Be Human – let kindness win

What Every Gardener Must Know

There are things that show up in your garden that just should not be there. Wisdom tells us to pull weeds or put up a fence to keep varmints out early in the season. If we don’t, the effort it will take at harvest will be overwhelming and disappointing.

These days I spend cutting wild rose and autumn olive in the orchard. Years ago, someone warned me that the wild rose could take over. I ignored his plea to take action. A little aromatic rose couldn’t be that bad, right? I was wrong. Like grape vine, the tentacles of the wild rose reach into the apple branches and are destructive. They tear through clothing and no animal cares to eat them.

photo: wild rose encroaching on a young oak….but not for long.

Not catching the encroachment of autumn olive on the perimeters was another mistake. Both invasives take their toll on the diversity of indigenous wildflowers and luscious greens. Now as I spend time clearing away what should not have been, I delight in the variety, and the increased abundance of wildlife tells me I am on the right path.

Another bonus of tending the orchard is the respite from the madness that surrounds us these days. And I have to acknowledge the obvious. The seeds of colonial destruction and the cruelty of capitalism should never have been allowed to take root in the garden of the Americas.

We must do all that we can, in whatever ways that we can, to stop the encroachment of ignorance into our lives and our communities. Truth telling and not recoiling from the backlash that will surely come is an antidote. Finding like-minded souls willing to forge a new way is essential. And key is the enjoyment of the discovery of what has always been: being human in this glorious home we call earth.

Hope to see some of you here in Madison on Sunday, May 10, 6 pm. Independent journalism and beloved community. Carry on Amy Goodman!

To Bear Witness

Sometime during the course of the Wisconsin winter, I decided it was time to visit an old friend and to explore a bit of New Orleans. Amtrack is becoming my favorite mode of travel and it is a straight shot to the Big Easy from the Driftless. Nothing disappointed in the wonderings. Smiling faces, warm greetings, amazing food and vibrant colors told the stories of a city still finding its way after Katrina. The community spirit was deeply touching and the diversities of interwoven cultures and lifestyles were absolutely refreshing.

But it was on this day that the reckonings of the past brought the inhumanity of the present in sharp focus. We made the hour drive to Whitney Plantation. This is not your storybook wedding venue kind of place. This is, as our guide told us, a place to “become comfortable with the uncomfortable”. This is not a glorified walk through Antebellum South, where opulent displays of wealth hid the violent and cruel underbelly of slavery. This was a dignified accounting of the life of the enslaved, much of it told in their own words. And as I found myself drawn into the lives portrayed there, the parallels of modern kidnapping, detention centers and prisons became more relevant. The storylines of racism, sexual abuses, and of separated families, while enslavers continue to amass wealth, are far too familiar.

Yet what was most striking were the people who are keeping the stories alive. The caretakers of this place and of the memories. The ones who honor the names, the tears and the hardships and in doing so they offer us a chance to bear witness.

There is responsibility in witnessing inhumanity, should you accept it. It is to become human and then to find a way to be accountable.

That is our collective path to freedom.

Photo by Elsa Hahne and found at Media – Whitney Plantation

Transformation

It’s easy to say, “We need transformation’; it’s yet another thing to be actively engaged in it. Transformation, by its nature, implies urgency to move from one state of being into another. Nature repeatedly shows us this. The butterfly is not alone in this emerging. Whether nature’s rapid transformations of insects and amphibians or the slow altering of the seasons, these shifts are essential for survival and the balance of life’s systems. And what are the consequences of not transforming?

Stagnation does not serve us. In traditional Chinese Medicine stagnation refers to restriction that hinders vital energy and ultimately causes pain and dis-ease. That’s why people seek movement in the forms of Tai chi and Qi Gong, to avoid stagnation and to maintain health’s optimum balance. And to a great extent it works.

But when we are identifying disease within our communities, our state and world, movement alone will not suffice. There must be clear thinking and honest assessing of the conditions causing our illnesses – literally and figuratively.

Wisdom would dictate that no single individual should be saddled with the obligation and responsibility of what we have come to know as leadership. Marx had it wrong, following is in fact the opium of the masses, organized religion is only a symptom. The giving away of our individual accountability to ourselves, our communities and the earth has led us to this imperiled moment. Handing our power to a leader brings a stagnation that we can not afford in this urgent time. Cooperation and community where everyone assumes responsibility to the whole is what is needed now. And that will be a transformative step that we have not yet tried.

Many of us prefer status quo thinking and are not prepared to rock the boat. Understood. There are people desperate to crown a new king to follow, both on the left and the right. Tucker Carlson and Pete Buttigieg come to mind in this delusional attraction. But transformation requires immediacy and I would say to you, if this is not your moment to be accountable as a human being, capable of clear thinking and decisive action, please step aside.

