Shards of meaning and splinters of spring

My thoughts have been far from the day-to-day this year.

My mind is in books, the stories of four brothers in the vortex of pain in my parents’ generation or the never-real, ideal world of a boy and a marten on Mount Hood. My hands are painting the gleaming fir of new garden-bed posts in the sunshine that is far too early.

Image of pumpkin ridge and mount emily in northeaster oregon in early spring with a lone hiker visible - by arie Farnam

My mind gnaws at the fact that the spring is too early, that we scarcely had any snow, that whole nations are becoming climate refugees. But for us locally it still isn’t too much of a problem. Even the forest fires have struck mercifully elsewhere. My hands are filling the washing machine and turning the dial. My feet are tramping through the kitchen.

My mind is drowning in dying languages and resurrected tongues, in Wall Kimmerer’s desperate struggle to learn Potawatami from the nine remaining fluent speakers, in the legacies of Czech students in the 19th century studying at the feet of country codgers, of Hebrew rekindled with such hope and of St. Patrick burning the last rare books written by Irish Druids. My hands are cutting spaghetti squash and cooking meatballs or dribbling a basketball with my teenage boy.

I’m always listening to some audiobook, always trying to run fast enough to get to something that matters, always writing something while resigned that the chances of an unknown writer getting published these days are minuscule, always trying to reach my kids through the addictive fog of social media and video games, always trying to figure out what really matters.

All this, while my body is going to medical appointments, weeding the garden beds, washing the dishes, organizing transportation for my son and doing physical therapy exercises. My mind is like a restless toddler but one with sophisticated taste.

On a good day, my mind is drawing plot lines and character arcs for two new novels, weaving snippets of poetry in for one character and plant lore in for another. My hands are making flash cards for students an ocean away. Even my mouth and my face are speaking through the computer screen, the same trusty lessons I’ve been teaching for twenty years. Or my fingers and eyes are working over a medical study manuscript, editing for grammar, while my mind is gibbering in helpless fury over the news.

Since January, I’ve been writing down the important things in a date book—not the garden preparations, the dishes or even the tutoring of students but the insights in the books I’ve read, the plot holes and their solutions, my kids’ struggles and tiny triumphs, the news and my various epiphanies. I want to be connected to the day to-day-world, but my mind needs this nourishment and stimulation the way a seedling needs water and sun.

It stretches toward the light in one direction and reaches roots through the soil the opposite way. It can’t help it. No matter where I’m planted, my mind is an unquiet and seeking thing. The only things that truly quiet it are mountains, big sky, trees and an unhindered wind. Meditation every morning settles it some but only temporarily.

This is one reason that I’m going to graduate school, starting this summer. But I also worry because I have a lot more responsibilities and duties and needs and distractions than I did the last time I was in school—twenty-five years ago. I did well in school because there was endless time. I read very slowly because of my wiggle, wobbly eyes, but that didn’t seem to matter when there was nothing else but studying and reading in my days. Now it will be different.

I’ll soon have assigned reading and critiques for my restless mind to dig into. And hopefully, that will be copasetic. But I think this restlessness is partly me and partly the times we’re living in. How can we live quiet contented lives in a world that threatens to self-destruct every twenty-four hours or so? How can we ignore the crises enough to live and give and nurture while also not losing our sense of soul? I am betting these questions are not mine alone.

Have I lost the fire?

An old acquaintance popped up recently telling me about demonstrations against the latest distant war and asking what I’m doing about it. There was a time when I would have been in the thick of it, full of hope, anger and the fire of passionate creativity.

I distinctly remember being twenty something and making pacts with a different friend to never let the fire of passionate activism, creativity and adventure go out. We swore to kick each other in the pants if the other ever wavered. But she’s gone, and I’m afraid I may have lost the fire.

What I didn’t know in my twenties was that soul-sucking, creativity-sapping hard times don’t always come in the form of tear gas, night sticks or bullets. As bad as those things are, there are things that will make you beg for something as easy to fight as a clear and distinct bad guy. And I’m not even talking about the inner demons of mental illness or the parasites of addiction. I managed to avoid those, though life has taught me a lot more compassion for others who didn’t slip the traps.

