3 6 24 before time was a flat circle
They were warriors
before time was a flat circle
before the discovery of the edge of things
and sometimes I float there
on the backs of sea serpents
and tainted lilies
watching the reproduction of things past
in the sweat of jungles
and in the folds of giant lizards
while riding my big dingbat
until the neighbours yappy dogs wake me up.
This is another in a series of short notes about aspects of the climate crisis.
What is mostly written about climate change is about its negative effects and how to mitigate them, about international conferences, about missed targets and doomsday scenarios. There is general agreement that the climate is in crisis and will likely get worse before it might get better. Given that trend, reason tells us that we should be thinking about how we as individuals, communities, nations and the world need to adapt to inevitable changes.
Of course, there are entire island and low-lying coastal states that may cease to exist because of sea level rise. There are also impoverished equatorial nations that are innocent victims of the excesses of wealthy northern hemisphere countries. Even in those countries, indeed in all countries, while the effects of climate change are global in scope, those effects are felt most harshly at the local level. All the threats from climate change such as shoreline destruction, sea level rise, drought, atmospheric rivers, hurricanes and typhoons, destruction of energy and public infrastructure affect local communities most acutely. And thus, most of the reactive and anticipatory adaptation to climate change happens locally.
Physical adaptation to these threats can be either reactive or anticipatory. If any of those threats were to happen to our community now how would our community services react? We are fortunate that most of our communities have systems in place to deal with emergencies. But some of the threats may be historically new or may be new in frequency and intensity. It is therefore imperative that local governments should adopt the precautionary principle and anticipate the local implications of the high-impact-high-probability futures being presented by climate scientists.
The flip side of human behaviour that causes climate change is the human reaction to that change. As humans have to face extreme temperatures we are having to adapt to behavioral changes such as more domestic violence, diminished problem-solving ability, and, for students, affected ability to learn. For many people, living through fires, floods and storms is enough to trigger post-traumatic stress disorder. Given all those affects, social programs, educational systems and treatment facilities are going to be even more stressed than they are now.
And then there are those who tend to believe that whatever we might do to mitigate climate change is too little too late and humanity is facing a threat to our civilization and perhaps our very existence. Some people are admit to feeling climate anxiety and fears of loss, suffering, death and the well-being of our children. How does one cope with such anxiety? A British professor of sustainability leadership (Jem Bendell) has developed a concept called Deep Adaptation which has grown into a social movement. Bendell believes that the disruptions caused by climate change will continue to intensify and ultimately will lead to an “unraveling of western industrial lifestyles”. While government has focused on mitigating climate change effects, Bendell is fixated on the need for strong adaptation measures.
Bendell posits three Deep Adaptation approaches: resilience, “what are the valued norms and behaviours that human societies will wish to maintain as they seek to survive?”; relinquishment, “letting go of certain assets, behaviors and beliefs, where retaining them could make matters worse”; and restoration, “rediscovering attitudes and approaches to life and organization that our hydrocarbon-fuelled civilization eroded.”[as quoted in Wikipedia]. Some critics say that the underlying premises of Deep Adaptation are not justified by science. Others value that Deep Adaptation “provides a trusted compassionate space for sharing of grief and loss”.
The physical effects of climate change will continue to be felt mainly at the community level. But the anxiety and mental health effects will be felt mostly at the individual and family level. So, as we stumble along ways to mitigate climate change and to adapt to the physical changes it will bring, whether or not we embrace Deep Adaptation, we must give equal emphasis to helping individuals, families and communities come together to deal with the inner feelings that climate change has thrust on them. Are we prepared for that challenge?
The People versus David and Collet Stephan is premiering on Denman Island this Thursday, April 4th. The director, Todd Harris will be attending the presentation and will be happy to answer questions at the end of the screening in the Denman Community Hall.
The film tells the story of David and Collet, who were charged with failure to provide the necessities of life after their son, Ezekiel died mysteriously at the Children’s Hospital in Alberta. This film reveals the truth behind the nine-year attack on the Stephen’s family.
It would be great to have a large turnout for this last-minute event. Entrance will be by donation
Banana-date-coconut muffins
Conflict is always around us, a part of life, and a challenge for us to meet and work with in creative ways. Lately though, there seems to be a lot of conflict amongst people on boards and in various organizations on our two islands, as well as the ubiquitous interpersonal struggles we all experience. My sense is that because we are a microcosm for what is going on in the larger global sphere, we’re acting out our anxiety & uncertainty on the local level. We need to keep this possibility in mind, that our entire world is interconnected and a “ripple” in one arena has unanticipated effects in another. So, back to the importance of nourishing, replenishing and taking care of ourselves during these intense times! Otherwise we can’t show up to deal with difficult issues, for focusing on what matters; we become emotionally and spiritually depleted.