There are many brilliant minds and stellar hearts seeking to bring more than hope back to our existence. There are communities of people readying for the transformation needed for all of us to create better ways forward. Look to the ones creating community. Look to the ones invigorating more than resistance; look to the determined, to the unrelenting. The people refusing to accept ‘this is how it must be’. And maybe then you will realize you are an essential part in this massive shift – for all of us.

Stand Up

Social media was abuzz prior to the nationwide March 28th rallies. There were legitimate concerns over allegiance with Democratic leadership that still refuses to accept that the vast majority of people want the US to stop funding Israel’s war machine – and to admit we are complicit in genocide. I understand those critiques and agree. In deciding my attendance at the rally, I weighed heavily the pros and cons. Being invited to emcee the Madison No Kings Rally, made my decision for me. I could have my say. And I was impressed with the speakers also invited for that day. The event challenged every nay sayer, in a good way. I am very glad I said “yes”and proud to be among everyone who attended.

Some people have asked to hear my opening – so here it goes. And you can find the full hour of amazing speakers below.

“When our humanity is under attack, what do we do? Stand up fight back.

When our dignity is under attack, what do we do? Stand up, fight back.

When our love is under attack, what do we do? Stand up, fight back.

First, I want you to look around and take in the tapestry that we are. Feel the courage and the kindness that we share. There is an attack on our humanity occurring daily. It manifests through ICE raids and separating families; it happens through the incessant war industry that’s always searching for targets instead of working towards peace.

And it is in the destruction of our home, the earth, with unnecessary pipelines, and data centers destroying our health and our communities.

Both parties have created this moment and it is incumbent upon us, “we the people”, to restore human dignity, compassion and trust.

You’re not sheep. I have sheep. I know the difference. Sheep are wonderful, but we share something that sheep don’t have. We have the ability to choose. By being here, you are choosing hope over despair, empathy over disregard, and action over ineptitude.

We are the ones refusing to let ignorance win. You and others who couldn’t be here or are gathering in over 100 locations in Wisconsin, are stepping up to be frontline.

We’re the defenders of our mutual humanity, regardless of our differences. We are here together to show each other how powerful peace can be, and I, for one, love you and thank you for your efforts.

There are 50 grassroots groups, non-profits and pro-democracy organizations participating in this event. Find some that resonate with you and get active. You are needed.

Speakers and speeches from March 28 in Madison.

They include: Paul Smith, United Turtle Clan, Oneida Nation; Sinceree Dixon, League of Women Voters; Ajak Johnson, Badger Collective; and Rev. Judge Everett Mitchell, Solid Rock Baptist Church

Photos from NO Kings Madison

Over 10000 in Madison on March 28. Over 70,000 throughout Wisconsin.

Embracing Life

Sometimes it takes great courage to get out of bed in the morning. The weight of circumstance has shifted the balance of life. But this is not a time to cower and hide. This is the time to embrace life.

Spring is gradually replacing winter. That is its nature. And it is our nature to appreciate the warmth and to be amazed at the green sprouting up. My sheep devoured dry hay all winter, now go in search of the moist green shoots and I am happy for them. They are wise. They understand time.

Memories come. Some harsh, some sweet. But can I let go of the bitter, can I accept its teaching and move on? Can I trust that the lesson taught was valuable and that it deepened my capacity to live more fully, or simply regret?

Because true living is not automatic. We are not robots. We have choice. There is nuance. We have the opportunity to discover something new and miraculous with every moment.

We can bear witness to the power of life, but even more satisfying, we can co-create with it. We can enjoy the dance and allow it to be unique to us.

I know the weight of circumstance has brought despair. I know it has brought doubt. We are being led by people who have forgotten the preciousness of life. And there are far too many in influential places who echo the insanity of the ignorant. The voice of humanity is being suffocated, but only if we let it. This is where courage comes in. This is where remembrance comes in. Hold those moments close, when you witnessed life’s kindness and beauty. They live within you still.

We have choice. That is where freedom lives. Embrace Life and walk away from fear.

Meet Thelma and Louise. They were the first sheep at Echo Valley Farm. They lived for eighteen years. When I bought them and they went into the back of my SUV, I said “You must be Thelma and Louise – and this is your last ride.” We all lived up to that. Sweet memories.

It’s OK to Change Your Mind

15,000 people sang (this) to ICE at the conclusion of the “Be Human” Brandi Carlile concert last week in Minneapolis. The concert was livestreamed and raised $600,000 for immigrant families. It was a powerful statement of loving resistance and the words keep echoing in my mind and heart. They sang, and I found myself singing too, “It’s OK to change your mind, and you can join us, join us anytime.”

