Category: sustainability

Reflections on My Travels 2023- The Alps

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I’ve loved mountains since I was a little girl living among the tiny waves of the glaciated region of Wisconsin. Hills tell us so much. They are the home of our ancestors, those giant stones that tell the stories of our past and the trees … Continue reading Reflections on My Travels 2023- The Alps

Changing One Thing

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So, I’ve been trying to get back to my blog after several months away, but it seems I’m facing a mild case of writer’s block. Nothing is coming to mind. It’s just empty. There are no topics to write about there. What to do? Well, since it seems the key component to becoming a successful writer is writing, I just used the wonders of the internet and sought out a writing prompt. The one that drew me today was this. “If you could change one thing in the world, what would you change and why?”

This is actually something I’ve had the chance to ponder quite a bit over the past thirty years or so as someone who’s worked in social and environmental justice. I’ve had the good fortune to work with a lot of good people along the way. I’m thankful to say that I’ve found a few good mentors too or maybe they’ve found me or in any case we’ve found each other. There’s something those mentors hold in common. They know interconnectedness. They understand what happens to one impacts us all.

Historically, many, maybe once all, cultures understood that we are connected both to our fellow humans and to everyone and everything else, animate and inanimate, but just in really very recent years (only a few generations) we’ve forgotten and we’re getting sick. We are part of the body of the world. We can’t just care solely for the hand or the foot without the other parts of the body suffering. It makes no sense to hate a part of the body for its actions or its disease. Instead, when we recognize that we are all a connected body we heal each other.

That’s what I would seek, just for us to recognize our interconnectedness, with each other a people and with world that we inhabit and to begin to live that way again.

Now, I am wondering– What would you change?

The Power of Paper and Pen

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The key piece of becoming an author is writing, or so I am told. So, here I am writing. There are ideas that seem to be stuck somewhere deep in the muck of my brain and maybe even deeper in the mush of my heart and soul, but they are there- stuck. Meanwhile, I am digging through the layers and laying out what comes out in hopes that some of it finds value in the light of the page.

It’s a good tool to understand and care for myself. I stepped away from my blog for a few months this year as I started a new job. The role that I took on in my workplace was a tough one, a young non-profit organization in a period of rapid growth, I was the first staff person. The job was really one for at least two people, but I took it on in my spirit of adventure with a bit of hero thrown in. I set down my blog and my drawing pencils and pretty quickly found my number of seizures increasing, my anxiety rising, and my self-esteem dropping in a really difficult position with an organization that has a good dream, but doesn’t have a structure to support that dream yet.

Thankfully, over the years I’ve learned enough about myself to also recognize when I needed to take the risk to step away. I made the big decision to leave that job that had me struggling away for 50-60 hours a week trying to build an organization without team support. I’m transitioning out now and in the process of finding my next role. That process of finding the next role, not knowing what is coming up is in some way stressful, but it feels so much better. I’ve picked up my blog again. I’ve picked up my pencils. Last night I spent several hours working on a drawing from a dream the night before. I found myself fully focused, thinking about nothing, but shading and how the design was forming without being pushed by me. It’s not a question of me creating the picture, but of me asking the picture where the shading belongs, where I ought to put the pencil to fill in what needs to be there. It is simply working with the paper rather than trying to tell the paper what to do.

These things are a beautiful meditative practice for me, whether writing or drawing or even painting. They are important to my well-being to allow these things to just process through me. I never cease to be amazed at what comes out. I hope that you can find your meditation today, allow your art to process through and learn a bit more of who you are. Wishing you a joyful day.

Thoughts on How to Stop the Violence

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Yesterday, 19 children and 2 adults lost their lives at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas. That means we’re at nearly 250 school shootings since back when Columbine first shocked and terrified us all. Thousands of children and their caregivers and teachers have died. Others have been left behind to struggle with the loss.

Each time another shooting happens the response is much the same. We cry. We mourn. We say this must never happen again. Yet, it happens again. Why?

It happens because there are no easy answers. It happens because the changes needed are needed at many levels; personal, community, political, maybe even spiritual. It happens because the changes require more than the wonderful organizers who are already out there working day and night trying to save the world. The changes require all of us taking action. There are many ways to take action each day. Some listed here may seem obvious and direct. Others may leave you questioning a little. That’s okay. My thoughts here are based on the idea that everything is connected.

