This spring marks the one year anniversary of a pilot project to reach the youngest and oldest of our communities with opportunities to share knowledge through art, science, music and agriculture.
#PapalotlProject at Miramar Community Services
by Adrienne Chadwick (c) 2022
If you are or have recently attended a #PapalotlProject event, please take a moment to help measure our impact with your insights on seven short questions. If you are already signed into gmail, click the link below to complete the form online. Remember to hit "submit" at the end. If not, click here to complete. If you have any issues or need an alternative format, call or text your email address to 786-671-8272. #PapalotlProject Qs no gmail required. You can also have a friend or family member complete the form with you by scanning this code with a smartphone camera then clicking on "open in browser."
Your feedback is important to us and will be incorporated as we plan for the future.
Thank you!!
Funding for this project is provided in part by the Broward County Board of County Commissioners as recommended by the Broward Cultural Council. Sponsored in part by the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Arts and Culture and the Florida Council on Arts and Culture. Support has also been provided by the following funds at the Community Foundation of Broward: Helen and Frank Stoykov Charitable Endowment Fund, Louise and Rudi Dill Charitable Fund, Mary and Alex MacKenzie Community Impact Fund.
These photos were taken by Mictla Chadwick from the computer camera at the Lake Itasca Biological Field Station. It was an extremely novel tech innovation at the time in 2008 which he identified, implemented and taught us how to use. All other pics by TChadwick.
The prep materials (I still have these files available for anyone who wants to receive a copy of them!):
Mino dibikoong, Ikwaydoog:
Gaygayte wayeeba gi gah dagoshinamin owidi wayji jiwan misabe zeebing... michi zeebing...? Omah gahkawbeekong, oshkibagazeebing ayzhinidawdayg.
Thank you for registering for the Indigenous Womens Water Policy and Leadership Retreat!
Attached in this email, you will find:
A working agenda & What to bring
A series of maps to help you get there and find where we all will meet
A resource list of Water articles and activities that you can find on the internet *attached as footnote
A list of recommended readings
An extra copy of the flyer and registration form
Please go over these materials as soon as you can. If any one is interested in receiving any of the recommended readings to look over ahead of time, let me know and I will email them to you. Otherwise, we will have them available in hard copy and electronic format when we get there (I was hoping to send the whole file but it's 40 MB, too big for most email servers).
It is going to be a wonderful weekend, I am really looking forward to all of us spending time together in focus on what we will do to protect and nurture our common water.
Gigawabamin wayeeba!
Bawshkeeng Wabigun.
c. (612) 600-8272
Background work a few years earlier:
Boozhoo,
Ninduwaymawgunnidoog,
Omaw ni
kwudge itoon duh ozhibeeigay bugee ayzhi anokii duh ganawendawn nibi. Ni
kwudge itoon duh nisidotawn wah ikidoon ni nookomisun meenawah
nimishomisun. Ni migwetchiwayndawn ayzhi midewijig gizawgeein ni mama
akeeng. Mi ewe wah ni wi ikidoo noogoom. Meegwetch bizinduhwee'eg.
Bawshkeeng
Wabigun,
Wabiguneesun
ga onji odawdiseeyawn, Ginew indodaym
Neezho
mide indow.
Giganawendamin
Nibi - We must all take care of the Water
In the
Late Summer of 2005, Nugumoo Maingen (Sharon Day), Wabanew Quay (Dorene Day)
and Bawshkeeng Wabigun (Tara Chadwick) attended a manidoons (insect -
macroinvertebrate) training at the Leech Lake Water Lab. Lab director John Purcell provided a brief
introduction to macroinvertebrate sample analysis as a screening tool in water
quality monitoring and how to adapt this screening method to a multi
generational, community based audience.
A cultural training session was held at St. Paul's Como Lake with the
help of Bedawsegay (Josephine Mandahmin), lead organizer of the Mother Earth
Water Walk.
The
project is designed to build the knowledge capacity of Native American women to
test their own community waters, organize their families and communities to
address any toxic or pollution problems, and become active in holding tribal,
state and federal governments accountable to the environmental health of Native
communities, including ensuring continued access to safe, clean
water.
Collaborations
have been formed with environmental and health organizations and projects such
as the Minnesota Native American Council on Tobacco, the Chalchiutlicue
Environmental Project, the Women’s Environmental Institute and the Indigenous
Environmental Network. These developing
collaborations have provided considerable leverage to help raise awareness of
the urgent need to take action in protection of and community ownership of
water and water policy (as well as broader environmental causes and impacts) in
a variety of distinct and interrelated cultural communities in Minnesota and
internationally.
