The Moon is Earth’s celestial anchor in a vast and mysterious cosmos. Honoring lunar phases reminds us to feel our connection to nature’s rhythms & cycles. Welcome to this moonly missive… Happy Last Quarter Moon! 🌗 Three quarters through the monthly lunar cycle, this phase supports disseminating & releasing.
When I was in B.C., my wise friend Jeff consulted the I Ching on my health. “Humility” came up in the reading. Jeff described humility as the ability to flow with nature, to be with reality in balance and harmony. The word originates from humus or “of the earth.” Similar to mundane (from the Latin mundanus or “belonging to the world”), humble has come to mean lowly and unimportant. Although, modernity clearly codifies the denigration of nature, we know, Earth matters… (from mater or “mother”). Humble. Mundane Matter.
As my mind relaxes with news that, for now, I have no impending radiation, I feel my body follow. The tension I’d been carrying in my neck, jaw, shoulders, chest, and belly is releasing. The (understandable) contraction I’d been activating is opening. I’m looking forward to August in the city, visits with friends, outdoor events (tonight: butoh), writing/making, a few trips to Riis Beach, and flowing with whatever comes next. Thank you for being here.
This month, 10% of paid subscriptions will go to Free From for their work as a survivor-led organization on a mission to build a world free from gender-based violence. Thank you to paid subscribers for your contributions to these monthly donations to various causes.
[Tiokasin Ghosthorse quote from this.]
Buy me a matcha: If you appreciate my work but have too many monthly subscriptions or don’t want any more emails or don’t like the smarminess of this platform, here’s where you can make a one-time gift or ongoing offering without subscribing!
My dear friend, brilliant collaborator, and across the street neighbor, Shawna, is co-leading Already Free, Already Home, a 3-day somatics, song, and nature retreat for women and non-binary social and environmental changemakers (that’s anyone serving people and the planet!). This will be a BIPOC centered space and white political allies are welcome. September 11—13 in Northampton, MA. It’s going to be incredible! More info and registration.
Speaking of white allies… I recently learned about Anne Braden [Thank you Shea!], a rank-breaking, Southern white woman “who was known as one of the fiercest, most public anti-racist white organizers in the Civil Rights Movement and a mentor to other anti-racist organizers.”
“In a sense, the battle is and always has been a battle for the hearts and minds of white people in this country. The fight against racism is not something we’re called on to help people of color with. We need to be involved as if our lives depend on it, because, in truth, they do.” — Anne Braden
I’m looking forward to listening to First America, a podcast series about how the founders’ treatment of Indigenous nations—and their resistance—shaped US democracy. So much I have yet to learn…
I first heard of the movement to grant rights to nature over ten years ago and celebrate each move towards recognizing the personhood of rivers and other ecosystems. I was delighted to read about this tiny Quebec town which recently recognized its trees as living beings with rights.
One town can make a difference. One woman (and some otters) too.
“Seeing the havoc that was suffocating the bay and hoping to preserve some safe spawning grounds for marine invertebrates, Platt grew determined to set aside 11 acres of seafloor that no one could touch… Little did Platt know, but this move would prove critical for a species she and others thought was extinct: the southern sea otter. Platt passed away in 1935, long before she could experience the magnitude of what she’d created. Her actions brought about an ecological cascade that persists to this day… Turns out, sea otters are a keystone species. Without them, their ecosystem collapses. With them, marine ecosystems boom… Sixty years after those first otters ventured back, Monterey Bay is filled to the brim with kelp forests and sea otters. Now, a huge marine sanctuary encompasses the bay and stretches 276 miles up and down the central California coast. It’s home to hundreds of species, including humpback, sperm, grey and blue whales, dolphins, harbor and elephant seals, seabass, and anchovies. Seabirds include albatross, storm-petrels, brown pelicans, loons, cormorants, scoters, grebes, and gulls.”
I just started reading Michael Pollan’s new book on consciousness, A World Appears, which begins with a look into the sentience (and potential consciousness) of plants. I do not at all share his skepticism, but, once again, I’m enjoying how his science writing mixes historical investigation and personal exploration, always filled with wit and insight.
Many aspects of Hua Hsu’s Pultizer Prize winning memoir Stay True, a poignant ode to his college best friend, have stayed (hehe) with me years later. I am loving his new newsletter, magazines, which offers deep dives into… magazines. The most recent one about Monk inspires me to keep making fun things with friends. Sadly, he removed his bio line which used to read: got a lot of issues. lol
Speaking of deep dives, Mia Quagliarello’s latest, A Song Is a Syllabus, offers a tender study of one song’s heart wrenching origin. I love her idea of research as a leisure activity. Make nerdiness lazier! Make lazy nerdier!
I’ve been longing for a trip to Africa. I made regular month(s)-long visits from the age of fifteen, lived in Guinea for a year in my early thirties, but have not been on the continent since 2017 when I cleared out my mother’s house in Addis Ababa (our family home before we left in 1973). I hope to go somewhere new and am considering Ghana, even though its parliament recently passed a controversial anti- LGBTQI+ bill. Sadly, Ghana’s not unique. More than 30 African countries (including Ethiopia and Eritrea) currently criminalize consensual same-sex relations. However, the hatred is not home grown. US-based Christian conservative groups spent more than $50 million on campaigns against LGBTQI+ rights and women’s reproductive rights in Africa between 2007 and 2018. Some good news: “South Africa remains one of the world’s most progressive jurisdictions on LGBTQ+ rights, while other countries such as Botswana, Gabon, Mauritius and Namibia have repealed colonial-era laws criminalising same-sex relations.”
Recent films I’ve watched and enjoyed: I Love Boosters (Boots Riley—one of our foremost radical cultural commentators… get down, get down, get down), The Invite (all four of them, ridiculously hilarious), Maddie’s Secret (John Waters + afterschool specials - Divine = John Early), Obsession (not my usual fare at ALL, but impressive).
Recent novels I’ve read and enjoyed: Xochitl Gonzalez’s Last Night In Brooklyn (a beautiful feminine Bildungsroman masquerading as romcom, set in early 2000s Fort Greene), James McBride’s The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store (the complex and intertwined history of Black/Jewish relations gorgeously told through the drama of a small Pennsylvania industrial town in the 1930s). Next up: the first book in Ursula Leguin’s Earthsea Cyle!
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.