Green Gardening With Ann Lovejoy

Put a little beauty where it comes as a sweet surprise

Planting For The Planet

In so many ways, picking out one day a year to celebrate the Planet seems as absurd as Mother’s Day (except that so far anyway nobody is creating Earth Day Cards and Earth Day themed candy. Or if they are, please don’t tell me!). On the other hand, since Mother Earth deserves to be celebrated and honored every day, maybe we can simply take an extra moment to consider the incredible generosity of our Earth Mother today. Let’s start with life giving Water, fresh and salty both. For so many people on this planet, the act of turning on a tap and getting pure, clean water is a mighty miracle, let alone having it come out hot or cold at the turn of that tap. Having lived from time to time in places where that was not the case and every drop had to be hand carried from a water source that may or may not have been especially unsullied (open range cows, I’m looking at you!), I’m truly grateful every time I wash my hands or shower or water my plants. Yet. Every major waterway has been polluted with a cocktail of toxins for decades in Washington State and most other States-and countries-as well. Water of Life, treated like a disposable part of an endless supply. Uh oh.

And how about air? Breathable, clean Air, courtesy of trees and kelp and other marvelous plants. So far this year, our local air quality is very good, kept fresh by the sea breezes, and rarely smokey from wild fires in spring. Ok, it’s carrying a boatload of pollen from climate-stressed plants, but over all? Pretty not bad. For millions if not billions of people, fresh air was something they may only have experienced briefly during the Covid-19 lockdown period, when skies cleared up dramatically even in the most polluted places on earth. I can walk out my door and breathe deeply and feel my grateful lungs going right to work. What percentage of the human population can say that today? And what will be be breathing tomorrow if the current regime has its weirdly deadly way?

But Wait, There’s More!

If we treat water and air like dirt, how to we handle actual soil? All over the world, the plants that give this world a breathable atmosphere rely on soils of many kinds and consistencies. Though humans mostly value soils fertile enough to nourish plants we eat or enjoy admiring, the hardworking plants of the world can survive and even thrive in an amazing array of habitats. Until, of course, we destroy those habitats for any number of short sighted reasons. I cringe when I read books from the last century proudly claiming to be putting land to its highest and best use when forests are clearcut to make toilet paper, wetlands drained because they’re seen as “wasteful”, and estuaries destroyed for expensive waterfront houses.

Planting Peas And Growing Peace

Y’know, I wanted to keep this little conversation lighthearted but the Planet won’t let me. I intended to write about my morning in my little garden, tidying up the last of the dead. That’s a task I enjoy putting off, knowing that not only are countless birds enjoying the seeds left on perennials and expiring annuals but they are also carrying off twigs and grassy bits to help build their hopeful nests. Best of all, if you wait long enough, most of the nutritive goodness in the fading stalks and stems has been delivered right back to the storage roots or released into the soil. There’s so little to remove now, and most of it breaks off readily at the touch or tug of my hand. I often start weeding with a belligerent attitude; Ha! Take that! After a while, my spirit is soothed by the scent of crushed weeds and warming soil and I find myself relaxing into a mindlessness that approaches meditation.

I’ve been planting peas in staggered batches, snow peas and snap peas and sweet peas too (though well apart and well marked, since these last are toxic enough not to be edible). My patented Lazy Girl fall tidy method left stalks of bolting lettuce and kale to go to seed, and now I’m transplanting the crowded little self-sown seedlings, red and green and blue-grey, giving each a bit more breathing room. I can’t help but notice that the Swiss chard youngsters are as beautiful as little jewels, their plump stems glowing pink and rose, orange and yellow, the leaves deep, rich green and lightly crinkled. After learning that some soil bacteria encourage human feelings of well being and discourages depression, I stopped wearing gloves except when working around prickly plants like thistles and roses. Now I enjoy getting my hands “dirty” (or should we say “soily”?). Not soiled, but soothed with the gentle influence of healthy garden soil, alive with tiny critters seen and others too small for my human perception. Good soil feels alive, it has a presence entirely absent from a dried up clump of manufactured potting soil (try handling both and I bet you’ll see what I mean). As I plant and transplant, weed and remove the dead, I feel gentled and even joyful with gratitude. Though my acres have shrunk to a few square yards of garden, so has my energy. As the kids say, not as many spoons in my drawer these days, so this tiny garden is just right for my life today, and I’m grateful for it.