Although
organizing our own community and assessing community readiness to take on new
(ancestral) levels of commitment and communal responsibility has proven a greater
challenge than originally anticipated, the challenge has also revealed new
possibilities for creatively overcoming barriers to community
participation. The most important lesson
learned is that it is imperative to begin our organizing efforts with the people
whom we collectively already know; and to build on this constituency through
intentionally forming new relationships with people who have the potential
to develop into leaders of the movement to empower Native American women to
reclaim their ancestral responsibility as those who will ensure that clean
water will be available and accessible for their children and grandchildren
seven generations into the future.
Sometimes our time markers, memory markers all happen to converge. Today is one of those days. First day of school of the last year of middle school for my older son and the first day of kindergarten for the younger one.
Four and three quarters of a year past the completion of the bundle of years we know as the baktun cycle of the Mesoamerican calendar.
Our young people are getting healthy, standing up, using their voices. Unity is on the rise. It is definitely the beginning of an era.
Our ancestors across this continent had and continue to have many different ways of honoring the particular point in the infinite dance of our universe that we recognize today as eclipses. There are scrolls and charts, sculptures and symbols to account for the calculations of the passing of time and the various markers used to keep track of the many cycles we observe. In some cases, we don't know what types of ceremonies or commemorations were held, while in other cases, the ancient traditions are still practiced within vibrant cultural communities.
In my own pleuri-cultural family, lunar eclipses, like the phases of the moon that greet us every day of every month of every year, remain a special and sacred time of reflection, quiet contemplation, care and love. My grandmother would always stay up, notice, watch and sing a beautiful rendition of "big lady moon" in her low lullabye voice, while my grandfather would always join us for a moment, then retreat to his sleeping quarters. The instructions we are to follow as human beings remain clearly written on our hearts, we have only to clear our minds enough to follow them.
In the cities of our Maya ancestors, urban planners constructed cultural landscapes with central plazas in line with the location of the rising, setting and mid-day sun on the days of the summer and winter solstice. Some cities, known for their scientific prowess in tracking the cycles of the planets and starts, contain ancient observatories, perhaps they even functioned as building-sized pinhole cameras or camera obscura.
In 1979 when I was six years old, I attended a Miami-Dade County public school called Comstock Elementary. I loved my reading book, "It Happened This Way," featuring a pink flamingo who had swallowed a pretzel on the front cover. I hated the standardized testing I was introduced to that year. I loved earning cheeze it cracker treats from my teacher by sitting quietly when it was rest time. And I remember the day all the teachers were worriedly reminding us not to look up at the sun. It was Miami's last total solar eclipse, and my most memorable day of school, ever. Kudos to all the teachers, principals and administrators who will do their best to ensure that no kids get solar blindness on their watch today.
As for me, I'm going to take a deep breath, take a few moments to reflect, and prepare to welcome in the start of a new era... maybe, hopefully, the sun will shine on our people once more....
For parents and everyone the advent of Summer inevitably brings along with it a string of seasonal wonders and a certain set of challenges, scheduling changes, and out of school time activities to determine and implement.
For me and my family this summer was no different. There was camp to organize. Summer trips to consider. Summer work schedules to juggle. And the age-old question of what to do with a teenager, camp, work, volunteer, or couch potato?
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I don't think you ever know as a parent whether you're making good decisions at any given time. You can only ever do your best to consider all the options and Hippocratically hope that at the very least your choices do no harm to your children.
And so it is that we model through the beauty and Heat that is the south Florida summer in search of shade from the intense sunshine and splashes of 85 degree water which we consider cool.
The search for balance is epic and continual. Just as you think you've got things figured out, something else happens to make you start from scratch.
Marie Huntley, aka Ms. Peaches is a force to be reckoned with in the Sistrunk community of Fort Lauderdale. An extremely talented singer, doer and community historian, Ms. Peaches is one of those people who is alway encouraging good stuff to happen in her neighborhood.
I've been thinking a lot about stories, storytelling, history and how we each find inspiration and encouragement to keep going in times of difficulty, and to go as far as we can in times of joy... about how we can see mirrors of our story in the histories of others... and how important our stories are, to ourselves, our families, and our communities. Together, our stories are our true history.
So often, we tell versions of history that have been learned from books, or elders, or the land and geographies that we've come through... but every once in a while, we get to reflect, and tell a little bit of the story that comes through us, from our own life experience. It is these nuggets of light, understanding, memory and insight that I find most impactful when listening to the words people share.