Singing Resistance is growing across the country. As Minneapolis faced immense pain, rage, and grief, they found the courage to “fight back with love”. Calling upon the conscience of these mercenaries of hate, Minneapolis dared to invite ICE agents to walk away from the path of violence. and to “take accountability for harm they’ve caused”. There are now 95 chapters of Singing Resistance calling for Saturday, February 28 and Sunday, March 1 to be nationwide singing actions. They will be coordinated in locations such as Dilley Detention Center in Texas, or in corporate locations that have contracts with ICE.

The Minneapolis Singing Resistance Instagram, posted that they were inspired by Otpor the Serbian Civil Resistance movement who overthrew dictator Slobodan Milosevic in 2000. Regularly arrested and beaten by police, the protestors would then show up to police stations and officers’ houses chanting “You may not join us today, but you can join us tomorrow”. In the final hours of their revolution, hundreds of thousands of people marched on Belgrade. Milosevic ordered the police and military to fire on the massive crowds. They refused. They were done being on the wrong side of history.”

There are singing resistance groups springing up throughout the Driftless region. And whether you are able to join a group sing or not, there is no doubt that song has always been used to help us overcome hardships and oppression. Find your voice, give it your love and resist inhumanity.

photo from Michael Tisserand, Facebook

Lead With Love. Not Compromise.

It’s almost done. We’ve normalized lying. We’ve normalized bullies. We’ve normalized child abuse. We’ve normalized genocide. We have done so cloaked in the United States flag and sanctioned by the Bible.

The Israeli war criminal visits Washington to ensure the United States plays hardball with Iran. Another ship is blown up in the Pacific, killing two and leaving one survivor for the coast guard. No word on his condition or if he was indeed rescued. That’s 126 people killed. No mention of wrongful death lawsuits filed by families of fishermen. Murders continue unabated.

The Epstein files are wreaking havoc in Europe and Great Britain, but we’re quite willing to allow pedophiles and crypto maniacs run our show. And ICE is not even close to being abolished, let alone reigned in as Bondi’s DOJ hearings made mockery of truth, justice and humanity.

Yet there was Bad Bunny, reminding us we are all America. Reminding that Love is greater. Demonstrating truth to power in the most celebratory ways. Viva the Puerto Rican independent spirit – may we all learn from it. There was Brandy Carlile with a powerful and almost mournful America the Beautiful.

It’s Black History Month. I am grateful that my social media connections are filled with remembrances championing the strength and clarity of those who walked before us. The ones who faced hatred but did not flinch. They held to their humanity – as we must now, too. James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, Maya Angelou, Langston Hughes, Frederick Douglas and countless more. Read them. Drink in their wisdom and stop cowering in White fear.

Look to those supporting our mutual hope for humanity, that we may still win.

Lead with love and fight like hell.

“Not the Country That I Knew”

“Not the country I knew” is a common phrase these days as we slowly awaken to the reality of federal masked agents roaming our streets with a license to kill. And while the phrase may be true for White people of means, it most certainly is not for People of Color, the Poor or Queer Folk.

It’s ten years since I stood with Indigenous People in frigid weather to halt the Dakota Access Pipeline at Standing Rock. I was there as militarized police shot rubber bullets that maimed, as water cannons blasted humans in sub-zero temps and as LRADs were deployed against the peaceful water protectors. I wrote of what I witnessed to chronicle the account and as a warning: if it could be done here to peaceful citizens, it could happen anywhere. It was under Obama’s watch and my awakening to the corporate militaristic ties to our government began in earnest.

The public executions of Philando Castile and George Floyd shocked the public but were all but forgotten. The majority chose to go on without accountability. Back the Blue signs went up and Black Lives Matter became the problem. Again.

In 2023, the Georgia State Patrol shot and killed a twenty-six-year-old environmental Queer activist, Tortuguita, at Atlanta’s Cop City. They had been shot 14 times “by different firearms” while sitting in a tent.

And in my lifetime, the police battering of Civil Rights activists, Stonewall leaders and the Delano Grape boycotters demonstrated the collusion between police and corporate – to name just a few of state violence against marginalized people.

Our history is loaded with militarized and vigilante violence. This is the country I know.

The latest denial of US complicity to militarism is the ongoing genocide of Palestinians. The media and Biden and Trump governments fed falsehoods and cover-ups – and most of us swallowed it. Some still do.

Malcolm X was chastised for saying “The chickens coming home to roost” following the assassination of President Kennedy. In a country that has promoted systemic violence and refused to live up to the promises of its creation, pointing out the climate of hate was indeed radical.