Image by Arie farnam - a porch railing holding pumpkins with candles inside portraying a pentacle and the word peace in different languages

I had freedom—just enough money to make my own choices and set my own course. I had transferable skills. I could go where I wanted and didn’t have to worry about the needs of others very much as I did. I mistook that privileged existence for deep caring about activism and great creative talent. It’s a common misconception.

Twenty years ago, I got sucked into the black hole of health problems which gave way to family responsibilities which led to worse health problems and much heavier family responsibilities. That’s what happened to my fire. It was buried under a mudslide and I’m still trying to find out if there are any smoldering embers left.

When I was in my late twenties, I gave up my last chances in newspaper journalism to lead antiwar protests. This isn’t something I’ve made a big deal about publicly. Potential employers wouldn’t see it as admirable, after all. I couldn’t stay in journalism and lead protests against the war in Iraq in a major international city at the same time. Journalists have codes of objectivity that preclude that sort of thing and no employers would allow it.

As a twenty-something, I don’t think I entirely thought through the potential consequences of that choice. I had a hot fire in me. I was watching the world explode with protest over a war based on lies, pushed by the questionably elected administration of my home country. It wasn’t happening in Prague yet, and the groups willing to try were marginalized and vulnerable to cheap attacks about supposedly being anti-American. I wasn’t just one more body in the streets for a protest. I was an American who also spoke the local language. Who could more credibly make the case that the protest was about human rights, rather than about being ideologically against the United States?

At that moment and in that place, there was a reasonable hope that I could make a real difference by joining and even leading the protests. The professional sacrifices felt worthwhile. Over the next two years, I was often cast into the role of negotiator between various factions. I had an acquaintance from my old political reporting who ran with the Czech Communist youth organization and friends in the staunchly anti-Communist student block. In a European capital city like ours, numbers of protesters mattered in terms of national policy and relations with the US. I worked to get both sides to come to events, while leaving their antagonistic or self-aggrandizing political banners at home.

Since my negotiating skills proved moderately handy and my rudimentary Arabic had once calmed a tense situation on the first day of our protests, I was also assigned as the negotiator for the Czech and international blocks in discussions with the local Iraqi dissident groups. That wasn’t easy, but it definitely gave me a sense of purpose and of my usefulness in the moment.

My primary counterpart on the Iraqi side was a guy named Ahmad. We worked together closely for months, and then his brother was killed by American soldiers in Iraq in a case of mistaken identity. The incident brought the war home to us. We swore it wouldn’t impact our budding friendship.

That was the last time I remember people losing their jobs or academic opportunities in the US over antiwar protests. Even though I had to make some sacrifices in my own career, I wasn’t directly fired or discriminated against for political reasons. But at the time, there were cases of suspension on college campuses as well as jobs or tenure lost in a variety of places because of people getting involved with antiwar protests.

Today the situation appears even more extreme, not just for people working in media but also in academia, law offices and even completely unrelated industries. I’ve lost track of the prominent journalists who’ve lost their jobs or been forced to resign. The pressure on college professors and students is intense, with even the entirely nonviolent Jewish Voice for Peace organization suspended at universities.

I can’t help but follow the news. People talk about shutting it out. I could just as well shut out thousands of people being killed in my own country or in my extended family. I don’t see the people under the bombs as foreign or as strangers “caught up in ancient enmity.” I’ve been too close. I have PaIestinian and lsraeli friends. I’ve also been in villages under shelling. I’ve had to hide huddled on the floor between the beds while renegade paramilitary forces out for revenge tore apart the neighborhood and bullets struck the gutters and wall just outside my window.

The news of the real world isn’t something I want to be able to shut out. But this time, there isn’t anything I know of that I can do that will matter. I’m in a small rural town where most people have very sparse information about what’s happening and have formed their opinions mainly based on the leaders they are used to listening to. And while the United States is involved in a significant way, another American speaking up about it in this case isn’t going to make a lick of difference, especially not out here in the sticks.

My heart goes out to those friends of mine who are personally affected. Every war is terrible. Innocent people always end up dying by violence, starvation or preventable illness. This war is even more heartbreaking than most to me because of the particularly intractable background and the fact that I know people on both sides of the conflict, none of whom have any realistic possibility of doing anything as individuals to help the innocent people being killed or to move toward peace. The Jewish people protesting the war in the US have the most chance of active agency at the moment, and they are doing admirable activism and often paying a heavy price for it.

