Family, friends, nature, books, writing, a good pen and journal, freedom of thought, culture, and peaceful co-relations - these are the things that occupy my mind, my heart, my time...
American culture is a busy, somewhat fraught place as individuals and groups strive to influence the direction of markets and ideas. More and more these activities take place on digital platforms that are globally accessed and influenced by everyone from elementary school children to foreign governments and posers (human and artificial). Evermore diverse and without much internal control except that which participants choose to shape, democraciesdepend on the individual’s commitment to discerning the truth.
John Adams reminded citizens that “facts are stubborn things,” meaning that truth cannot be corrupted. Yet in today’s digital environment, truth is battered, shaped, recolored and redressed until it represents its opposite. An example is the kidnapping of democratic language used to support MAGA athoritarianism. Citizens duped and caught up in the web of lies are aiding authoritarian forces that seek to destroy the liberal order established after WWII and the system of governance established at our founding.
This article from Pew Research reports on the growing number of Americans who favor technology companies or the U.S. government restricting false or violent information. What do you think? What are the risks? Gains? What are the challenges the average citizen faces in attempting to discern the truth in today’s marketplace of ideas and influencers?
Until today I did not understand that it was the ideas of the Enlightenment that inspired Ludwig von Beethoven to write the now best loved “Ode to Joy” in the final movement of his second symphony -Symphony No. 9.
I can thank an amazing intellectual, Maria Popova. who writes a weekly treasure of curated ideas and art on a subject in her newsletter, The Marginalian.
That year, he began — though he did not yet know it, as we never do — the long gestation of what would become not only his greatest creative and spiritual triumph, not only a turning point in the history of music that revolutionized the symphony and planted the seed of the pop song, but an eternal masterwork of the supreme human art: making meaning out of chaos, beauty out of sorrow.
The masterwork’s libretto contains a message to the world that seems perfect to revisit in another time when chaos threatens to overcome humanity:
Oh friends, no more of these sounds! Let us sing more cheerful songs, More full of joy! Joy, bright spark of divinity, Daughter of Elysium, Fire-inspired we tread Thy sanctuary! Thy magic power reunites All that custom has divided; All men become brothers Under the sway of thy gentle wings. Whoever has created An abiding friendship, Or has won A true and loving wife, All who can call at least one soul theirs, Join in our song of praise! But any who cannot must creep tearfully Away from our circle. All creatures drink of joy At nature’s breast. Just and unjust Alike taste of her gift; She gave us kisses and the fruit of the vine, A tried friend to the end. Even the worm can feel contentment, And the cherub stands before God! Gladly, like the heavenly bodies Which He set on their courses through the splendor of the firmament; Thus, brothers, you should run your race, As a hero going to conquest. You millions, I embrace you. This kiss is for all the world! Brothers, above the starry canopy There must dwell a loving Father. Do you fall in worship, you millions? World, do you know your Creator? Seek Him in the heavens! Above the stars must He dwell.
Now read the Libretto translated by Tracy K. Smith and performed in 2020 at a Carnegie Hall performance, All Together: A Global Ode to Joy.
O friend, my heart has tired Of such darkness. Now it vies for joy. Joy, bright God-spark born of Ever Daughter of fresh paradise— Where you walked once now walk rancor, Greed, suspicion, anger, fright. Joy, the breeze off all that’s holy, Pure with terror, wild as flame. Make us brothers, give us comfort, Bid us past such fear and hate. If you’ve loved another’s beauty If you’ve craved the warmth of flesh, If your spirit is invested In another’s sense of worth, Lift your voice to touch my voice now, Let our song bring joy to earth. Lift your voice to touch my voice now, Let our song bring joy to earth. Joy like water, milk of mothers. Kind and wicked all deserve Joy’s compassion freely given, Joy which can’t be sold or earned. In the depths of blackest soil In the lightless atmosphere In the atom and the ether, Animating all that is. Let us feel it, let us heed it, Let us seek its deepest kiss. Let us live our brief lives mining That which joy alone can give. Battered planet, home of billions, Our long shadow stalks your face. All we’ve fractured, all we’ve stolen, All we’ve sought blind to your grace. Earth, forgive us, claim us, let us Live in humble thanks and joy. Let our hearts wake from our stupor, Let us praise you in one voice.