What To Do On Earth Day

So, Earth Day, what shall we do? Plant something for today and something for tomorrow. Plant at home and somewhere public, perhaps a park, a school, a library or a local business that would appreciate a skillful and willing hand. Or just plant a random bit of beauty where beauty is sadly lacking. Pick up trash, clean a beach, recycle everything we can. Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without. Onward, right?

Feels like we’ve been marching our whole lives

On The Road Again

Looks like we are on the road again, gathering, standing, singing, marching, showing the world our outrage and serious concern. Again. How many times has it been for you? I lost count of the number of protests I’ve participated in years ago, but I’ll always show up as long as I am able, because it matters. My grandkids will too, I’m guessing; they helped make my sign more exciting, and we had a little civics lesson as they doodled. Unless they are taught otherwise, kids seem to have a natural sense of justice and fairness that makes equity fairly easy to explain in simple terms.

My whole family is fond of an old Bob Marley song, Get Up, Stand Up (and if you haven’t heard it, please give it a listen, it’s a great dancing around the house song!). It’s been running through my head lately as I’ve been reading about all the April 5 Hands Off rallies. So many people got up, showed up, stood up, yet media coverage was spotty and largely down played the huge numbers that gathered across the county, and in other countries as well (thank you Canada!!!)

A friend sent me this link to Rebecca Solnit’s Meditations In An Emergency post for April 6 (see below), and it was heartening in many ways, starting with the opening photo of thousands of people gathering in peaceful yet impassioned protest Salt Lake City, Utah. That’s one of the encouraging parts, because so many people gathered in red states and purple states as well as the usual blue places. Ironic that the regime seeking to polarize and divide us has managed to unite so many of us instead. Silver lining? We can sure use one!

https://www.meditationsinanemergency.com/

Underrated And Discounted

It was less heartening to see how little mention of these 1,300+ protest events made it to popular media, where major news outlets reported “scores” or “hundreds” of protestors nationwide when in fact there were thousands in many places and millions all together. Even here on Bainbridge Island some 1,500 people signed up with Indivisible or Hands Off to attend and it felt like there were even more filling the streets and overflowing into Waterfront Park. All ages, from teens to grandparents, finding comfort in seeing so many people standing up.

One offs are great for morale, but if we want to see change, we need to have conversations. Not patronizing lectures, not furious rants, but actual conversations with people who may not think as you do. Conversation are exchanges of views with all participants practicing deep, respectful listening to each other. The most lastingly effective way to change is personal, working one on one, finding common ground, whether in our right to receive Social Security, our need for Medicare and Medicaid, for more support for education, not less, whatever. Pick a topic you care strongly about, ask some open questions, and be curious about why someone might disagree. Once we aren’t butting heads, we can find points of agreement, and that’s where change begins to flow.

Write, Call, Listen

It’s also important to keep calling and writing to our elected officials, including those who don’t vote the way we would prefer them to. Call, write, and make your voice heard. Here’s a very easy way to do that: 5calls.org

Put in your zip code, choose a topic and you’ll find the right people to contact and the best ways to do that. You can call every day, about as many things as you want. They don’t care if you cry and there are handy scripts you can use if you have a hard time staying on track (so easy to get off on related tangents, right? Because there are SO MANY OTHER THINGS to work on). Take them one at a time, but please call. Again. And again. Focus on the midterms and call. Onward, right?