When Russia invaded Ukraine, I spent the first few months volunteering to aid refugee evacuations because I had language and map-reading skills that were sorely needed. When Extinction Rebellion appeared to have a real shot at changing high-level European climate change policies, I dropped everything and was willing to get arrested and work with people who I didn’t always get along with to save lives. I wish there was a clear thing to do to make a difference right now. Even better, I yearn for a bad guy whose demise would actually be helpful.

Maybe it’s a symptom of growing up more than of the actual situation. I have realized my own futility. There is no way to win a war like this, and I have neither a useful identity nor any skills to put toward in the cause of peace or to aid the survival of individuals, even in a small way. But I did swear to hold onto the fire, and I wonder where the passion of my activism and creativity has gone.

I have a few little embers, barely glowing in the palm of my hand—the idea of going back to college and getting a master of fine arts degree. It may not help the world much, but it would give me a bit firmer ground on which to stand and from which to do useful and helpful things. But of course, this means entering the world of academia, and in my case, applying for scholarships, at a time when the silence required for career success is at odds with my conscience.

A recent ACLU open letter to colleges and universities across the United States criticized the penalizing and suppression of antiwar student groups during the scouring of Gaza, saying “It echoes America’s mistakes during the McCarthy era.” Students have lost competitive fellowships and job offers over peace-oriented social media posts. The only PaIestinian member of Congress was censured for words of heart-felt compassion for the victims of violence on both sides.

We all stand at the wall now in our own individual ways. We are forced to choose. Who will stand up, speak up, lose their voice, go to jail or lose opportunities as a result? Who will duck their head and hope to speak up more effectively another day? This is one of those times history will ask about.

I nurse my little embers. My fire is not burning brightly now. I’m barely hanging on. So, I change Ls to Is and Is to Ls to avoid the roving bots of censorship and academic blacklisting, I reach out privately to comfort grieving friends and I swallow back the hot words of protest.

We are sorry but we must break the law

A rugged start in Extinction Rebellion deescalation practices

On a rainy Monday in Prague, a group of activists met in a neglected park near a major traffic artery -- Nervous, skittish and just beginning to pump adrenaline, they unfurled their banners in a few practice runs, getting them upside down more often than not.

The people I had trained as a deescalation team, mostly at the last minute in a rushed explanation of psychology--the prefrontal cortex, the door to the panic center of the brain and the principles of active listening--were so dazed that they repeatedly forgot to even go into action at all during the practice runs. About half of the deescalation team had done a few role-plays in my kitchen. That was it.

Rebel for life - Photo by XR Praha

A large majority of us were first-time activists, barely having been to a few quiet (and completely legal) political rallies. And here they were preparing to flagrantly break the law.

But we got our signalling system drilled to the point where I was reasonably sure we wouldn't be hit by oncoming traffic and then we went into action.

Unsuspecting drivers whizzed by us while we politely waited at a red light. Then the first signaler called, "Blue team into action!" The small group with me started across the intersection unrolling our large blue banner, which read, "You can't outrun the climate crisis." . A minute later I vaguely heard the call "Green into action!" as the group with the green banner blocked the other axes of the intersection.

My deescalation teams were darting out into the traffic backed up in front of them, offering apologies, cookies and informative fliers along with their hastily trained active-listening and non-violent communication skills. Someone gave a warning shout about a motorcycle and I went for him.

I barely had to think of my calming techniques. My shoulders were relaxed, my hands nonthreatening as I loosely offered him a flyer. He smiled back at me under his visor and I thought things were going fine.

Then a van broke ranks behind him, lurched forward with aggressive honking and swearing. It had become clear that we were there to stay for at least a few minutes--seven minutes according to plan.

I immediately left the motorcycle driver and approached the van, which had stopped but continued to jerk forward in little starts toward our people at the banner. "I can see that you're upset," I said, forcing a little volume into my unwilling voice. "Can I help you?"

I never got the chance to exercise active listening and calm the driver down. By this time, our signal guy was bellowing at the driver with a megaphone and the van was physically pushing a teenage girl and a photographer into the middle of the intersection.

