Can I Get a Witness?

I've been caught in the whirl of Spring this year, and my blog has suffered for it. The growing things call me - plants, dirt, weeds, children - all pressing me with their needs and love. All are givers, all take something in return. I give myself as freely as I can; in return I get the chance to understand the absolute "yes" of plants and the in- and inter-dependence of children.

In addition to growing things, there is still the possibility of this frac sand mine 3 miles from our house and right next door to our friends' house, and Fukushima now has officially-confirmed meltdowns in three of the four reactors and insane radiation levels in the ocean, and my children had chickenpox, and my partner is busy someplace else with his 20-year-old band, and there are the frogs and the robins and the aphids and all the rain. The world as we know it is forever changed, as far as I can tell. For me, it is a feeling of irrevocabilty, of the newest political trends toward control and fascism, of a radioactive planet, of contaminated food, soil, air, and breast milk, forever. That despite the actions of a few that affect the whole, including non-human life, there can still be poetry and delicious transgression and radical actions and humor that create real human relations without dogma - be it religion, pacifism, abuse, or science.

And to top it all off, I have an idea.

I want to publish a blog of local nature writing: mundane, beatific, transcendent, holy, joyful, scared, funny, thoughtful writing. Whatever people are thinking and feeling. Because right now all of us are fighting really hard for our ways of life - some of us more than others - and it seems like the right time to share a little reflection of what it is that we see when we look into the mirror of right outside the door. I believe that women's voices are especially important right now, that we have a relationship with and responsibility to wild life that is precious and maybe sacred. I want to help share this kind of writing here in my neck of Wisconsin, and hope people might want to read it. And there are tons of interesting people with interesting observations and thoughts about the world up in here. What do you think? Please share your comments. This is still in the brainstorm stage, and I am trying to gauge interest and possibilities.

Kodama/tree spirit in the film Princess Mononoke