Now, perhaps, this authoritarian regime may force us to recognize when one of us is not safe, none of us are safe. It’s not a question of right or left. It’s an understanding of human dignity.

And let’s not ignore the violence towards children and women as the cabal of pedophiles and torturers are exposed. The chickens have definitely come home.

The Unraveling

The twisted threads of violence and hate are not new to us. They’ve been woven into the fabric of this nation from its beginning. To continue to deny the presence of white supremacy or to whitewash it in any way only prolongs the agony of its existence. To ignore misogyny or the usury of capitalism as destructive forces in our society keeps us from stepping into our rightful place as human beings, capable of choice and of peaceful coexistence.

Learn from the modern abolition movement and the wisdom of uplifting communities to abolish the need for policing. It makes total sense. There is hope there. There is courage there. There is vision.

It’s weary making listening to politicians argue the necessity for militarized police or insist that change must come slowly. They invite us into their complicity with a system that has fed class struggle. A system that has divided us through artificial stereotypes of race. A system that rebukes those who challenge it by imprisonment and worse. And now they are debating the reform of ICE and too many are refusing to demand it be abolished. Kicking the can down the road to surface once more. There is no way to reform a policing system that has roots in slave capture or of Indigenous genocide. The roots of ignorance run deep and we must not be tricked again.

The police state is a profit-making machine and we, through our government, are footing the bill, both financially and in the damage to our souls. To continue to allow the very loud but very few voices to dominate this transition is foolish at best, self-destructive at worst. Both political parties have benefited from allowing militarized policing to thrive. Our collective willingness to supply and and fund the genocide of Palestinian people was a precursor to what we are witnessing on our streets today.

Ask yourself why you believe and have faith in militarization? Do you recognize that fear has been induced into our psyche and shaped our decisions for generations? Can you see how it keeps us from our humanity and fuels this moment of violence?

The money poured into militarization and ICE could go a long way towards the healing that we desperately need.

Kudos to the people who are coming to these understandings and putting their bodies on the line. Kudos to the ones who are standing up to family and friends who have bullied with fear and untruths. Kudos to all who are taking a stand, in whatever way, for our mutual humanity.

There is no easy path towards our healing. There is no more waiting for those who refuse to live in a good way. We must, with everything in our beings, forge on. We must participate in this great unraveling, this untangling of the threads of injustice, and reject the leadership of hate and deceit.

We must acknowledge our history and make a conscious choice to live differently. It is not only possible. It is essential.

Resistance Bird compliments of The Aunties Dandelion. Permission given to share.

Stand for one another.

Demand accountability. We are still being played. Removing one henchman for another as the head of ICE in Minneapolis yet the grotesque acts of violence continue. Main stream media remains complicit, as do the leadership of both parties.

Listen to Senator Klobachar make her milk toast case for ICE reform on PBS. Not abolishing ICE, reforming ICE. Why?

Listen to marginalized voices. For once. Step into your humanity.

I gain strength listening to the voices of those unafraid to speak truth. However hard. I gain strength acknowledging what I have known all along. It will take more of us to bring about the change we know must surely come. Pay attention. Participate in this transformation. Wherever you are.

Abolish ICE

Created as part of the Homeland Security Act; ICE began in 2003. Currently, if separated from the federal government, it’s estimated that ICE would rank 13th in the world as a militarized army. And now as people are beginning to challenge the legitimacy of militarized and masked police in neighborhoods, smashing car windows, brutally accosting men, women and children one has to wonder who still supports this and why?

Have we not had enough violence? Why have we allowed, without conscience or dignified care, families severed and human beings detained in deplorable conditions? Is our hatred of people who are different so great that we’re willing to see an escalation in inhumanity? Three shots to the head of an unarmed woman and no one is in custody. A Black father and citizen killed by an off-duty agent because he celebrated New Year’s Eve. Are the screams of the children not reaching our ears? Who are you: the ones who cheer these obscene acts? Who are you: the silent ones?

We have another opportunity to reel in this rogue organization. An appropriations package to further inflate ICE’s budget is being considered by Congress. It must pass with 60 votes. If Republicans hold to their capitulation to this administration, there would still be a need for seven Democrats to support the increase to ICE. Democrats must not support this increased funding. We can and must make that clear. The January 30th deadline to stop this vote is looming. We have time to bring it to an end.

This is when ordinary citizens must become extraordinary. This is when the silent must speak.

Frederick Douglas famously reflected, “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will”.

Demand legislators vote against increasing ICE funding. And while you’re at it call for ICE to be abolished.

KNOW YOUR RIGHTS

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