Ode to Joy Adaptation by Tracy K. Smith (b. 1972) for the culminating concert of All Together: A Global Ode to Joy at Carnegie Hall on December 6, 2020
Here is a superb performance of the Symphony No. 9 by the Chicago Symphony.
For the last movement, Ode to Joy, start at about 59:00
Not so according to five of nine U.S. Supreme Court Justices. Read how they consider “trust” established in treaties between the Navajo Nation and the U.S.
Emergence Magazine is Vital to Recovery of Our Earth, Our Origin
Photo by Susan Feathers 2023
Emergence Magazine provides profound and relevant experiences and knowledge vital to humankind’s return to kinship with all life on Earth.
The magazine is a portal to poets, writers, educators, and spiritual leaders from around the world. It is a portal of reflection and ways to heal, and love. Here for example is an amazing poem by Ross Gay, To the Fig Tree on 9th and Christian.
Today, a special panel of high level leaders was featured on the role of women in energy transition and sectors for climate adaptation, mitigation, and resilience.
A panel of leaders from countries across the world spoke to the continued general exclusion and/or low opportunities for women in implementing climate goals and contributing leadership and originality. Also, examples where countries are successfuly empowering women inspire us to meet the goals for a just transition including women and girls.
You haven’ lived without reading a new writer of fiction, Angeline Boulley.
You haven’t lived without reading a new writer of fiction, Angeline Boulley. The Firekeeper’s Daughter, her first novel (2021), was listed on the New York Times Best Seller List and has been nominated for numerous awards, and is being produced on Netflix as an episodic story. I was drawn to read it by my local book club but also because Louise Erdrich, Pulitzer and National Book Award-winning Native American novelist, raved about it. See Birchbark Books, Louise’s independent book store in Minneapolis.
In a recent interview by Louise with Angeline, Boulley describes why she wrote the book and its sequel (Warrior Girl Unearthed). Both novels are Young Adult but all adults are reading it as well because the values and knowledge Boulley emparts to readers is chicken soup for the soul, or “how things should be” among us human beings. Her Objibwe culture is generously described throughout the book in an engaging way through the main character, Daunis Fontaine. Boulley was Director of Indigenous Education at the U.S. Department of Education. Her father is a firekeeper in his tribe (a keeper of tradition and culture) and Angeline has been in leadership roles in her tribal nation. Imparting understanding of her Ojibwe traditions is purposeful.
During this interview, I learned about Marcie Rendon, another Ojibwe writer. Murder on the Red River is the first book in a mystery triology with the lead character, Cash Blackbear, a 19-year old kickass woman. Like Boulley, Rendon incorporates current and past issues for Native Women and Native Peoples in America. The issue addressed in this book through Cash is the foster home abduction era when young native children were removed from their homes by BIA officials to be “rescued” from what was considered “bad homes”. Cash has endured seven foster homes before ending up in Fargo, North Dakota. The local sheriff received Cash each time she was kicked out of a foster home for her behavior and continues to observe and intervene with compassion. Their partnership to solve a murder is endearing, gritty and funny. The book is a three part series – Sinister Graves is heading toward my mailbox with Girl Gone Missingnext in line. Rendon has that clean-sentence-no-nonsense way of telling a story that allows the reader’s imagination to spark and fire. I read the book over a day. HIghly recommended for you mystery readers!
In Non-Fiction, I recommend Ned Blackhawk’s new The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History. It is very well written and riveting as Dr. Blackhawk lays out the book and then shows how Native American tribal communities influenced and shaped outcomes before, during and after the Revolutionary War and Civil War. Ned is a historian whose prose is easy to read but well sourced. It won this year’s National Book Award for Nonfiction. It is a book that can be read over time and should be on every history readers’ bookcase for reference on American history that is inclusive of the great traditions and historical importance of Indigenous peoples.
See below an interview with Dr. Blackhawk at the National Constitution Center.
While the 5th National Climate Assessment of the nation’s climate conditions gives much to be concerned about, there is also a clear path and examples where various states or communities are making strides toward sustaining practices, saving their communities money and spurring new business growth.
Why should Americans read the report? This is about the quality of your lifeand the future of your children. Nothing less.