A weedy mess can host a wonderment of life

Finding Life Amid Loss

Are you hurting? I’m hurting too. In recent weeks a dear friend died suddenly, as his family gathered to celebrate his birthday and his recovery from successful heart surgery. My daughter’s simple one-day surgery turned into a 10 day ICU stay fraught with trauma, drama and stress (as usual). That same day, as I sat on an uncomfortable hospital bench waiting to hear the results of my daughter’s surgery, I learned that a close relative had gender affirming surgery that I hadn’t know was going to happen. Now I’m so glad they did, as the possibility of that surgery for others may have vanished. Young trans people had passports revoked (marking X for gender is now a federal crime). Others are being denied gender affirming medications despite legal prescriptions. Hard on these events crowded others too numerous to contain and too horrifying and dangerous to ignore. As the daily news grows ever more dire ever more quickly, my daily walks have increased in number and duration. I walk and I weep and I wonder.

The current regime has a new game plan, a brutal fire hose approach to political, social and environmental change that is almost impossible to stop because there are no effective checks and balances anymore. The government is broken, the courts are broken, and any illusion of national unity is broken. The current top players (and they are playing) have given license to the entire administration to do harm at will, knowing there are no consequences that can curb them fast enough to avoid irreparable damage to millions, even billions of lives, human as well as fauna and flora. The onslaught feels so deliberately overwhelming because it is; regime participants have affirmed that the suddenness and intensity is a strategy chosen to stun protesters into immobility, shock and despair.

Walking For Peace & Democracy

On Monday, there was a pro-democracy rally here on this small island, a much larger one in Seattle, and many others of all sizes across the country. Ours was a pleasing mixture of the usual protesters (mostly women around my age), and younger folks of many persuasions, some lovely families with kids in tow. Unlike the enormous pussy hat rallies of 2017, this rally was attended by only a few hundred people, though many of those who showed up were energetic and passionate. Most of these rally events were deliberately not publicized, probably because news outlet fear reprisals (and they’re not wrong). Also, the signs many people carried used now-forbidden words, dangerous words such as biased, genders, diversity, female, disability, trauma, reproductive rights, women, equity, inclusion, fetus, transgender, covid…. As the new taboo list grows, hundreds of governmental or government funded websites and scientific data bases are vanishing or being gutted, stripped of meaning, denatured.

We the people

So I walk, because walking takes me into nature, natural surroundings where I (usually) find my own center and my strength to continue. Sometimes it feels like I’ve been walking, marching, standing for peace, for democracy, for social justice, my whole life. You probably have too. On my daily wander (or march, depending on mood) to a local beach or small woodland, I often pass a patch of ground that seems denatured to my eyes; weedy, piled with construction rubble and wind-broken branches. This abused, neglected spot appears ugly and damaged yet when I made myself look at it, each time I passed I saw little birds flitting in and out of the broken brush, native squirrels gathering seeds from fallen fir cones, even a few early bees browsing on the weeds (which of course bloom far earlier than our garden beauties). Rotten logs sprout shelf fungi, their patterns as beautiful as any human design (and probably the inspiration for more than a few artists).

Fungi, Cockroaches & Coyotes?

If this regime and their international cohort succeed in destroying the planet for gain (and how does that make sense?), many scientists are positing a new world order. Not too surprisingly, quite a few scenarios suggest that if humans are wiped out, more resilient beings may replace us, from cockroaches to coyotes, and more notably fungi. Mushrooms and other fungi seem almost magical in their remarkable ability to transform and heal degraded environments. In slime molds lie the hope of the world? I wonder.

What Can We DO?

So what is there to do besides walk and weep and wonder? Here’s a good thing that so easy: Don’t Buy! Join the national, non-partisan no-buy event to let corporations know that towing the party line with the current regime’s efforts to erase any and all mention of social justice doesn’t meet our moral standards. As the Montgomery bus boycott showed, hitting corporations in the pocketbook is still the best way to get their attention.

