OK; good news!  Democrats took Georgia; friends of the Proud Boys may have breached the Whitehouse, but nobody got killed – yet.  Civil War quashed before it took off, one hopes. Back to making sense amidst chaos.  

This New Year’s week, I can see a bit more clearly.  Plenty of time for reflection as we wait out COVID vaccine, discovering our “tier” and how best to insure we actually get innoculated.  I knew, then read, that my doc would notify me when vaccine is available for the 1.b tier, which I’m in.  So be a good girl, don’t visit much at all with anyone living outside your home (tricky, since we live with farmmates and gardeners, but we have quarantined and always wear masks around newbies.)  BEHAVE UNTIL THE VACCINE COMES,  prob. Feb. or Mar. I tell myself.

Self care is urgent now, meditation is indicated, and I eagerly reread November Lion’s Roar magazine, the four principles toward deeper mindfulness: breathe, posture, clarity of mind and charnel meditation where you come to grips with your body’s dissolution as it returns to water, fire, air and earth. Seems death will be familiar when you get there!  

In 2020, COVID toped everything to become our most urgent concern, though Black Lives still Matter and inequality is naked before us.  We see a chance to make our health care system work better for all, ramping up to WWII levels of engagement to get vaccines out to all or will we just be disgusted at how far unfairly we treat POC and how far from efficient is vaccine delivery. 

So much to feel, my chest is often overstuffed with emotion, exhaustion, hope and fear, erased on long walks, with music and escapist movies, then reignited.  I read of people sick and dying (reminding myself this happens more as you age).  There is gradually growing possiblity of nuclear war (thank you, Jerry Brown, now head of Bulletin of Concerned Scientists) and climate collapse (thank you, Jerry Brown, for rounding up Chinese and other international climate activists and founding California-China Climate Institute).  We must respond: these calamities are just about on top of us.  Just about.

If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.  That I believe and abhor the idea of being the “good German” who allowed Hitler room enough to conquer a nation. With any luck and a huge amount of work, our neonazi POTUS will soon leave the building along with a long list of sycophants.

So besides COVID and because of it, we’re in the midst of alienation like never seen since the  Civil War with a close to fascist president who doesn’t agree to leave office.  

COVID and an economic system which funnels money to the very rich, have created huge finacial strife. There will be recovery; Petaluma downtown shops will have new owners; some will make it through.  Will the city of little hills prosper again? Not a sure thing, but having the River dredged could bring back tourism, people walking about still smile and children laugh.

All the cities of Sonoma County save Rohnert Park have declared climate emergency, but if we don’t do much after the declaration, do we lose the planet? Get ready to live on Mars? The new George Clooney, film, The Midnight Sky, has the earth toasted beyond salvaging, but there’s this clean air and beautiful sky on a planet somewhere near Jupiter.  Is that a real place and do you want to go there? Human bones don’t like space travel! Many dystopian films now portray life on Mars or off earth.  

Spooky indeed!  Thought I’d age in place, stay on our Oasis Farm and just visit the birds, bees and lizards till my end of days.  Hope that is true and am learning a whole lot more about being a permaculture pioneer, rebuilding the soil while building community.

Meanwhile, it’s a great time to read Pema Chodron, especially Things Fall Apart, a book that has given consolation many a time and was gifted to others. Time to reread.

In this dark, confusing time and we need even more than Pema to lift us up. Helps that Democrats won in Georgia today, an historic election determining the fate of the U.S. Senate and in large part the fate of us all.  Climate justice must be tackled now. NOW.

Hey! Just reopened my Yes! Magazine, Summer 2020, finding an article by Tim DeChristopher, activist jailed 21 mo. for posing as a Bidder 70 at Canyonlands, Utah, when oil companies were bidding.  He says now is the time to build alliances  “…common sense demands that the climate movement be as adaptable, humble and intersectional as it is rebellious.”  Glad to read him make the point loud and clear.  So we’re still outside agitators determined to be effective influencers (as during the Vietnam War).  Used to have this role at U.C. Berkeley in the ’60s; it’s imperative now.