Sometimes we just need to simplify, let go of what is not important, attend to what IS important in an integrative way, and be grateful that we have it as good as we do.
In that spirit, I offer another of my simple recipes for feel-good-food.
I like to bake things that can be eaten for breakfast, a snack or dessert, so that means
delicious but not too sweet, and things that taste like “real food”. Also, food that travels well for the ferry, the hike, the beach, the bike ride. So here is my recipe for Banana-date-coconut muffins, a favourite. They are like little power packets of nutrition and they are yummy. Makes 18-24 depending on what size you like them.
2-4 ripe bananas
3 ½ C organic whole wheat flour 1 ½ t. baking powder
1 t. salt
½ C butter
¼ C brown sugar
2 t. almond or vanilla extract 2-3 eggs
1 ½ C buttermilk
1 C (8) Palestinian dates
1 C coconut (coarse or finely shredded, your call)
1. Soften & then cream the butter with the sugar in one bowl. Add eggs & almond/vanilla extract. 2. Add buttermilk and mix ‘til all is smooth.
If (alas) you don’t have dates, you can use raisins, blueberries or dried cranberries.
If you don’t have buttermilk, you can use applesauce or even plain yoghurt, but I find buttermilk to be the best. I try to use all organic ingredients.
Enjoy! These muffins freeze really well too.
Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):
We’re seeing more and more of the cynical, obnoxious plan of the western liberal political-media class to try and pin the blame for the entire multinational genocidal campaign in Gaza solely on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“There is growing opposition to Netanyahu’s war machine,” reads a new tweet by Senator Bernie Sanders. “More Americans than ever are standing up against this horrific war in Gaza, which is causing tremendous suffering amongst the Palestinian people.”
This is on the same day we learned that the Biden administration has quietly signed off on the delivery of billions of dollars worth of 2,000-pound bombs and warplanes for Israel to use in its ongoing massacres of civilians in Gaza. There is absolutely no excuse for continuing to babble about “Netanyahu’s war” this far into a US-backed genocide. This is Biden’s war as much as it is Netanyahu’s — and Sanders supports Biden.
Sanders has been at this schtick for a while now, working to insert the idea into public consciousness that what we are seeing from Israel today is some kind of fluke aberration in the apartheid state’s history and not the obvious fulfillment of its inbuilt nature. The other day he publicly griped that “the Israel of today is not the Israel of Golda Meir,” falsely suggesting that there was once some kind of golden age in which Israel was not an abusive ethnostate built on ethnic cleansing, oppression, racism and injustice.
In an Al Jazeera article published earlier this month titled “This is not ‘Netanyahu’s war’, it is Israel’s genocide,” Ahmad Ibsais berates Sanders and his fellow “progressive” senator Elizabeth Warren for this pernicious narrative control campaign, saying that “Blaming Israel’s blatant human rights abuses, disregard for international law, and open celebration of war crimes on Netanyahu alone is nothing but a coping mechanism for liberals like Sanders and Warren.”
Ibsais writes the following:
“By blaming Netanyahu for the suffering and oppression of the Palestinian people, past and present, they keep alive the lie that Israel was built on progressive ideals, rather than ethnic cleansing.
“By blaming Netanyahu, they whitewash their seemingly unconditional support for a state blatantly committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.
“By blaming Netanyahu, and casting Israel as a progressive, well-meaning state that would respect international humanitarian law but is currently taken over by a bad leader, they are absolving themselves — and the US at large — of complicity in Israel’s many war crimes.”
But that’s exactly what the Democratic Party has been trying to do in recent weeks. A couple of weeks ago Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer drew the ire of the Israeli right wing with a speech on the Senate floor saying that Netanyahu has become a “major obstacle to peace” who has allowed “his political survival to take precedence over the best interests of Israel,” calling for new elections to oust the prime minister.
