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...
For nearly 15 years I have shared my blog with so many of you around the planet and at home on Turtle Island, in part known as the USA. For most of my life, my true self questioned the nonsensible ways in which we live above the land rather than as part of the land. I have written books about my experiences in a capitalist society which subjugates our living relatives (trees, birds, insects, oceans and Mother Earth herself.) Indigenous knowledge has called me home for decades of my life since I was a child. Now, I leave you with this exceptional wisdom keeper, Robin Wall Kimmerer, who better than anyone I know, speaks the truth and points the way to living in new (ancient) ways that would help us find The Way out of madness by combining the indigenous way of knowing with the capitalist way of knowing. The present moment of madness in the U.S.A. is answered, and a path forward that is sustaining, and what we yearn for. All is contained in this keynote address presented recently at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona. I leave you with Dr. Kimmerer’s wisdom, and I thank everyone for reading my blog over the years.
And here is another important voice from Indigenous America whom I greatly respect and is a worthy follow up to what Dr. Kimmerer is describing as a way forward. It is not lost on me that it is the women leaders whose voices are coming forward in response to the perils we now face.
“Though I’d never forgotten Alan, I hadn’t uttered his name aloud in the many years since he’d died, back in that decade when it seemed that the greatest menaces on earth were war, the atomic bomb, and polio.” ― Philip Roth, Nemesis
The dangerous vaccine policies of the current Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., heralds the grave risk of the Trump Administration’s reckless retreat from science to embrace unscientific beliefs which currently threaten children’s lives.
Our Children at Risk
Polio was eliminated from the United States by 1997. I remember when polio terrified every parent and my sister Beverly and me were 5 and 7 – the most at risk for the polio virus. Vaccines and immunological science and medical practice were in the infant stages of learning how to prevent many viral vectors emerging as public health crises in the early 1950s.
I was born in 1945 in July, one month before the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki which finally ended WWII.
My father had joined the U.S. Army Air Corps after Japan attacked America at Pearl Harbor. Three months after I was born, my father returned from the war theater, joined the new U.S. Air Force, and began my life’s experience in a military family, moving about every two years around the U.S. and Hawai’i.
To understand how Americans lived during that time, imagine very little access to health care, no vaccines against many childhood diseases (measles, mumps, diphtheria, whooping cough) — many diseases few American children have contracted for at least the last 75 years of modern medicine.
Mothers, the primary healthcare providers, may have 2-6 children all sick with the same infectious disease and no one cure except aspirin, Pepto-Bismol, moist wash clothes and orange juice. Woman labored day and night to keep their children alive. High fevers from rubella, for example, often conferred blindness and/or hearing loss in children.
My parents were so fearful of their daughters contracting polio, they petitioned the Air Force when we were living in Texas for a transfer to Los Angeles where the infectious rate was lower. They were transferred thus saving Beverly and I from infection until the Salk vaccine was offered to children in the 1952 trial with a killed virus vaccine that resulted in immunity to the live virus.
In the bizarre and surprising way that fate confers destiny, I studied Special Education in graduate school on a full scholarship from the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) at the University of Tennessee. There I studied deaf education to join the workforce as an educator for deaf and hard of hearing students affected by rubella in the 60s.
Likewise, when I later joined the Arizona State University’s Disability for Students Resource Center, one of my colleagues who had contracted polio as a child in the 1950s epidemic shared his journey with me as he began to experience a return of symptoms as an adult. He lost the use of his legs and began to experience difficulty breathing, both of which affected his ability to thrive.
Young Families: Pay Attention to Facts
I tell this story for young American parents who are doubtful about vaccines for infants and young children. Embracing the belief held by the current Sec. of Health and Human Services that vaccine schedules for children – recommended by the American Academy for Pediatrics – have caused the rise in number of autistic children is dangerous. That has been proven wrong. Protect your children with proven vaccines that prevent these dangerous diseases. I lived it. I know.
We the People are coming together as the Trump regime presses down on the People. Free Speech, the first right of the Bill of Rights, is under threat. A free press is under threat. These are the essence of democracies.
We are urged to get out with our friends and family and “do stuff” to demonstrate our power as a freedom loving People.
**Start at 1 min. 30 seconds due to a sound problem/
Now’s the moment.. We are much more powerful than the weak and sick people who are trying to threaten us and put us down. We ARE coming together to decry the ridiculous ploys of this MAGA movement which seeks to divide us but has only united us.
No person living today makes as much sense as Robin Wall Kimmerer.
In her beautiful Potowatomi ways of knowing, so brilliantly written in her latest book – a small treasure to be carried in your pocket to remind us about other ways of knowing the world than the Western, extractive view of the Earth’s living community as “resources” – The Serviceberry is a way out of madness.
Early this morning I found myself torn apart by concerns for the nation, the planet, for my health as I age, for my children’s future…and no where could I find a direction and wisdom that seemed to point toward truth and sustenance.
Then, on YouTube, I found a brilliant interview by a young scientist at the Museum of Science who interviewed Dr. Kimmerer about the little book of wisdom, The Serviceberry. I post it here for you, my friends online from countries all over the world. I pray you find solace, wisdom, and direction for this day and tomorrow for truly, Robin has gifted the world a jewel of hope.
Imagine yourself walking through a place where opposing mirrors bounce image back and forth, distort and project images so that you lose your sense of reality, the image of yourself and others. The only way out is to stop looking into those reflecting faces. Look up or look at your feet. Follow your gut, using all your senses such as sound and tactile pressures under your feet. Eventually, you will leave the maze of confusion.
