“The inferno of the living is not something that will be; if there is one, it is what is already here, the inferno where we live every day, that we form by being together. There are two ways to escape suffering it. The first is easy for many: accept the inferno and become such a part of it that you can no longer see it. The second is risky and demands constant vigilance and apprehension: seek and learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure, give them space.” — from Invisible Cities (Italo Calvino)
January 1, 2017: Fellow cosmonauts, below is a brief yet ever-growing list of clear-eyed organizations working hard to keep the people (two-leggeds, four-leggeds, beaked, finned, antennae’d) and planet alive and well. (Like all seeds, this list will start small and grow…and the mothership is operating in the gaps and cracks of a paved-over schedule, so could use more hands/eyes; please feel free to contact me to help grow this list.)
Every day, let’s do something helpful, even the smallest thing–and don’t despair, dear ones, for when we stand up and stand together when we listen, dialogue, trialogue, educate, agitate, boycott, when we stop being hierarchical colonizers ourselves (by valuing collaboration over competition, cultivating a view of abundance vs scarcity, practicing generosity, valuing an ethics of care)–when we act in these ways we are restoring the world to its balanced nature. And why all this from a poetry and art journal? Well, poetics after all, means “making,” and so with whole-hearted intelligence, with diligence, with courage we can make our way together, shifting our collective way of operating to something sane and even beautiful.
Solidarity = “mutual responsibility,” and all things, beloveds, are one body, made of the same stardust. As a sweet and too seldom seen 4-year-old niece observed just as 2016 was ending:
“Everything is connected.
In a web.
Like ‘the Force.'”
Little wise one, light-bearer at the year’s turning.
And so we begin.
Vote w/ your coins
Big banks are invested in the organized abuse that is the prison industry and in the oil pipelines that threaten our waters and world. While we are not billionaires, when we divest en masse, banks will start to hear our voices again.
“The Fair Finance Guide is a web-based tool that enables bank clients and policy holders to make their bank more socially responsible, fair, and sustainable by benchmarking it on several themes.”
http://fairfinanceguide.org/
Great ‘how-to’ move on from your big bank. Consider moving to a local credit union that puts money back into your community where we can exert more pressure on good government practices, support small businesses, etc.
http://breakupwithyourmegabank.org/
Being the Lorax: An articulate voice for the waters, trees, and our animal brothers
Earthjustice’s tagline is “Because the earth needs a good lawyer,” and they back it up with relentless action. These lawyers are fighting smart from”K” street to North Dakota for the preservation of the planet from the wildfires of greed. Their approach is effective: They work in the system in ways that can beat the system. Even when the mothership is living on space-ramen, she trusts that her wee donations are going to an org that can get things done.
http://earthjustice.org/
spacecraftproject 