In a recent article for Jewish Currents titled “Chuck Schumer and Democrats’ New Line on ‘Netanyahu’s War’,” Alex Kane picks apart the fallacious reasoning behind this trend:
“But despite Democrats’ repeated suggestion that Netanyahu is the impetus for Israel’s war, political analysts say that in reality the prime minister’s actions are in step with Israel’s political mainstream. ‘Schumer is operating in this fantasy that if you get rid of Netanyahu, you might be able to get somebody else who’s more moderate who could then save the relationship between the US and Israel under the pretense of support for progressive values and democracy,’ said Omar Baddar, a Palestinian American political analyst. But this narrative ignores how Israeli politicians almost across the board agree with Israel’s conduct in Gaza, as do the majority of Israelis. Yair Lapid, the former prime minister and head of the Israeli opposition, supports the ongoing assault, as does war cabinet member Benny Gantz, Netanyahu’s main political rival and the man who, according to polling, would become prime minister if Israel held elections today…
“Instead of constituting a substantive shift in US support for Israel, experts say, Democrats’ emboldened critique of Netanyahu should be understood as an attempt to respond to growing voter frustration without changing policy, as the Biden administration remains unwilling to use US aid and arms exports to Israel as leverage to demand a change in behavior.”
Portuguese author and journalist Bruno Maçães recently tweeted that “One possible outcome of this is 200,000 Palestinians will be dead, Gaza will be destroyed, hundreds of thousand will be expelled and everyone will blame Netanyahu and move on.”
Would it surprise you if this happened? Would it not be entirely in keeping with what we have been seeing from the US empire in recent years? Would it be very different from what happened after the US destroyed Iraq, blamed George W Bush and Dick Cheney, and then moved on without anyone having been held responsible or any meaningful policy changes implemented?
That’s the entire goal here. The empire managers want nothing to change about Israel, nothing to change about Washington’s relationship with Israel, nothing to change about US foreign policy or the US war machine in general, and for the mainstream public to be thrown some cognitive bone to chew on while the amnesia of the daily news cycle sets in.
They want everyone to pin all the blame for the Gaza genocide on Netanyahu, but this is not all the fault of Netanyahu. It’s the fault of the entire Israeli state. It’s the fault of Joe Biden. It’s the fault of the Democrats. It’s the fault of all the Israel supporters on Capitol Hill. It’s the fault of the western press. It’s the fault of the Israel lobby. It’s the fault of the unelected empire managers in US government agencies. It’s the fault of the entire US empire and all its imperial member states like Australia, the UK, the EU, and Canada.
Gaza is proof that the US empire cannot be permitted to exist any longer, and they’re trying to get everyone to ignore this fact and blame the whole thing on one guy. Don’t let them do this. Don’t let them deceive you into losing sight of what they’ve done.
______________
My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Go here to find video versions of my articles. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.
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Featured image via Wikimedia Commons and Gage Skidmore.
Green Wizardries, Green Soup and Seedlings by Maxine Rogers
I made a pot of green soup. I heard about it on Danu’s Irish Herb Garden on YouTube. I recommend this channel as Terri Conroy, the host, is a good herbalist and listening to her always makes me feel happy.
Green soup is a wonderful spring tonic and collecting the greens is fun. I went around with a wicker basket and picked nettle tops, chickweed, dandelion greens, kale, green onions and chives. I have never cooked with weeds before and was not at all sure how the soup would taste. People always talk about dandelion being bitter. I love chickweed and am happy to put its very mild-tasting leaves in salads but had never cooked it before either.
I started off with some goose fat to fry the onion and then, once the onion was translucent, lots of chopped garlic. I chopped the nettle tops, wearing a clean gardening glove to protect myself from the stings, and added that to the pot. I harvested the chickweed with scissors to make sure I didn’t damage any roots. I can never grow enough chickweed. Our chickens and ducks love the stuff and it makes a very soothing eye wash and antihistamine cream. I chopped the chickweed up and added it to the pot.
The dandelion was next and I think it has a great future as a garden vegetable as it is a perennial and very deep rooted. I have a splendid dandelion in my vegetable garden that I do not weed out because the early bumble bees need the nectar from the very attractive dandelion flowers.
I chopped up the kale and green onions and added them. Once all the greens were wilted, I added a quart of home-made chicken stock. I make my own stock in a huge pot and pressure can it. Pressure canning is a great skill to have in the country to can stock and soups. Having them ready to use in the pantry makes it so easy to make a quick meal and it can save your life when everyone in the house is too ill to cook. I hear there has been a Noro-style tummy sickness going around. Condolences if you have that.
