so, are we supposed to live through this?

take a moment

It rained last night, and it felt like a miracle.

Since climate anxiety is disruptive to mental health, sometimes I sneak out of the blockbuster disaster movie that is “paying attention to things” and do some personal inventory. What are my resources, abilities, knowledges, hopes, wishes, dreams, fears? Can a lotus grow from this mess?

I consider how doing less can help, since doing more often requires burning fuel, extracting resources, buying things. Maybe there are gaps in our knowledge but we can take ourselves to school.

here are this summer’s vocabulary words:

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publisheddismantle renewText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedguerrilla garden microclimate Gaia theoryText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedinfrastructure impervious cover shadeText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedclosed loop system biomass biomeText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedsoil waterText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedmisery profiteer yacht ocean orca Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedAMOC El Niño La Niña Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedreforestation deforestation rewild pollinatorText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedtree meadow marsh seagrass carbon carbon sink carbon cycle

For now I’m learning how to do easy things close to home with stuff I have, and pushing out from there. I’m also entertaining a lot of silly thoughts like “Edith Bunker, at her piano, performing Kate Bush’s “Wuthering Heights,” rearranging the house around art and music spaces, and wondering if I have the spoons to repaint the house a room at a time or plan trellised arches to shade and expand next year’s garden. I feel like my brain is starting to reconnect or create new paths again but now all my joints have decided that it’s their turn to scream for attention. Maybe I can bathe in Tiger Balm and finish reading a book.

In low times, when it is too hot to do anything or I’m too ill to function, I read about and watch videos about rewilding, wetland restoration projects, regenerative farming, permaculture, creating nature corridors for wildlife, building with local, natural materials, water conservation and wetland remediation, and what kinds of plants attract beneficial insects that protect food crops that can grow on the surface of the sun. When I feel good, I move things around in the garden and try to create little micro-climates shielded from the scorching rays. I plant seeds and some of them grow.

When you encounter places that are alive, florid, buzzing, how do you feel? Alive? Happy? Were you conditioned to be afraid of green growth, life, wildness?

Do you want to mow it all down or extend its range? When you see a felled tree do you want to find out who is responsible? Do you ever see these abundant living oases where it seems like they couldn’t possibly exist?

Maybe somewhere in the expanse of concrete on the outskirts of the city where everything is a parking lot or abandoned strip mall, absorbing and radiating heat like a brick oven, a small forest emerges behind a fence at the edge of development?

Look at the ground, is it dirt or soil, grass or leafy groundcover, rocks or sand or cement? What is under it?

Can you see possibilities and potential when faced with blasted and barren landscapes razed to the ground by progress and then abandoned? Can that bare spot support a fig tree, desert willow, date palm, pecan tree, meadows, wetlands, grasslands?

"It's just too late for it," he says. "Perhaps if we'd gone along routes like that in 1967, it might have helped. But we don't have time. All these standard green things, like sustainable development, I think these are just words that mean nothing. I get an awful lot of people coming to me saying you can't say that, because it gives us nothing to do. I say on the contrary, it gives us an immense amount to do. Just not the kinds of things you want to do."

James Lovelock: 'Enjoy life while you can: in 20 years global warming will hit the fan'

Decca Aitkenhead, The Guardian, Sat 1 Mar 2008 05.35 EST

silly little projects for the end times

This week I prepared a cute home for a bag of worms. I await their arrival, concerned that they may not have survived the trip after being on a truck all day underneath the Hell Dome, I ready a spray bottle to spritz them with cool water. They will live in a double stack of storage totes, one peppered with drainage holes and a multiple screened porthole…

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long covid sufferers and caregivers:

For those of us with or caring for someone with long covid, I found this helpful: Supporting Children Living With Long Covid to Manage Their Energy With Pacing Penguins from Long Covid Kids. The article explains energy use, fatigue, and pacing strategies, and provides useful language for children and adults to use when faced with people who don’t understand why we have to say no sometimes.