Thanks, Rob Brezney, I needed that.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): The surest way to beat the system, my dear, is to elude it and erect your own system. The strategy most likely to leave your competitors babbling in the mirror, sweetheart, is to go completely over their heads. That doesn't mean, darling, that you should be a remote and grandiose narcissist who listens to no one but yourself. Smile sweetly as you describe why your way is the best way, you gorgeous genius. Enlist worthy collaborators through the irresistible force of your guileless charisma.

http://www.freewillastrology.com/horoscopes/

The Morning After

It appears that Referendum 71 in Washington has been narrowly approved by voters, marking the first time a U$ state has voted to expand domestic partnership rights. (WA legislature approved domestic partnerships in 2007, then expanded the rights of domestic partners in 2009.) Looks like it will be approved by one percentage point or so! That's great, but what if it hadn't passed? We would say, "We shouldn't be voting on rights anyway!" And we shouldn't! In Maine, a marriage equality measure failed. Here's Wayne Besen's take:

It is time we wake up and acknowledge that the GLBT fight for equality is the world’s first “Civil Likes” movement. Each year, a popularity contest is held somewhere on the map and if the locals find us likeable our families are protected. If the natives have a negative view of gay people, we remain second-class citizens.

Given this reality we have to make a major choice.

We can declare the current process a disgusting and humiliating insult to our humanity and opt out of all future referendums. The movement would make the case to the nation why such votes are anathema to American values and in the process educate people about our families and quest for equality. A powerful campaign of continued and sustainable civil disobedience would have to supplement this strategy.

Or, we can continue to participate in degrading referendums. But, if we do so, we have to stop pretending that the majority of the American people understand the U.S. Constitution, much less the notion of equality. Those who vote against GLBT rights simply do not like gay people and their antipathy, often masked by religious bigotry, overrides the idea of equal protection. What our public relations experts will have to figure out ways to make us more likeable and overcome such objections.

Seriously

Seattle Post-Intelligencer: David Horsey

Mushroom Fever

It's the time of year when I almost give myself whiplash from braking so hard on my mountain bike every time that I see something little and yellow.  Of course, being the time of year that it is, most little yellow things on the ground are fallen leaves from a variety of deciduous trees.  What I'm hoping to find are gorgeous little chantrelles.  This is my second season actively hunting the golden fungi, and while it is still a little early, I did find a few today.

I live in a beautiful place and I am so fortunate to have such fabulous access to the forests that wind from the foothills of the Olympic Mountains to the Hood Canal.  I rode up to a beautiful view this morning, got some great exercise and happened to spy some mushrooms on my way back down.   I was thinking about how pleasing it was hear the sounds of my tires gently rolling across the gravel, the pine needles and the forest duff when I spied another little yellow thing, but this time, it was really a chantrelle.  I hopped off my bike, got out my knife and celebrated.  Then I turned around and there were a few more on the other side of the trail, almost hidden under salal and ferns.  Today I remembered that moving slower can allow us to notice and appreciate more details, like occult chantrelles.  I noticed several smaller chantrelles after I was crouching way, way down and slowly observing the perimeter of the trails.  I made a few cuts, then I smiled and gave thanks to the planet and then quickly and quietly gave thanks to the greater universe too, because who knows about origins for certain?

There were a few places along the trails that literally smelled like warm vanilla this morning.  What a delicious aroma to complement the refreshingly mossy forest smells that dominate the hills!  The vanilla leaves from the spring must be drying, because they don't really smell like vanilla until they dry.  At one point, I got a waft of a thick, sweet hormonal creature, which always makes me think "BEAR!" but I realized it was just me.  I apologized to the forest for being such a stinky human.  Tonight I will make something with the first lovely harvest of chantrelles and I may post a picture to brag.

On being born

I wonder if we choose to be born.  Do pieces of who we will be before we are born exist somewhere in the great and glorious cosmic soup, awaiting the perfect alignment of energy and mind to turn us into the matter in which we physically manifest? 

I don't know, but I love thinking about it.  And however little Alaina Grace got to this planet at this time, I am happy for her, because she is being born to wonderful parents.

Tonight

The night is happening
Get out there, be with it.
With dedication, you have learned to embrace the day.
Now venture into the inky darkness.