I think I said, "Please stop! This is dangerous!" The driver yelled incoherent curse words. I was torn with indecision for a second and then the chance to act was gone anyway.

Our safety people managed to get the two endangered individuals out of the way and I managed to stop the stream of cars behind the van by the simple expedience of stepping behind its bumper and standing still, thus avoiding a rush that would have seriously put the lives of my deescalation team--back in the traffic with cookies and fliers--at risk.

In the end, the crisis was averted but other drivers were upset because of the scene. One woman got out of her vehicle sobbing that her child was at home and she had to get to him, as if our protest truly heralded an immediate collapse of civilization. Our deescalation team hurried to listen, apologize and explain that we were only there for seven minutes. The tone reduced from panic to sullen angst.

Photo by XR Praha

Why take these risks, you might well ask, for a moment with a banner?

Of course, it isn't for the banner. Most of the drivers can't even see it. This is one of the basic tactics of Extinction Rebellion, one I was very skeptical about when I first joined. I wanted to protest big polluters and corrupt politicians. But as I read more and came to understand the psychological and socio-political dynamics of the situation I became less reticent.

This blockade, like every other Extinction Rebellion action, is part of a wave of disruption that forces the climate crisis into the forefront of everyone's minds and onto the front pages of every newspaper and the first minutes of every news broadcast. Without this disruption of the lives of ordinary people--without a shit-load of such disruptions--there is no way we will see change fast enough to avoid massive famine and economic collapse.

As just about every literate person on the planet has read by now, the latest IPCC report, which is a very conservative consensus of a lot of different scientific perspectives, gave us twelve years to solve the climate crisis if we wish to have any real hope of avoiding a vast collapse of our civilization and food-production systems.

That's not to say we have twelve years to START working on it. We have twelve years to implement changes in the global industrial economy so vast that there is really nothing to compare them to, though the build up to World War Two and the Marshal Plan combined are often invoked as an example solution. And so far, there is not one government on the planet that is truly taking it seriously.

But there is one that has at least pledged to do so, and that is the British government, where Extinction Rebellion really got started in April. The tactic of massive disruption achieved its first stated goal. The British government was forced to declare a climate emergency.

But more than that, it created an unprecedented storm of media coverage and public concern over climate change. Most of it wasn't even in support of Extinction Rebellion initially. But the more the media looked into it and the more people paid attention and read about the crisis, the more everyone realized how serious the crisis is.

We activists are not in a popularity contest. We are not out in the road risking our lives because we think that will convince someone to agree with us. We are an emergency siren. We are simply a wave of disruption that forced British society to wake up and pay attention and which will do the same in every place we can.

We are sorry. Really I am sorry. I want to apologize to the frightened woman with her child at home and to all the others who were just tired and heading home from work. We do not want to do this. I would apologize if I had to wake you up at night to warn you of a fire in the building, but I'd still do it. We have no choice but to disrupt life as usual and even to break the law. This is an emergency.

Talking to journalists:

A guide for direct action participants

If you are part of a direct action you may be approached by journalists. Whatever the goal of your action, you have some sort of message for the public. Your main target may be the government or a company but your second target is ALWAYS the public. Journalists are a stand-in for the public, whether we like it or not. Therefore, it is very important to know how to get your message across to journalists.

Before your action consider these things:

1. Do you want all participants to talk to journalists or will you politely redirect journalists to your organizer?

2. What is the most important goal of your action? What do you want? Make sure you can say it easily in one or two sentences.

3. What is your message for the public? Remember that when you talk to journalists, you are also talking to average, uninformed people listening to or reading a news report. Some of them will actually want to know your message and support you. Treat them kindly.

When journalists approach you, try to figure out what kind of press they are. There are three types of press:

Creative Commons image via Pixabay

1. Friendly press: Those who already agree with you or share your values, even if they don’t know who you or your organization is specifically. They will help you if they reasonably can.

2. Hostile press: Those who have already set their minds against you and your values or which view your organization negatively for political, financial or other reasons. They will use whatever they can against you, including your silence or dismissal. 

3. Uncommitted press: Those who have not openly taken a side for or against you and which may either be indecisive or trying to appear objective. There are no objective people. We all have sub-conscious assumptions and values. Uncommitted press will usually try to listen to your message, but they owe you nothing and they are often most interested in controversy and shocking details.