This fraught moment in American history is like that. Turn off the electronic communications, call a friend or ask for a hug from family members. Recall the real reasons for living: friends and family and the great good Earth.
Bake bread, make soup, decorate for the changing season. We are coming up on the Fall Equinox, next weekend. The days are shortening, the night growing longer: all is a scurry about to prepare for the Big Sleep under white stars in an ebony night sky.
We need to reassure ourselves about what we value and how we can go forward. Though we cannot give up now to forces that intend to destroy our democratic republic, we must be strong and clear. Read history, gather for conversation. Give it time. Each of us must be clear headed now to discern the truth from lies.
“I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.” ~ from Invictus by William Ernest Henley.
“Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.” ~ Gandhi on nonviolent resistance
All that the autocrats have succeeded to accomplish is to light the fire and ire in the American public. Keep your eye on the prize: resisting in any way possible within your capacity to preserve the rule of law and consent of the people.
The MAGA movement steals the words of democratic governance and twists them so that truth and justice actually stand for their opposites. They are building a house divided. Lincoln addressed this in 1858.
Beginning about the middle of 2023, we entered the really steep part of this growth curve that could redefine our future, crossing another invisible line, this one marking the installation of a gigawatt’s worth of solar panels on this planet everyday. ~ Bill McKibben, Here Comes the Sun; Introduction, p. 3.
I want to help promote Bill’s book which was just released, written in 2024 with updated figures about the world’s and the U.S.’s transition to solar and wind power.
UPDATE: 8.28.25
But first, I want to share that Bill expertly and with flare and humor, traces humankind’s history of burning things for power and light. Scanning over our journey as a species, we can see how all that came before from burning wood, coal, oil and gas will be surpassed at warp speed as cheap, clean energy replaces those sources. Solar and wind energy are AVAILABLE TO ANYONE which will not only revolutionize how we live but will shift power because, as Bill points out, solar energy is diffuse – available for anyone anywhere on Earth.
Where people who were once able to hoard and control the availability of energy, that will no longer be true. People everywhere will be freed to experience a healthier and more robust life.
Are we in time to stem the worst of a heating Earth and oceans? Bill brings readers up to date on climate science and clean industry, soberly laying out what we have to do and by when to stop additional heating. The race is on but the current U.S. leadership has declared climate change a hoax. That decision is the real hoax – one that imperials Americans and the world.
The book is full of hope and good sense and a realistic estimation of where we are and what we must do over the next 4 and a half years (by 2030) and 24 years (by 2050). Most of the solar industry development is in China but in spite of all the obstacles in America’s way, its happening here as well.
We are going to buy the cheapest energy, the cheapest cars and transportation, and everyone will have access equally. That is a Revolution in America and across the planet.
I wonder if Dr. Barber or Dr. Richardson can fully understand how their work and their voice sustains so many of us citizens in the U.S.A. who are stunned at the rapid destruction of The Republic. Let me express my deep gratitude to each of them for their vital work for justice and truth.
When I hear about young people who are using Chat GPT as a substitute friend and advisor, I understand how the last ten years of Donald Trump, the Pandemic, and a long slide toward autocracy here and abroad, has robbed our nation’s vigor and civic verve. A crime of the heart and soul.
I just want to say a prayer for everyone in America and worldwide suffering from violence, injustice, and the misuse of power in their leadership.
It’s a dismal time but one when hope still burns in the hearts of the people.
Right now, 152,720 people in Southeastern Virginia are having trouble accessing fresh and nutritious food… ~ Christopher Tan, President and CEO of the Foodbank.
Today, I talked to a nonprofit customer of mine whose organization assists people experiencing homelessness or near eviction. She said the need was rising sharply as households are unable to pay the rising rental or mortgage payments. Families who never dreamed they’d be on the street are facing that possibility as the cost and availability of affordable housing rises out of reach.
Then I opened a letter from the Southern Environmental Law Center which has worked on behalf of a healthy environment for 40 years.
The streams and rivers that provide our drinking water. The air we breathe. The wild places and wildlife we love. The communities we call home, from the coast to the mountains. …Right now, they are all at risk. And amidst it all, we face a changing climate-one that’s intensifying our storms, eroding our beaches, and supercharging summers. ~ Southern Environmental Law Center
The current administration has cut back social and environmental programs intended for the betterment of the people, and ended policies all legally and constitutionally passed by the Congress of the USA. Legally, the Republicans have impounded funds delegated for the American people. By doing so, deaths have already occurred and suffering is growing among citizens in what was once a prosperous, strong democratic governing body which adhered to the principle that a democracy is rule by consent of the governed. But Trump and his despicable helpmates have damaged and intend to destroy democratic governance in our country.
Friends we are only in the first year of this destruction. Forces are being amassed in major cities and along borders to control the people, but its all in the name of cleaning up crime or getting rid of dangerous criminals. It is not.
Project 2025, conceived by the likes of Steve Miller and Russell Vought and the Heritage Foundation – supported by far right conservatives – intends to destroy democracy and replace it with autocratic rule.
It’s almost all in place. The only thing left to do is rise up en mass and break down the barriers and take back the country. That would be the start. Then the long but potentially powerful remaking of our democracy. This will be the project of generations.
Look around. The signs of suffering are everywhere.
In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery and death. ~ Anne Frank
A Black Swan moment is unprecedented, a surprise, and when it occurs it changes everything.
Susan Feathers 