Night in the woods

People sometimes ask me if I get lonely living in the woods alone. The question always surprises me, and makes me wonder if I should feel lonely, because the truth is that I rarely feel lonely out here. I could say that I embrace the solitude, but when I really look at my life--between work and other non-woodsy activities, I am barely alone enough to even fully delve into the riches of solitude, let alone become lonely. So tonight I intentionally paid attention to time, space and being. I may not have the amenities of the woods forever, so this evening, after a long day in the garden and in and around Potlatch, I made a fire and then did some stargazing, which is incredibly therapeutic for those with neck pain. It sure is pretty here: at my place, the sky (when you look up on a clear night) is framed by trees. So many stars...what a beautiful universe we live in.

So I was googling my email address the other day...

Check it out! In the September 2007 issue of Debt Xerography, Donny Smith wrote an awesome review of my 2006 zine:

A COMMEMORATIVE HISTORY OF THE MINNEHAHA FREE STATE AND FOUR OAKS SPIRITUAL ENCAMPMENT by Elizabeth Egan, Tlingit Nation (July 2006) no price (I got mine for $1 at Boxcar Books in Bloomington) An inspiration! An account of a series of protests to save four sacred oaks and a spring in Minnesota from being paved over. Their non-violent actions over several years were met with gratuitous violence in the end. The trees were cut and the state began paving over the spring. But the great thing about this zine is that it doesn’t present the story as one of victory or defeat, but rather as a segment of an ongoing, collaborative process, in which various groups learned to work together, Native American intertribal unity was strengthened, and-ultimately-the highway plans were modified to protect the spring. Nice handwriting and illustrations, too. “To most outsiders, the protest seemed to be a baffling phenomenon, but over the next seven years, I’ve seen it again, a movement, manifesting intensely and dramatically. We are living in a time of reclamation and recognition, and resistance is more effective and constructive.”

Cool review, eh?  Well, it's still available through Microcosm Publishing.

While you were waiting

I'm anxious to see what goes down with Leonard Peltier's parole case. The U$ Parole Commission is due to make a decision on the parole hearing within the coming days. In the meantime, check out my amateur photojournalism skills from a 2004 Peltier support rally:
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/02/280049.shtml

UPDATE Aug. 21: The decision has been made, and I am not happy, but not completely surprised. 

Gunalcheesh (thank you in Tlingit)

Last Friday, I saw the Alaska Kuteeyaa Dancers at the Squaxin Tribe's Museum. They are a group of Alaska Natives, mostly Tlingits, who live in the Washington State/Salish Sea area. The dance group was a dream of a brother of one of the members to keep Tlingits and other Alaska Natives in this area connected to their Alaska Native culture. It was wonderful to see the dance group again, especially since I have been a little but directionally dishevled since returning from the Canoe Journey on August 4th. On Friday evening, I finally (physically) unpacked from the Canoe Journey, washing the Salish Sea out of my gear.

Before the meal was served at the Skokomish Elders Picnic on Saturday, a friend got up to the mic and spoke to the significance of the recent return of canoe families from this year's journey. He then asked pullers in attendance (from all nations) to come up and "sing our spirits back." He explained to the audience that so much of our souls are still out on that water that we needed to call ourselves back.

I really appreciated the call to do that, because it was both relevant and needed. For the past few weeks, I had been working to integrate what I had learned on the journey—I was not lost, per se—but I had definitely been swirling because I had been re-evaluating the universe so much. I have felt more transparent, as if my skin is less of a barrier between me and the rest of the world. Maybe that's part of the understanding I'm approaching: that there is no separation between me and the rest of the world, or even between me and the universe. I am part of all of it, "steeped in its burning layers," as Teilhard says (see previous post). In the past weeks, my heart had felt like a strong magnet was pulling it towards the Canal on my way to work every day, so getting up there at the Elders Picnic and calling our spirits back was a great thing. My parents got to witness that too, which is awesome.

The journey was an amazing & pivotal experience and it was such a privilege & honor to pull. Every time I try to count my blessings, I realize that they can’t be counted or even named, but that they are overlapping within me.

I hope the summer is in all ways beautiful for you and your family.

Live life on your own terms

"Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of." - Benjamin Franklin

Awed again

"By means of all created things, without exception, the divine assails us, penetrates us and molds us. We imagined it as distant and inaccessible, whereas in fact we live steeped in its burning layers."

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955)