Green Tribe of Belonging

 I've not written a blog post for several weeks. At first it was because I was so gosh-darn busy. But then my grandson's health emergency called me to drive down to Asheville to be of support. I have not done a road trip for years. Both my daughters emphatically told me it was not safe for someone as old as I am to go on a long car trip by myself. And I more or less agreed. It is true that as you age, many things get less sharp: hearing, reactions, thinking. But this seemed really important so I suddenly decided to drive south and started the next morning. By the time I got to Asheville, three days later (!), I was inclined to agree that my daughters had been right. But I made it! So that's where I am, hoping to be a helpful, supportive presence to my daughter's family as they try to find answers and healing. I don't have much to write about, nothing particularly enlightening. But the week before I left Iowa, I wrote four "cinquaines" for my poetry group, ...

 A room-full of us watched an earth-shaking movie on Saturday. It's called "Regenerating Life". We didn't really know what to expect, but it had been highly recommended so when we entered the room, we probably all thought it would be at least somewhat educational. What we didn't realize is that it would totally shake us up, in a good way. It is almost 3 hours long, and that's a long time to sit. But most of us stayed through the whole thing, and as soon as it was finished, people started asking if they could see it again. There was so much information that we wanted to hold onto. So I am now figuring out when we can re-show it. You have to rent this one from Prime, but it's worth the cost!! When I left the group on Saturday, I was feeling glad that I'd picked a good movie. And I was full of the insights and discoveries the movie shared: scientific breakthroughs that were new to all of us, perspective on the recent history of our species in the world, w...

 I'm posting this announcement to folks who subscribe to my blog and are in the local area. Our Earthcare Working Group is having our monthly meeting this Saturday at 2:00 at Prairie Hill. We've got a film to show that I heard about when I was attending the fall gathering of Quaker Earthcare Witness in New York (though I was just on my laptop, attending on zoom). It looks like a great film, and anyone interested is welcome to come and join us. We'll be meeting in the common house living room, and there will be snacks after the movie before we get a chance to talk about our reactions. Here's a description: The documentary,   Regenerating Life,  scientifically and spiritually examines humanity’s relationship to our planet, and premises that CO2 increase and fossil fuel overconsumption is merely symptomatic of the greater problem of our disconnection and systemic disharmony with the sacred mother earth. Screening of this film is wholeheartedly recommended by the Earthcare ...

  Was This a Good Idea? As I survey the mess that my two kitties have made, I wonder for the umteenth time: Was this a good idea? At the animal shelter, these 3-month-old sisters, adorable, small and fluffy, called to me: take us home! Why not? My 19-year-old Shadow had left her life years ago. Maybe it’s time to get some pets. This could be a real joy. So I brought them home, rearranged my furniture loaded up with food, litter, scratching boards and turned my place into a cat haven. This should be fun and easy! But, well, not always! Nothing is safe. These little creatures get into everything! Their curiosity takes them to the smallest corner. I open my bedroom door in the morning (they are still too active to be sleepmates), and survey the damage: lamp toppled onto the floor, water bowl turned over, curtains pulled off their rods,  strong smell coming from the litter boxes, and two kitties meowing for breakfast. I go about repairing the damage, wondering again whether this w...

 I turned 80 in June. By some amazing coincidence, all four of us who live in a string of townhouses in our Prairie Hill cohousing community also turned 80 this year! Of the 50+ residents here, we are the only ones who were born in 1945. So we invited our whole community to celebrate our birthday year at a beautiful pond and cabin out in the country. It felt good, getting to that milestone together. However, I've discovered that it is not always fun being an "old woman". I never thought of myself as elderly until this last birthday. But culturally, I've stepped into a whole new category. My first negative old woman experience was with a young doctor. I had some confusing symptoms and called the 'nurse on-call' who instructed me to go to the emergency room immediately. She must have thought I was having a stroke. She even insisted that I go by ambulance, so I took my first ambulance ride, a bit of an adventure in itself. While in the ambulance, they did all kin...

Our Earthcare Working Group started up again several months ago, after taking a 10 year hiatus. We now meet every month at Prairie Hill Cohousing, and each session is focused on a theme related to caring for our earth. We watched the movie Common Ground a couple months ago, and this month we're excited that we can go to a farm where many of the innovative things we saw in the movie are taking place. Here is the announcement I just sent out to our earthcare mailing list, and I thought there are people who read this blog but are not on that list and are local enough to attend this event if they'd like. I know we are all super busy, but this should be a wonderful and educational visit to an inspiring farm. This announcement mentions including an attachment to my cousin's chapter in Connie Mutel's book Tending Iowa's Land . But I can't seem to figure out how to attach it to this blog post. If you're interested in this, send me an email and I'll forward it to...

 Until recently in human history, plants were our main source of medicine. And the early pharmacists of this age studied the scientific make-up of healing plants to make our modern drugs. I imagine if we transported a healer from ancient times to the 21st century for a bit of a peek, they'd be astonished at the tiny round pills that people take now to improve their health. We'd need to explain to them that there is a reason for this. In contrast to ancient communities and landscapes, modern humans do not have healing herbs growing outside their homes or any knowledge of what is good to use for different conditions. To make the healing effects of plants available to everyone, we've had to make artificially-made drugs that copy the plant healers. Of course these pills can't give all the helpful effects of the original plant. But they can target specific results and also make them much more concentrated. We've become so used to using pills for all medical treatment tha...