The report illuminates job security and maybe new job opportunities; food production and food security (think prices and availability; recall the pandemic’s impact on availability of food and other necessities). See how other regions in the U.S might impact your area. Example: If ports on the East Coast are damaged by sea level rise or storms, how will it affect your company’s ability to export goods to the world? How will it affect food that is imported? Think coffee my friends. Gulp.
1. Go to your region and read how climate will impact you. Scroll down the page to learn about temperature, rain, drought and other climate conditions and what may happen or is already happening as a result. How will this affect you and yours? Pay attention to health concerns. Do you have family members who suffer from asthma? Work outside to earn a living? Have heart conditions? All these will be made worse by heat and increased moisture in the air.
2. Make plans with your family, with your neighbors and your city to do what you can to prevent climate impacts and also to bring new opportunities to you and yours. How will climate affect your health? Do you work outside? What kind of transportation do you use to get to work or school?
3. ***Any local, state, or federal representatives for your location who is a climate change denier must be challenged. There is no time to argue. Move on to the reps who are working positively to protect and empower your location and community to both prepare and also to seize the economic opportunities available. Is your governor reaping federal grants and investments to bring new businesses to your state, your area? If not, find out why. Many states are reaping millions of dollars of business investment that bring new employment opportunities to your state.
4. What can your city do? What ARE they doing? This is the right time to contact your city council member who represents you and ask them what they are doing about climate change. No time to do it? Ask your employer then or your school principal. Wherever your life takes you, ask what is being done to prepare for and mitigate climate change and how can you help them?
5. Go here to learn about all the savings you can get for your home and your transportation when you go greener. Rewiring America. Depending on your income, you can get great discounts at the time of purchase of say, for example, an induction stove or clothes dryer; a heat pump air conditioner/heater. Also, if you want to purchase an all electric car or truck, there are great discounts plus great savings from no gas purchases! Download a booklet of how to achieve your goals, targeted to your budget and circumstances.
For all of us folks for whom a lot of these vehicle or home purchases to reduce fossil fuel burning are too expensive, fear not. The prices will come down precipitously over the next few years. Meantime, work with your housing association or apartment complex, or city transportation office to get the people who CAN afford it off their …. and into action!
A mother and child in 1939 Poland are talking. This is our way into a new book—The Crystal Beads, Lalka’s Journey written by Pat Black-Gould and illustrated by Katya Royz. It is a book written for children but is for any age and as I will show, particularly for today.
The time and place alert adults immediately to the context but for children they are gently led into the experience. A mother has found a way to gently guide her seven-year-old daughter on a safe path while terror stalks right outside their door. She asks her daughter to trade her Star of David for crystal beads – a rosary.
The author guides readers along with the illustrations driving the narrative and lending emotional texture. Tension builds with a terrifying encounter with Nazi interrogators. What might happen? We anticipate the worst. The terrifying men leave and we can breathe again. Lalka asks a question of the Mother Superior. It is not just any question: it is the question yet unresolved among us. Which of these is better: the Star of David or the Rosary?
Pat Black-Gould weaves a story of trust and love confronted with evil and brilliantly captured in Katya Royz’ art.
When I finished reading the story, my first thought was of Leo Tolstoy’s parable The Bear. Written for children, it has lasted through the centuries as a warning about the perils of oppression. Tolstoy showed how the bear became immured in a prison of its own thinking. It performs everyday for its master who has tethered it to a stump. Not until the bear is reminded he is endowed with the strength to break his bonds does he free himself from his oppressor.
I foresee The Crystal Beads will find its place among stories that illuminate dark times with truth. Everyone is endowed with his or her own right to be free and to pursue his or her own dreams. Each person is as valuable as the next. All faiths promote that and it is the soul of democratic governance.
The Nazis vilified the Jews leading to unspeakable crimes against humanity. This old dark root has risen over the last decade in many forms of hatred toward “the other.” Anger and hatred pit people against each other, playing out this old and tragic story about the human race. It must be illuminated for what it is: evil in many forms. We must be ever vigilent to guard against it for it can happen anywhere strong men’s manipulation of followers who, like the bear, are imprisoned by their own misperceptions and thinking.
I am so glad for the publication of The Crystal Beads. Pat Black-Gould is a practicing psychologist, playwright, and fiction writer. Perhaps this is why her book is so vital. The author has created a timeless story for all ages. The book has already garnered many awards.
Study guides for children and for adults are included.
Susan Feathers 