One the greens were cooked, I squeezed a couple of organic lemons and added the juice to the soup. Then, I beat a couple of eggs in a bowl and added the hot stock to them gently. I poured the creamy eggs into the hot but not boiling soup to give it a nice creamy texture. This is a sort of variation on avgolemono soup without the rice. You can skip the lemons and finish the soup with cream or coconut cream. This soup is very versatile. I finished the soup by adding chopped chives at the last moment. The only other things I added were sea salt and freshly-ground pepper.
People used to be desperate for the first spring greens because they could not go to the grocery store and buy stale, pesticide-soaked greens from California and Mexico all winter. Having tried this soup, I think you only have to make it once to understand the value of these fresh, wild, spring greens. My husband loved the soup and the dandelions did not taste bitter at all.
Now, onto the seedlings. My propagation shelves are quite full and my greenhouse tables are filling up with seedlings. I took a friend in to the greenhouse to show her the seedlings and she asked me why I was blowing on them. A seedling in nature feels the wind shaking its stem. This causes the seedling to produce a hormone that strengthens its stem. Without this stimulus, the seedling grows a weak stem and falls over. In commercial greenhouses, I have seen people using fans and even a mechanical device to brush the seedlings.
As soon as the seedlings have their first true leaves, I begin to give them a weak fertilizer. I use human urine diluted with ten parts of water and I use seaweed tea. The plants love both brews and grow strong and stocky. To get human urine, pee into a bucket or purchase a Luggable Loo from Canadian Tire. It is a tall bucket with a toilet seat attached and you just pour the resulting urine into a watering can and top it up with water. Dahlias just love human urine. In fact, I cannot think of a plant that doesn’t like it: roses, geraniums, apple trees, squash. They all flourish on a diet of human urine which contains mostly nitrogen but it also has a little phosphorus for fruiting and flowering.
To make seaweed tea, soak some fresh or dried seaweed in a bucket of water for two or three days. Strain out the seaweed and put it in the compost bin. Water your plants and then give them a shot of seaweed tea. I use either brew especially when I am transplanting as it saves the plants from transplant shock. I did this when I was staying over on Hornby with a friend. The next morning, she was amazed at how robust the transplants were and has been using this trick ever since. Happy Gardening!
June 22nd, 2007
So in the course of finishing up our work at the hospice, it eventually came to pass that no more efforts were required outside landscaping. The only tasks remaining were within the old folks home itself. Something that I’ll admit I was actively avoiding for myself. I don’t know, I guess with Dad’s passing and that of Johnny’s as well, coupled with spending a sleepless night preparing a speech to be given at Johnny’s memorial, I was feeling a bit inundated with mortality. The idea of going into the hospice and seeing up close and personal, the frail and tired, aged just seemed to be more than I could take. But in the end there could be no more skirting the issue. What seemed to be of little consequence or noticeable recognition by the younger guys on the crew, and hence my willingness to allow them to foray into the hospice to assist Lloyd and the removal of old and dated furniture, was now for me to witness as I helped over the last hour to finish up the day. Going in on my own as the gang was upstairs on the third floor, I came upon an old man seated aside the elevator doors. As I awaited the arrival of the elevator car he began to ask me with a dismayed and wanting tone, where all of the televisions were going. As I hadn’t seen all that the fellows were extracting from the upper floors I found myself at a loss for an adequate answer. He proceeded to ruminate on the televisions. His tone and far off look to his eyes started to tear at my heartstrings. It was apparent to my eyes that we weren’t fully connecting within our brief conversational encounter. He may have been verging on senility but I was verging on discord for the multitude of thoughts that were crowding my mind.
Where were they going with all the t.v.’s?
By his count there were five that had walked out of the elevator doors past him, before my arrival at his side.
Didn’t he have a television?
Were they even televisions at all?