So, in the spirit of reclaiming our own narratives, telling our own stories, and with the encouragement of Ms. Peaches... here goes:
My story begins in the hearts of the continents we now know as America, Africa and on that island we now call the UK. My heartbeat began in the womb of a woman who survived a thousand wars, over six continents, from a seed planted by the grandson of a hunter who'd been on his island for almost a million years.
My parents remain one of the most unlikely odd couples to make it through 45 years of marriage in the most dire of social realities. One of the things they had in common was that they were both immersed in the lifestyle of 1950s anglican ministry. My mother talks about attending church sponsored after school activities every single day of the week. My father was an altar boy, though I don't ever remember his mother, my grandmother speak about church, except for christenings, weddings and funerals. But for all their early involvement in church, almost all my early memories are of being with my parents at parties, gatherings and outside on the land, either in the back yard, on a beach or near a river. I spent almost all my summers either scouring the Scarborough Bluffs or scampering up the steps of the Maya "pyramids" and sometimes, both! I didn't play video games or even board games, really, my toys were twigs, flowers and found objects. And my favorite pass time was sauterning along the edges of the water and the wilderness... in that respect, not much has changed.
My earliest memory of school is walking along the fence, picking up sticks, and using them to play the chain links like a piano, listening to the different sounds the metal would make depending on the size, length and width of each stick. I still remember a few of the songs and poems I learned in pre-school. My mother tells me that once, when I was four, we were walking in "The Guild Inn" and she couldn't find me anywhere... only to look around a large boulder to find me teaching a group of German tourists my favorite nursery school song, and they were singing it too, despite the fact that they spoke no English, nor I German. Art and teaching are in the blood. My mom and dad met teaching, I spent a year living with my Aunt while she was an art and history teacher, my sister taught art and, despite my mothers advice to the contrary, I also taught math and social studies through art for 7-12 graders. My passion now, though, is community based education. Those formal and informal learning opportunities we place in front of folks to learn something new, whether they thought they wanted to know or not. This translates well to a variety of interests, like community outreach, social media, museums, health, wellness, prevention programming and community building.
The work my mother put in to making sure that I know as fully as possible who I am propelled me to pursue a career in anthropology, archaeology, art and wellness. At the tender age of 17, I won an entrance scholarship to York University in my hometown of Toronto. Working my way through college, I spent my summers at the Government of Belize's Department of Archaeology, and winters working part time at the front desk of the Royal Ontario Museum and as a research assistant to Dr. Elizabeth Graham. I had so many wonderful women helping me learn during these adolescent years: Pauline Shirt, Deanna Sheridan, Sadie Buck, and the late Shirley Shilling & Irma Martin, just to name a few of the feminine forces that helped shape my world.
Eventually, once I finally graduated, I went back to the Belize Department of Archaeology to work as staff Museologist/ Curator as part of the Maya Area Sites Development Programme. When that grant funded project was complete, I took what I thought would be a two month break to spend time with my aging grandparents back in Toronto. That break led to an unexpected two year apprenticeship with one of Indian Country's most well known educators, Dr. Edward Benton Banaise. At the conclusion of working to help develop (and name) his most recent publication: Anishinabe Almanac, I once again thought I'd be heading home to my mother's land in Mesoamerica. This time, it was the opening of a community based school chartered specifically to teach Native American youth through an integrated arts approach that kept me grounded in the Midwest. It would be another 13 years before I finally got the call from my mother that it was time I returned to their chosen home halfway between Mesoamerica and the Great Lakes: The Greater Everglades region, right here in #OurMiramar.
So after earning my Bachelor of Arts Degree, being made Midewiwin, earning my Mexica traje, and working alongside some of the very best educators, historians, community builders and storytellers, I packed up the treehouse apartment, and headed back to the Sunshine State. That was four years ago now. I've completed all my life goals, except one: to relearn one of my ancestral Maya languages. I know words here and there, from the study of archaeology and danza, but to be able to string those together in a sequence, to speak thought into being through language, my language... that is the one thing I have yet to do on this earth... hopefully before it's time for me to return my borrowed bag of bones to the Mother Earth from whence they were constructed.
We all come to this conscious part of Earth with a gift and for a purpose. Mine is to be as fully who I am as I can. It's a journey that I'm still on, still struggling with every day, and also one in which I find great joy and satisfaction. I hope that sharing this small piece of who I am will help to encourage someone out there to pursue their passion a little further, persevere a little longer and reach a little higher, for what we aspire to is what we are here to do.
#MesoamericanDanza presentation at Treehugger Organic Farms
Today we said our farewell to a piece of land that has sustained us and our community here in South Broward County for the past 4 years... a permaculture oasis in the midst of the concrete jungle we know as South Florida, east of the Everglades... a local food sanctuary known as Treehugger Organic Farms, now listed as permanently closed on your google GPS mapping system.