  • Tell someone that you love them. If you’ve already told them, tell them again. We all need to hear these words over and over again to hold our souls together and no one wants to say goodbye with these words unsaid.
  • Breathe deeply before you act and then act with the seventh generation in your mind and your heart. Some may ask what this means. The idea of the seventh generation is simple. Imagine a long tunnel. If you look down that tunnel, way down at the other end you’ll see a baby. That baby is the seventh generation, roughly 150 years from now. If you do right by that child, you’ll be doing right for today. Always treat that baby with love and respect.
  • You don’t have to love your enemy, but do recognize that someone loves them and that someone is a valuable person who deserves not to be hurt. Every shooter, every evil politician, every horrible whatever out there has or had someone, their parent, their child, their grandma or grandpa, or maybe a teacher or somebody who cared about them or still cares about them. You don’t have to love the horrible, just know that somebody could see something in them that was good, that was worthy of love and act with that in mind.
  • Recognize the connections. Our mental health is no accident. Good mental health depends on a healthy environment, healthy diet, financial security, and strong social support networks. We each need many things to maintain our stability. Each day we must strive to move toward fulfilling each of these needs for everyone if we are to create a healthy world.
  • Be involved. Find your piece of the action whether it’s working directly on gun safety and stopping school shootings or a hundred different issues. Follow your heart and connect with your community to make the world just a little bit better. It is by the creating of good, healthy communities of many types that we heal and we stop this senseless violence and turn instead to love.

Those are just a few thoughts for the moment. I am sure there are many more. I would love to hear yours. Take good care and wishing you all peace and healing

What is an Activist

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When I began Sustainable Life in Action back in 2013 the Grassroots Leadership College had only been closed for a year and I was trying to find enough work to keep my rent paid and figuring out how to keep doing community organizing. My dreams were of starting a new Grassroots Leadership College maybe statewide or maybe in northern Wisconsin along the shores of Lake Superior. It wasn’t too much later that I left Madison. Life didn’t take me to northern Wisconsin, but to Minnesota.

In those days, for me, being an activist still meant organizing people, coordinating trainings, taking part in protests, speaking at rallies, being a force, and fighting out loud in a non-violent yet intense way. While my work was for a better world most of my actions still landed in the realm of working against the evils. I loved my work. I loved getting to know people, making connections, supporting others in achieving their dreams, creating positive social change. We did create change. Every time we people connected and came to know each other, to see each other as valuable human beings we were creating change, not to mention all the battles won.

Despite my love for my life work I was burning out. That’s why I started Sustainable Life in Action. It was a tool to encourage my own self care as well as to support others in caring for themselves. It has been a helpful tool for me. I hope it has been for others as well.

My journey as an activist has reached a new stage. It is an interesting one for me. After seven years in Minnesota and one in Poynette, Wisconsin, I have returned to Madison where Sustainable Life in Action began. When I left this place I was deeply involved in the activist scene. My name was known for work I’d done, nine years running the Grassroots Leadership College, coordinating the non-violence trainings for the capitol take-over during the Walker administration, Green Party stuff, Labor Radio and board leadership at WORT 89.9fm, and more. Now, I am coming back in quietly to a place where there are many new leaders and much of the old guard seems to have disappeared or maybe just is quiet in these times of COVID. It is coming back to a place where I’ve never been before.

It’s good to stand and watch this new place as I too am in a new place internally. After looking for jobs in the nonprofit realm and at the university and colleges to no avail, feeling my stomach churn a bit as I considered roles in organizing again, I decided to go back to another of my earlier careers. I accepted a position as an infant/toddler teacher in a large local child care. I’ve been intrigued by the reaction of old friends who seem to believe that going into teaching early childhood is leaving the world of activism. These people tell me how I’ve “done my time” and that it’s okay for me to do something else.

How can there be anything that is more about social justice than caring for our children? Being an activist isn’t all about holding up signs and shouting slogans. Being an activist is about how we live our lives. At this phase of my being, much of my time will be dedicated to holding the little ones and showing them love. I’ve also chosen to commit my time to being creative, telling my stories, and playing with art. All these things are important. I haven’t done my time, none of us has. We all have a duty to care for this place and for each other each day for the remainder of our time. How we do it is up to us.

Take good care of yourselves. That’s where it all begins.