How to talk to the different types of press in order to get your message across to the public and to your specific targets through the media:

Friendly press

These journalists may happily publish your message and even specific information like your demands or the date and location of your next public event. It is important to be concise and clear. Keep your details in order and have your main message in written form to give to them. You cannot assume they know when the big action day is, no matter how much you have publicized it.

You don’t need to pander to them, but don’t take them for granted either. If you have time, you can give them interviews and even include some of your personal feelings.

It is better to avoid talking about organizational problems or internal conflicts. Uninformed people are always your audience and if you portray your organization as disorganized, it takes credibility away from your justification for disruptive direct actions. Finally, note that some hostile press might pretend to be friendly press in order to make satirical reports about you.

Hostile press

There are different types of hostile press. They may politically disagree. Their owners or major advertisers may be financially against your goals. They may be frightened and conservative with a lot of false assumptions about you. It is easy to think you should not talk to hostile press at all. However, it is important to remember that if they have come out publicly to talk to you they will probably publish or broadcast something from your action. And ultimately when you speak to them, you are speaking to their audience.\

If you react angrily to a rude and offensive journalist, thousands of people watching the video of your reaction will feel that you are angry at them or disrespect them. So, don’t engage too much with hostile press. They will use just about anything they can against you. Give your two-sentence statement of what you want and then a one sentence message for the public. Repeat it if they ask you for more. Be polite but firm.

Uncommitted press

These journalists may have false assumptions about you, your organization or your cause gained from those who are hostile toward you or simply from information confusion. If they state something incorrectly or show an incorrect assumption, resist the temptation to give a frustrated or irritable response, even if you have heard it many times.

Remember that uncommitted press may know very little about your goals or message. They may jump to false conclusions without meaning to. They will often be looking for what is most shocking and outrageous. You can use that to your advantage at times with creative actions, but it can also hurt you if what they get stuck on is some trash that fell out of your bag.  

Be ready to state what you want clearly in two sentences. Add a one sentence message to the public if you can. Avoid talking about organizational problems or disagreements within your movement. If asked about another faction that is pursuing the same goals as you, it is best to be vaguely supportive and avoid criticizing other groups, beyond stating your clear differences, such as, “We are non-violent. They may have similar goals but because they do not abide by non-violence, they are not part of our movement.”

Uncommitted press thrive on controversy and they will often look for controversy within your movement, which can be very harmful to your outreach and your message to the public. If asked to give personal feelings, you can state your emotions. “I’m sad.” “I’m very worried.” “I’m so angry!” Psychology tells us that if ordinary people hear you state your emotions starting with the word “I” they will be naturally empathetic. It is much more difficult when you have to accuse someone who is doing harm. It is good to start it with “I,” such as “I am angry that….” or “I am sad that our prime minister won’t do anything about this crisis.”

Finally:

Look at the camera, rather than the interviewer when possible. Avoid using words you wouldn’t want a six-year-old you loved hearing. And enunciate, particularly in crowds!

Children of drought: Dry dust and roaring flood

Wet, singed air. A heavy blanket of heat interrupted by eddies of cool. That sizzling sound that comes from the earth. Blessed, blessed rain. After long drought, rain at last!

There is nothing quite like the smell and the sound of rain on a parched landscape. The Summer Solstice brought the rain here--unexpected, unpredicted by the weather services. The storm winds lashed the land and broke our prime plum tree like a match stick. Still it was a gift at that.

We'd had three months of drought and the impact on agriculture and the municipal water is dramatic. Our small town is trucking in drinking water daily. and what is usually a lush verdant landscape in June is parched yellow and brown like the semi-desert where I grew up.

This isn't the semi-desert though. It's soft, green Central Europe.

Creative Commons image by Kate Russell 

Yet climate change has brought the drought, pushing the arid climate of the Balkans north over the past ten years. Both winters and summers are drier and warmer. For several years there have been water shortages but this year is the worst anyone can remember.

And with the drought comes another kind of desperation up from the south. Trails of refugees,, clinging to tiny boats to cross the salt water and then walking in lines so long you don't see the end.

