Our spirit here

Tomorrow night is the Benefit for my dear Theresa and we will be gone. Michael was processing veggie oil late into the night last night. Despite the dry week we are off in search of sun softened snow.

This week I participated in a vigil for the people of Gaza. It has been horrific that the American people and leadership are so unmoved by the suffering of the people there. Israel's actions are intolerable and we are a willing partner in crimes against humanity. We must do everything we can to bring PEACE and JUSTICE to the Palestinian people. What about their right to exist?

I got to see a few of my Adult Protectiver Services buddies. These women walk on water as far as I am concerned. Despite gross underfunding and understaffing they do what they can, horribly under-resourced, to protect seniors and dependent adults.

Lastly, I hear from Amy, the Guatemala representative of Pueblo Partisans, that I won't be able to visit Tanjoc during my visit in March. That little village is always weaving in and out of my thoughts. Read about Tanjoc at www.pueblopartisans.org and give if you can, to help their children and community flourish.

back to Brokeoff

We had hoped to ski with our friend Mathilde this weekend but yesterday probably wouldn’t have worked. We got a lovely rainbow in the valley and more signs of spring. The snow below 6000 feet was puny and wet today so we went up the Brokeoff drainage below the Lassen Park entrance. We hadn’t been up there for two years! My memory of it was that it had steep areas that opened to vast steppes but today we seemed to find ourselves in the woods until we stopped for lunch in the late afternoon. There was about eight inches of fresh powder but there was also very little base so that manzanita, rocks, logs and deep spaces made me uneasy about my invisible feet sluicing along below me. Despite being slow going, it was really beautiful and we got back to the car at dark.

Inauguration from sensing

The Complete Self Attunement group met for our winter deepening this weekend. We were able to include the incredible energy in the world into our retreat and to move with it.
I wrote- I have been washed clear by a tide of history, ground down to glistening star soaked bones, illuminated by our collective apex, pillowed on a thorny and complex pile up.
Moving into the future, sensing from the great opportunity of wholeness...

Gaza and Gift exchange

Yesterday a bunch of us demonstrated and went into our “representative,” Wally Herger’s office to talk to his staff about Gaza. Working with Wally ® is pretty much a dead end but we continue to do it. Here Sue Hildebrand, the coordinator of the Chico Peace and Justice Center, is doing an interview with the local press. Apparently it was on the 5pm news but then wasn’t significant enough to make it onto the 11pm coverage…

Tonight the people at Riparia had our “Christmas” (white elephant) gift exchange and potluck. It’s good to be with people who understand your hopes and the things that are keeping your blood boiling. Especially when they are good cooks!

Nevada City Wild and Scenic Environmental Film Fest

While Michael was skiing up around Tahoe, our friend Ann and I went (with FREE tickets) to the Nevada City Wild and Scenic Environmental Film Festival. We arrived in time for a vigil and march against the Israeli attack on Gaza and for Peace in the Middle East. So we got to tromp up and down in the hilly downtown of like minded people before even attempting to find the films and sit on our butts for a day and a half.
The films were incredible and I spent the first hours when I got home checking out the websites and information on the issues that I saw films and heard information on. I was most moved by the situation of Carrie Dann and the Western Shoshone shown in a film called American Outrage. Carrie is shown here with the film maker. She wants to pack the federal court in Reno on 1/20 at 9am against a gold mine that is proposed on the sacred Shoshone Mt Tenabo –Please look over the information and see if you can go: http://www.sacredland.org/endangered_sites_pages/mt_tenabo.html
From wolf aerial slaughter in Alaska, PCBs in Inuit children or LNG terminals in the salmon estuaries of the Columbia…. More and more issues crowd in on us and call for us. My friend Randy has a quote he puts on his emails that I like: “However mean your life is meet it and live it, do not shun it and call it hard times.” (H.D.Thoreau)
So much activism and so little time….
We were able to stay at the Sierra Friends Center and were amazed to see irises coming up in the foothills and mustards blooming in the orchards on the way home. What didn’t amaze me was a fellow veggie voyager and a prototype electric vehicle. People are doing the best they can in many different fields of endeavor.

New Year's Snow

We got back into the valley for the sunset over the coast range. We camped last night at Lake Davis but didn’t ski today because the snow had iced up so badly. The day before we skied at Yuba Pass (6700 ft.) where there is a Sno Park. That’s where the pictures are from. There were snow mobiles everywhere we went these four days but at Yuba Pass you can get to a dedicated ski area where the monsters are not allowed. On the previous day we skied at Lexington Hill where the miners used to compete on their long wooden skies on the weekends 150 years ago. Now that area, around La Porte, is also filled with snow mobiles. Most of the access areas to the back country, as well as the entire wild country, is snow mobile country and it’s hard to get away from their whine and growl.

During the storm we came down to Sierraville Hot Springs to enjoy the wait.
It was a beautiful veggie oil loop and start to the New Year despite the news of the suffering in Gaza and the distressing audio book we listened to, called Mayflower, about the genocide of the native people of New England. I don’t know how to balance the things that are so cruel and outrageous against the beauty of nature and a simply lived life but I’m glad to get relief from fretting about it for awhile.