In a world that is constantly subjected to and undergoing change is it too much to ask that in our twilight years we might be afforded some insulation from the constant that begs our acquiescence throughout all of our adulthood? To see this withered old man who appeared too weak to move from his seat, exhausted from a life of chasing toys, then balls, then girls, then babies, then bills, then memories and finally age itself, it looked to my struggling eyes as though time was now chasing him. The tables turned. Only he wasn’t running. His weakened body confined to his chair by the main floor elevator as though he were a display. The rush of time pressing him in the oscillation of the guys as they went up empty handed and came down arms full. I had only seen chairs and bric-a-brac exit the building previously from where I had been working. No televisions by my count had come out but not everything that the guys were drawing out of the hospice was bound for the refuse bin where I was toiling. The front side parking lot was beginning to fill up with furnishings intended for another destination. One that might see their further utilization. Lamps still to be lit. Seats still to be sat. Dressers still to be filled with dress. Bookshelves still to shelve books. Perhaps even televisions still to be viewed. My heart began to ache for this elder. Must change continue to erode… everything? I would imagine that for the infirm occupants of this hospice, and any other, that change would not only be disturbing to their compromised abilities to cope with it but actively be warded against by those charged with their care. What I was seeing however, showed me otherwise. Time indeed was chasing this man, whether he liked it or not, realized it or not, and the constant that is change would sooner or later see this fellow’s residence change from a hospice to a cemetery. Utterly depressing to stare down though utterly unavoidable as well. For him, for me, for you, for the crew. Joking, laughing, working, gawking at the nurses, eating burgers and salmon, grinding out a jail bit, chasing life until death catches each and every one of us. And in the name of this nameless old man, I pray that when that time arrives we’ll each have our dignity, the love of our families and a freaking television!
So upstairs I eventually found and got to helping Lloyd and the guys remove the last vestiges of furnishings from the hallways and the rooms they led to. Lloyd I found to be quite friendly but hard to get a straight answer from. Yesterday I had asked him what the total yearly budget was to operate the hospice and he rather wistfully and somewhat bluntly replied, “millions.” Then I proceeded to to inquire as to how many occupants resided in the hospice and his answer was that there were five floors of rooms. It was then that I decided that he either didn’t know or was unwilling to convey such information to me so I dropped my pursuit of it.
The work was pretty much done by the time i joined the crew. I showed in time to watch Lloyd somewhat aimlessly or absentmindedly ducking into this room or that, that room then this, the others in tow. Standing at the convergence of four radiating wings, I waited for instruction as James Hudzicker was playfully propelling himself around in a wheelchair and the others halfheartedly conducted a search of the various rooms, almost as if looking for an exit. I decided to go into one of the rooms to sneak a look at the view, which happened to reach the waters of Nanaimo Harbour and Gabriola Island. Impressive. But as I turned back to face the empty room and return to the hallway it adjoined, I began to realize that the entire four wings were deserted. Not a soul up on the third floor besides ourselves. The entire four wings of floor number three empty, as if decommissioned. The end of the day was upon us and answers from Lloyd seemed moot to question. Room #3331 empty. No grandmother in room #3337. No tired patriarch in room #3346. Just flotsam and jetsam strewn about the floors of each empty space. The lifeless void of each room and their whispers of unheard stories leaving each more cluttered than when they were furnished and occupied. The shadows of the twilight years.
Who knew what the reason for the empty rooms were?
Where are the elderly of floor #3?
Why is the furniture being removed?
The other floors of the Malaspina Gardens Hospice were fully functioning. Part of me felt like pulling up a chair beside the old man on the main floor for inside I was equally dismayed and wanting for answers to my questions. The deserted rooms of floor number three seemed eerily foreboding of change.
Where are the televisions?
Where are the occupants of floor number three?!
While people can’t withstand change, nor too it seems can buildings. Hell, televisions likely won’t be able to withstand change forever either. Change. The one true constant, aside from time itself and being 2:30 pm, it was sadly yet also thankfully time to leave.
It’s time to stand our ground
The world is at war with itself
Divide and conquer
is the pandemic du-jour
We are cornered by events
we don’t understand
It’s been going on far too long
It’s still a beautiful world if only
they’d stop telling us it wasn’t
They won’t leave us alone
to live our lives
It’s been going on far too long
Fight, flight, freeze or fawn
are our choices
when peace is not allowed
Some are fleeing. To anywhere else
Some are freezing. It’s cold here
Some like to fawn. That’s our culture
Some are fighting. Peacefully
No to the deceit and greed
of the political class
It’s been going on far too long
Honesty and integrity
must be demanded
It’s time to stand our ground
2 22 24 the afternoon train
I was on the late afternoon train
with a drunk skinhead
who wrapped his tattooed baldness
in the chubby embrace of his puffy short arms
as he slept through the dull urbanity of the mainland
and I felt the shallow blandness of his culture
with a new level of melancholy
as if I were the spider
confined in his green ink web tattoo
never getting to taste the blood of a fly
or feel the hapless wiggle of a trapped grasshopper.