The media doesn't report their stories much. You see a mother with a small child alone, no men. They two are huddled against a fence, sleeping on pavement for three days while they wait for authorities to say whether they will be deported back to a place with no food and certain death in the war. We know little more of their stories. 

And most people don't care to know. It isn't about opening up to a ragged and persecuted few anymore. Now we are seeing the first lapping waves of what will be a roaring flood. Climate refugees.

In Syria, Iraq, Iran, Yemen and Egypt they once fed themselves. It was dry but they had methods of conserving water. Now, there simply is no water to conserve. Nothing will grow without water. And there are millions upon millions of people who cannot under any circumstances be fed in those lands of much greater drought. And we are well aware of the chaos even our little drought has caused.

I sat in a cafe with my husband on the eve of the Solstice. It was our first time out together in months. The kids are on their annual overnight school trip  It was a rare treat and we sat eating grown-up cuisine and little goblets of iced coffee and tiramisu. 

Gods, we needed it.

We had been at each other like irritated cats for weeks. Every criticism bites and there is plenty to criticize. We're exhausted and neither of us gets done what we're supposed to most days.

He talked loud about despair: "The politics in Europe and America are just spiraling into hate and I can't even blame them. Left or right, it doesn't even matter. Someone is always there to take advantage of the frustration and hype fear."

I try to get him to speak more softly in the restaurant, but he doesn't care anymore. "Yeah, people hate immigrants. But these aren't the kind of immigrants we used to get. Those were the small business people who wanted to seek a better life, political dissidents and intellectuals. Now we get everyone, whole countries, because they are starving. Climate change, you know. The deserts are taking over. People fight over land. Wars and hunger push people out and they come here. But we're too small and if we really took them in, we could end up a minority in our own country."

Before you sneer at that final line, ask a Native American if it is possible for migrants to take over and make you a minority in your own country. Climate change is that kind of phenomenon--so massive that it will likely move whole populations within our lifetime. 

I tell him about the children in cages along the southern border in the US. We know more than most about the trauma of separation that will follow those children for a lifetime. Our own children started their lives in orphanages. They were materially comfortable, but one screamed almost non-stop for the first two years he was home, a high-pitched terrified scream that both drove you away and broke your heart at the same time. The other kid still totters around speaking in baby gurgles most days nine years later, even though she tests average for IQ. 

This is not an "Oh well, they had to go to mandatory summer camp," kind of thing, Separation from family in childhood, being housed in impersonal environments and the terror of not knowing when or if familiar people will return cause lifelong trauma.

Creative commons image by Freedom House of Flickr

My husband shook his head. "What are we supposed to do?" He gestured helplessly toward the main road of town. Cars were backed up miles, not even crawling. We got to the cafe on bikes. 

It's a single lane road. In places two large modern cars cannot meet and pass each other safely unless one stops. Our once rural area is over-crowded and parched. The local school is bursting at the seams. That's what he means.

In America, there is lots of open space and the refugees are more like a trickle than a flood. Here in Central Europe--without large oceans to both sides--the decisions about compassion are getting harder. 

"What we do is be the kind of people we want to be. I don't know if we'll survive, but I won't send innocent people back to die at the hands of terrorists and I won't support putting children in cages." That's my answer. Not a great one. Principled but light on solutions.

My husband has always espoused humanist values and I realized that this past year he has not wanted to talk politics and social issues the way he used to. He hasn't just been prickly at me. He's frustrated, even hopeless. He turned his face away, but he still had lots of words--loud and angry words and none of them constructive. 

When he quieted, I gave him what little scrap of hope I still have. "When I was a kid in the 1980s, the intellectuals and activists--the people like we are today--were convinced there would be a nuclear war. A lot of people really believed my generation wouldn't grow up."

He nodded and let me speak for once. He had been on the other side of that possible war in the old East Bloc and doing  mandatory military service for a totalitarian Communist regime for part of that decade. 

"But it didn't happen. Then there were parts of the ocean that were technically dead. Environmentalists believed they would take centuries to recover. But they recovered faster than expected. Now if you look at climate change and migration, the bare facts are grim. It looks like we're headed for massive disaster in a few short years. And it is a very serious situation. We have to do what we can. But the earth regenerates better than the bare facts indicate. It's about resilience. I don't know what will happen, but it is likely to be something no one is predicting right now."

