Theodore Packard's Blog in 2022

 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

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

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

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

 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

  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

  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

  A whale’s beached ribs fly in the open air of deepest cavern, at last floating above sea, below the earth where the crushed life we call a spiral-shell-turned-limestone wears and weathers its all- containing star-stuff into the invisible dust of a new spring’s clear, delicious flow to the waiting hands of the innocent young who fear not the wild water and so into the made, grown body of another being that we deign to call alive they flow This is time And it is right to not understand It is felt 1/18/22

TAKING A JOB // MAKING A HOME originally published on May 5, 2019 on now-defunct tedpackard.com I’ve been away, in a sense.  Across the Animas Valley, up the ridge and down again, towards the setting sun.  There is a secret valley, one that touring humans may never see, but one which holds the vibrant heart of some humans who hold this land in a deep integrity.  The valley was carved by glaciers, and is framed by the laid-down bodies of giants.  The rocks are so beautiful that I want to take a bite out of them.   It is in this place, where magpies and ravens make sophist arguments atop compost piles, where people are drawn from around the country and world to learn what it means to tend and grow living soils, where in an afternoon the sun will shine, hail will cover the ground, and snow will blow sideways, and the sun will shine again; in this place, I helped to build a home.   Two months and so much effort later, there is a story in the wood that is now up to the family to read and ke

  A SYMBOL // A QUESTION originally published on March 6, 2019 on now-defunct tedpackard.com As I age, precious tender at thirty-three years, I come into greater and more terrible knowledge of time and its illusory, relative, and relentless nature.  One day, one week, I am amazed at the effortless, driven flow of creation from my fingers, from mind’s eye to solid sound or dancing form.  Time is slippery in that current, and is measured in the surfacing breathes, looking up from my burned wood, from the page, from the fretboard, remembering to drink water, to eat, to move my creaking body, to sleep.  These habits of body maintenance become trifles and annoyances in the face of the creativity spilling out - creativity to be harvested or to be lost as heat or vapor, felt for a moment, and never seen again. Then, like a creek once full of snow melt, the season of thaw passes, the water is gone and the soil cracks, thirsty and waiting in silent prayer for the next precious drops.  Time slow