Economic Boycott Friday February 28
Do not buy anything from any major retailers, online or in person. Boycott all box stores and large scale commercial enterprises from Amazon and Best Buy to Walmart and so on. If you really need something, DO shop locally, supporting small local businesses that support YOUR values and community.
For more information:
abovethelaw.com No Buy Friday

Five Calls fivecalls.org
The easiest and most effective way to make our voices heard and have a political impact, Five Calls offers topic lists and suggested scripts for each, along with quick links to your elected officials.

Americans of Conscience americansofconscience.org
Pro-democracy, pro-equality, pro-planet
This easy to use website also offers topics and links as well as articles and additional information/research. It also includes a Good News list of heartening actions and events. Onward, right?

Like the red hand says, STOP this illegal takeover NOW

Fire and light keep kids engaged

Fire Shines Brighter In The Darkest Nights

On the Winter Solstice, my grandkids and I made a fire in our fire bowl to celebrate the longest night and the return of the light. Instead of focusing on age-old traditions that found darkness fearful, our modest celebration encourages us to make friends with both dark and light. We fold origami birds, then write our wishes and hopes on some, adding things we want to let go of on others. All are fed to the flames one by one to carry the sparks of our prayers through the tender darkness to the stars (or at least to the clouds, on drizzly nights).

Befriending the deeper dark is heavy work right now, when the scariest darkness is embodied in the current regime and others like it around the world. This regime knows exactly how to do the most harm to as many people they deem negligible as possible and they let fall new snippets of evil action day by day, as a kind of mental and emotional drip torture. Natural darkness can feel comforting, wrapping us in calm, soothing quietude and offering a buffer from daily busyness. The unnatural darkness that infects the susceptible human spirit is something else entirely.

Finding The Light

Finding light in THAT darkness is a true challenge, unless we look to all the millions and billions of people who strive to embody kindness and compassion come what may. I keep hearing the voice of my childhood neighbor, a thoughtful Quaker who often comforted me when I was horrified, whether from family chaos, school bullying, or news coverage that exposed deep racism. She explained that in the Quaker tradition, people are encouraged to ‘brighten our corner’ by doing whatever kindnesses might be possible, given a person’s age and relative lack of agency. The world really isn’t short of ranting, furious, frustrated people but it sure would be lovely to have more kindness on display.

In my various positions at the local Senior Center, I hear people talk about their feelings of loneliness and isolation pretty much every day. That saddens but doesn’t surprise me, given the national epidemic of senior loneliness, isolation, and depression. What does surprise me is hearing the same things in almost the same words from people in their teens, and twenties, and on up the line. At the Center, we try to meet as many social needs as possible, sometimes with programs but most effectively through small groups that meet weekly or monthly. Whether the stated goal is to do handwork together, to work on memoirs, to discuss our lived history, or simply compare ideas about a book we’ve all read, the result is nearly always a sense of connection and shared community.

Creating Connection And Community

Some folks are finding community in living language classes, where we discuss news or books or travel or food in Italian or French or Mandarin or whatever. Others find connection in shared movement, from line dancing to tai chi, zumba or yoga, or in peaceful meditation and sound bathing. One of the most poignant groups connects people living with memory loss through comfortable, open conversations that can wander wherever as facilitators ‘join the journey’ rather than correcting a misstatement. Another connects people caregiving for partners, parents, siblings or offspring. In every situation, the ‘magic’ element seems to be feeling safe enough to be truthful. Speaking our truth and being respectfully heard can be healing even if no helpful advice is possible.

This simple pattern is being followed in other settings too, from families and neighborhoods to schools and churches to libraries and even businesses. Make space for gathering people with common interests (even if it’s just in breathing!). Make sure everyone understands that everything said is confidential at every session. Model respectful deep listening. Share with truth. This last is really important as it sets the tone and shows others that they too can speak about whatever they need to without being judged or having their confidences betrayed. And by the way, you don’t have to be an extrovert, or young and energetic, or especially brave or clever to make this simple formula successful. Just find something you care about, and a place people can gather. Invite a few people and invite them to bring friends and neighbors. Once in the space, speak truth and be kind and watch the community come together before your eyes. Onward, right?