For once he didn't argue or criticize. I can't say I gave him hope exactly, but for a few days afterward things have been more peaceful at home. The rain helped. We walk around each other on egg shells, trying to be polite and considerate in the hectic schedule and amid the needs of the troubled children we've made our family with.

Each day we choose our own qualities, our soul, our values.

If we choose to put children in cages today or put up razor wire to keep out starving refugees, we become that. If we choose to struggle for what we can, to fight climate change with our garden beds and bicycles and hand-lettered signs, to fight drought with rain barrels, drip lines and solar panels, to fight hunger with lentil soup and tortillas and to fight despair with stories and songs, then that is what we become. 

Are we choosing to live our values and thus make our own survival harder? I don't know for sure. I only know that survival without meaning is the road to depression.

The good things about hard labor

The sun's going down through the budding trees on the ridge. It's nearly time for a well-deserved break. Come join me for a cup of tea--mint, wild oregano, maybe a pinch of echinacea smelling of last year's honey bees.

The last rays dazzle gold through the greenhouse walls. I pat the final arugula starts under the rich soil. Then I lug a full watering can from the rain barrel to sprinkle the seedlings, greens and herbs. The last frost may not have come yet and it is still just a tad early for the drip lines.

Public domain image

My steps are slow. My arms and legs feel like heavy weights. But the animals are fed and the rest of the starts watered. The only thing left is to read a story to the kids.. This evening we read a story about a rain forest frog and several poems on cats as the light fades in the sky.

My hands are dry from the soil. Lavender, pine and sage salve with olive oil is good for that. I sit rubbing it on in the dim kitchen. The only light comes from my husband's video screen, a Beltane candle in the shape of a leaf and the dying light of the sky.

I have to handle my mug carefully now--with hands slick from a thick layer of salve. A sip of tea, then another. Relaxation flows down my back.

Spring days are long, filled with digging in the earth, hauling water, separating fighting kids and cooking meals. My neighbors largely don't live this way. They are exhausted too, but more likely from screens, meetings, offices and shopping. Not a day passes when I don't hear someone question my different way or call it some form of "extreme."

Extreme? To cook one's own meals? To grow a garden for food and medicine? To insist on food made from raw materials? To expect that children's play should mostly be active? Even to insist that children have tasks to help with at home? 

In some places people love the idea of "the simple life," but rarely do more than make token passes at it. It isn't simple. Not that I've seen. But neither is it extreme. 

It is a conscious way of living, a choice to make--not once but in every moment of every day. You have to know why you're doing it each moment. Otherwise, how can you keep making that choice?

Here are some few of the advantages of the conscious life:

• Self-respect
• Moments of beauty
• Less chemicals
• The ability to take the problems of the world less personally
• More healthy days
• Satisfaction of the primal instinct for food security
• Muscles that ache in a good way
• Happy taste buds
• Confidence and competence 
• A sense of the ground beneath your feet as living being
• Peace within

There is nothing quite so good as that moment of peace at the end of a day that was as much physical as intellectual, where a job with modern technology is balanced by the sheer physicality of growing one's own food and medicine and where physical labor is balanced with space for creativity. It is too easy to take the world's brokenness personally, unless  you have your own grounding.

Put down your burdens and breathe in the spring

The first day when the vibrant green of new grass shows through, the first moment when the sun really warms your back again--it may be unseasonably early but spring is still good.

In some ways, this spring feels better than any I can remember. It's partly because I have two functional greenhouses--an investment of two years of physical labor and financial scrimping. Now they are already full of leafy young greens, radishes, carrot tops just poking through and young cucumber vines braving the still chilly mornings. I also have chickens laying smooth eggs that fit perfectly into the palm of your hand and impart a sense of comfort and security. 

Creative Commons image by Song River - CowGirlZen 

That makes this spring particularly lively and the changing weather gives me reason for a bit of joy. But more than that I am thankful for the contrast from the rest of life. My work necessitates sitting at a computer for hours on. A few more hours are spent in on-line, telephone and graphic design activism to help civil rights and democracy-oriented organizations back home in the US in this difficult time. . 

