One of the gifts the pandemic has given me is a return to my bicycle. Two wheels and feet have become the safest way for me to travel. I have been getting our groceries on the bike, but since I have been called back to work on site, the bicycle makes it possible to take … Continue reading Biking on the Bay Trail
What we do now is crucial. I’ve been told this in the silence between thought, in the early morning when there is space between thoughts. Now the time has arrived. Out of many, one. We are one country, one species, one planet. What are we willing to do for the whole? Continue reading Here and Now
This is the first chant I ever wrote. It was only supposed to be an exercise at an experiential camp. We wrote for several minutes, and then were told to distill what turned out for me to be several pages into three sentences. Not surprisingly, few of us could do it. It’s hard to throw … Continue reading Taliesin
A decade ago I had come to the end of a road. After a door that shouldn’t have been was firmly closed, I was standing high above San Francisco Bay, looking at the Golden Gate beneath a soft blue sky and the heights of Mt. Tamalpais to the north. I decided to rise. I … Continue reading Phoenixes Rise
I wrote this back in 2014, after coming back from the UK. I was looking for my ancestors, and instead, I found that home was right where I’d left it–under my feet. Most of us in this country are a rich blend of many different places and peoples. We can be mixed up and homeless, … Continue reading Find Me A Place
I cannot stay silent, nor is it my time to speak. The voices who have not been heard since long before my birth need my attention and my support in order to finally do this thing of vital importance that has been left undone for far too long, all over the world. Representative Jim Clyburn: … Continue reading Black Lives Matter
The pandemic has changed us, and whether we know it or not, there is no going back to the way things were. Our divisions have been laid bare. Perhaps we need to realize our interdependence rather than insist on a fantasy of independence that ignores all the things we depend on … Continue reading Peace Begins With Me
There was a bit in the latest Cosmos where Neil Degrasse Tyson compared our planet to a cauldron. I think of cities the same way. Some like to speak disparagingly of “city people” and our myriad faults, but I see it differently. Cities are perfectly natural expressions of humanity. They are our beehives, our anthills. … Continue reading Cities Are Cauldrons
These people with guns storming statehouses are just trying to do the right thing. They’re failing miserably, but that’s where they’re coming from. A steady diet of hate mixed with a coldly calculated approach designed to find and weaponize common ground has created a deeply divided populace. It’s hard to see the little man behind … Continue reading Common Ground
Three things are the foundation of wealth: A body, healthy and strong, able to do what we ask of it. Our time our own, to spend as we please. Money enough to do what is needful, to pay what we owe when the bill comes due. Work, for its own sake, is not a fit … Continue reading The Triad Of Worth
