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An evangelism for the only hero that will save America: you.

 originally published jan 11, 2021 An evangelism for the only hero that will save America: you. Each. Of. Us. Make a connection, Access your own Genuine curiosity, Find and expand shared interests and values, Tell stories together. Work on something together. Do the hard job of giving scared, often-isolated, desperate people the most valuable human quality that they’re only getting right now in their wack-a-doo bubble: sane, grounded, empathic connection. If you have nothing nice to say to them, Don’t. This is Stockholm syndrome, and you don’t cure that by arguing logically, insulting, or silencing. You cure it by caring. Disclaimer: Ted Packard is not suggesting the unchecked allowance of threats of violence, or implying that one should not defend themselves or others with words or actions, or that dangerous individuals should have free reign to do as they will until some hippy love circle embraces them and they change their heathen ways. He is merely stating that fighting a flameth
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Friendly reminder

originally published jan 15, 2021   Friendly reminder that we must all actually hold contradictory truths that do not exclusively reinforce our ideal wish of a simple world. It is true that trump supporters stormed the capitol. That’s not okay. It is also true that Susan Rosenberg, member of the left wing M19 terrorist organization who bombed the capitol in 1983, arrested for transporting hundreds of pounds of explosives and weapons, was pardoned by Clinton in 2000 and has fundraising connections to Black Lives Matter. So, when you hear some wing nut yell about BLM being founded by terrorists, and that leftists actually bombed the capitol first, know that there is actually something there. It might not be literally true, it might not be relevant if you go down the rabbit hole of researching it in its entirety - But - the bare accusation has about as much meat to it as the rhetoric I’m hearing from the left right now. There is something to it, for sure, but with a dramatic lack of nuan
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What is the difference between self care and pathological soothing?

originally published March 22, 2020  What is the difference between self care and pathological soothing? I ask myself this as I use more and more screen time during this time of separation from others. Even when I don’t feel anxious, I acknowledge that there is a deep fight/flight response that is ongoing during this crisis. Will my parents’ and friends’ retirements be wiped out? Will someone I love get sick and die? Will countless friends wither into desperate poverty, now that being a minimum wage worker isn’t even an option? So scroll scroll scroll Look at Trump he’s so dumb Scroll Scroll Flatten the curve, flatten the curve Scroll Scroll Cute puppy picture thank god Scroll Quarantine Karaoke holy crap this is entertaining and wholesome and worthwhile and it’s bringing people together wow people are okay Scroll Scroll And nothing is better, nothing is fixed, and my nervous system is still just as close to worry, to fear, as it was before. So, today, I woke up and sat in the su
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We are still in the middle of the anthropocene mass extinction.

originally published April 22, 2020  We are still in the middle of the anthropocene mass extinction. It will still kill almost everyone you love. Humans are not immune to the breakdown of biological food webs. We’ve seen that “things come back quickly” during the shutdown: dolphins in the Venice canals, the air quality of Los Angelos becoming, well, blue. But the sky is not dark with the billions of migrating birds who were shotgunned to extinction, the ocean’s acidified dead zones are not spontaneously growing fish. Unless we use the leverage of this shutdown to permanently alter our global habit of pouring poison into the earth, into the ocean, and into the air; unless we use this time of reflection to prioritize the survival of literally every other species over our own, we will just as surely kill almost everyone that we love. Our children will look out on a gray, empty, burned world before they starve or kill or flee to the few places where people have chosen to protect the earth
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The electric car is not a way out.

 originally published May 3, 2021 The electric car is not a way out. There is no way to consume our way out of global ecological crisis. There is likely not enough recoverable lithium in the entire world to make enough electric cars to replace current fossil fuel cars. And the way that lithium is mined is by carving up some of the last wild places in the world into strip mines. Look at pictures of strip mines. There is no way to consume our way out of global ecological crisis. Hundreds of thousands of acres of habitat are being turned into solar farms to power groundwater extraction and casinos and massive cities in the middle of the desert. Joshua trees. Old growth yucca. Deep-rooted sage grass prairies. Ephemeral wetlands crucial to migratory birds. Ancient cryptobiotic soils that are the foundation of the desert food web. Billions of people do not save the planet as a livable human biosphere by consuming the same amount of stuff, whatever it is, when it is made on an industrial scal
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Rising Star Lane

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  Rising Star Lane Tonight, walking by light of moon On this, the second-longest night (I’d say who’s counting but by one god or another We sure as hell have been for a very long time) snow crunches into softness beneath me and the cottontail tracks float like Legolas above and I am all hard crust and I am all soft underthing and maybe, I am floating too and there - oh, waxing poetical - there is the irrigation ditch And is she transformed from some vulgar line of cow shit and roundup ready imposition to transcendent sheen, shimmering smooth and bubbling cold, so suddenly worthy Of coyote going along edgewise picking just. this. spot. to step down waterside where, next week, (dark god of winter willing) There may be a way across this half-frozen body of life Until then, I look into the shadows beneath piñon and juniper, knowing that all my bright-nighted wandering hasn’t yet touched the deep wondering below those trees where dreams beyond the wary sleep of deer are growing 12-21-21
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There, Underneath

  There, Underneath in what would otherwise be a new moon’s dark this is new snow’s Shining Night among the standing ones needled and barked still as growing stone I find the place shelter enough for long enough to chew, for long enough to melt snow down to earth, which they did, before they left So, I am gifted their bare ground needled and barked to lay my body down where snow falls upon my cheek shards of tiny quiet, almost painful And that petty desert god did not know any three of the hundred names of snow And he does not know me tonight ••• When I open my eyes again after uncounted breaths of warm wool comfort and cold ground seeping, I stand and see There, Underneath dark form of my body curled, knees drawn, head on hand, black ground among the new-white-snow And that mark I am proud to leave upon this earth: A shadow to be covered, a heart once held so close as to be a blanket under snow 12-30-21
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