I'm heartened to see the surge of interest and activism in the United States over the past few months after what felt like decades of apathy and disinterest on issues such as climate change, the undermining of our democracy, structural racism and rule by corporations. But the activist work still often feels insurmountable and i am like a kid getting out of school when I get up for a break and go to work outdoors. 

Old wisdom has it that you often love the time of year in which you were born and I suppose that might explain part of it. But there is no period when the air is cleaner or better than it is in early spring. The coal smoke of fall and winter has blown away on brisk winds and washed away with the gentle, misty rains. Summer dust and heat has not yet come. Now and for the next month and a half, it is delight to take big lung-fulls of the air, even in town. 

Image by Arie Farnam

I know there are people who suffer from pollen allergies even this early in the year. That seems like a particular injustice. And I do mean injustice. Rates of allergies and rates of chemical pollution and use of pesticides are closely correlated. I count my blessings having grown up far from industry and large-scale agriculture. Thus I find myself allergic to almost nothing, except hypocrisy and money (including m own oddly enough).

My hands are a bit cracked and dry from all the digging in garden soil, but I have herbal salves for that. I hung wind chimes on the back deck, so the song of the wind and the soft clucking of the ducks follows me as I water and coax the young plants.  

Meanwhile, on-line there seems to be a campaign to divide Democrats from supporters of third parties or independent options. Many on both sides will defend their perspective at all cost, but the hand of corporations such as social media and internet companies in gleefully promoting the acrimony is also clearly evident.

Even I have been cut out of two of the largest on-line activist organizations, though I refrained from negative comments, never used crude language and only rarely posted articles at all. The official reason given in one group was the scandalous discovery (found by browsing my page and history, rather than through my comments) that I had volunteered to help a local Green Party chapter. I never knew that was against the group rules as it was supposed to be a progressive activism group, and the other large progressive group banned me though I had not made any recent comments, most likely due to shared administrators with the no-Greens-allowed group.

Image by Arie Farnam

It is actually not that hard to shrug off my momentary resentment at this exclusion from the largest on-line activism groups. It is less easy to banish the fear that wells up inside me. We have this a slim chance to resist tyranny and we seem to be letting it slip away for the most banal of reasons--infighting between those who should be allies. And worse yet, while some of this infighting appears to be organic, some is spurred on by precisely those interests that stand to lose if democracy wins the latest arm wrestle with fascism. 

My heart is heavy after an evening spent on my publishing work and a discussion with the Google content removal department, which despite the filing of official complaints refuses to remove links to pirated copies of my books. Google's official policy continues to state that they will remove such links and no reason was given in their official refusal letter, except that they believe since i published the work, I agreed to its "public" use, despite copyright laws. 

It appears that the corporate behemoths will always flatten you in the end, even when you think you've found a crack in their glass ceilings. My professional work is fragile and completely at the mercy of companies like Google. And if all life was contained in their computerized world, it would truly feel hopeless.

The morning sunshine blazes through my windows, greeted by a wild chorus of birdsong from the tangle of brush in the empty lot next door.. I don't know what the future holds. But for now I skip outside, giddy the way I was hopping off the school bus long ago, and sink my bare hands into the earth. It is a time to put down your burdens, breathe out your sorrows and take time to be one with spring.

Corporate power and free speech

A video interview with author Arie Farnam

This is a repost of the first in a series of video interviews on hope and integrity in a perilous world. This interview focuses on the influence of corporations in society and how individuals respond with integrity. 

While the vast power of corporations often feels indomitable and the manipulation of our culture and media can be demoralizing, understanding of and resistance to tyranny is spreading.

As the progress of the past fifty years in civil, economic and environmental rights is under threat, we come to see that we have come a great distance and have much to believe in and lives worth defending. 

YouTube Link

This interview also touches on how the struggle for social justice inspired my writing in 2014. The dystopian series that came out of that time is eerily predictive of our waking reality in 2017. That's why I'm reposting the video. As we struggle with immediate danger, we must also remember how we came to this situation in order to prevent its repetition in the future.

I write my stories because I cannot help myself. Writers must write. But I also write them to reach out and wake up the world from the malaise of apathy and despair. Mine are stories of hard-won and authentic hope and these video interviews tell how and why.