees, my friends. Who don't need me. I need them.
Thank you Kathleen for your beautiful writing and for all that you’re doing for our environment. Keep picketing in front of Bean’s. If I still lived In Cumberland county I’d join you. I’m wondering as well if, given that Bean’s brand is fused with the natural world, approaching their senior management about the complete disconnect between doing business with Citi as Citi continues to support practices that will eventually undermine Bean’s existence. Easier said than done perhaps, yet I’m guessing some one in Maine’s Third Act community might have some connections.
I'm with you, Kathleen. Tree Hugs R Us! Before I left Nashville I'd walk to an open space (a rarity) in Germantown where I lived and head across the grass to a very large, very old oak. She had an indentation place between sidewalk and tree base and I'd slip in there and stand against her, feeling her old, great energy filling me with the peace I didn't have. There she stood while across the street the trucks for Nashville's water treatment plant were kept within wire fencing and locked gates. I'd just stand and breathe and be before walking on and returning home. Now, in Maine, I live on two acres of trees. Sometimes I go out to the back 40 (so to speak) to a sort of dell behind the shed and near the septic hill and sit on an old outcropping and watch leaves fall while a hundred trees have my back and the fairies whisper. Thank you for your activism and for fighting the good fight, and for your writing which inspires the world, or at least the world that reads your words of hope and resilience. Love you, Kathleen -- Rita