It was a bittersweet walk through the daikon radishes, lesser known banana species, greens, fruit trees, birds and butterflies. This farm felt like home, that safe place you can go to for peace, quiet, and tenderly cared for oceans of green.
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There was a food forest on a mulch hill, a coconut grove interspersed with comfrey plants, florida nopalitos, tumeric and ginger, a spring fed pond that supplies water to the farm, and rotating fields of boniato, tomato, kale, collards, mustard, fennel, spinach, beans, millet, sugar cane, and just about everything in between.
One day after the mega #PeoplesClimateMarch in several cities, and on the eve of #InternationalWorkersDay, it seemed like a huge mountain to move. The reality of agricultural land tenure here in Florida is that access to farmable land is unstable, market based, and temporary. In reflecting, I realize that personally, I subscribe more to the Haudenosaunee approach to land management whereby we humans are responsible to protect, nurture and strengthen the land/ soil/ earth, on behalf of it's only true owners, that generation of unborn children who has not yet arrived here via the miracle we know as birth.
Miami Herald photo by Al Diaz
What a timely consideration given the fact that I am, for the first time in my life, the biological auntie to one of these not-yet-born owners of the earth. But in the volatile market economy that most of us are engaged within by choice or necessity, land is but a commodity, like humans once were, to be bought, sold and traded at the will of those who believe themselves to be in positions of power over others.
But this momentary twinge of grief in losing a space in which to enjoy the company of others, and ourselves in the company of Mother Earth and her pretties, is just a reminder that in fact we are owners of nothing, but rather bearers of ideas, thoughts, insights, and the potential to seed a new generation of humans with the capacity to return to a life steeped in nature, health and harmony with the cycles of all living beings including the soil, rock, sand and oil that make up the material we know as earth.
From north to south on this part of our continent, March is the beginning of the time when the waters begin to flow freely again over the surface of the earth, be they melting fresh, salt or sap. World Water Day, International Rivers Day and World Water Week fall within this time, as does the beginning of the flow of life giving maple sap in the northern climates of the eastern woodlands, my birth land.
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Like wise, as beings of the water, we were busy this month, being who we are, remembering from whence life flows... in fact, as we write, there is a four day walk for the rights of mother earth happening right here in greater Miami led by two of the indigenous people that take care of this part of the earth. They are walking to the Miami Commission meeting on April 4th to bring attention to the need for all of us to make decisions that will result in a positive impact for the earth and all of the beings who live amongst us.
May this flow of life continue throughout our season, our year, and the bundle of years that we know as an era. Stand up kind and gentle soldiers, our time to heal one another of our anger, apathy and bad decision making is now. Let us work togther to make a place that is safe for our children.
... I had just returned from my second summer of working with Institute of Archaeology (NICH) Belize to squeeze in what would be my last family vacation (to date at least). We had driven over to Sanibel Island, FL and explored the beautiful west coast of our home state. Upon the weather reports, we rushed back across Alligator Alley, Everglades, Fl to encounter a whole line of cars heading in the opposite direction.
Our hurricane prep had to be kicked into high gear, with only a few short hours until the predicted landfall. It was by far the scariest night of my life. Uncertainty. Humility. Unknowing. When in the midst of a natural disaster we are wholly and completely in the hands of mother nature. Eventually the sun rose again, and by noon the waters in our neighborhood had receeded. Having survived with our home more or less intact, we gingerly ventured out to survey the effects.
Of course there was no electricity. Or running water at first. But these services were restored within several hours to several days in our area. The olive trees were all down, uprooted, laying sideways on the ground. Electrical wires dangled dangerously throughout the neighborhood like strewn jump ropes. The park was a complete mess. But the most difficult part of all was the complete absence of communication with our family in the Homestead area. No phone. Internet did not yet exist for us, nor did cell phones. Land lines were inoperable. And we had no access to television because our electricity had not yet been restored... Those were the most difficult days, hours that seemed like months.
Once the electricity finally came back on and we were able to view the #TV #Broadcast coverage of the storm damage... we could not believe what we saw. Complete and utter destruction. Telephone poles snapped like toothpicks. Trees completely denuded of branches and foliage. Houses, apartments and businesses in ruin, reduced to a messy pile of concrete and wood from which they were constructed. That had been my first experience in a serious hurricane, there were many close calls before, but this... this was a direct hit and a hard one. Many families lost everything in that storm. We began to see the incredible destruction that the southern parts of #Miami had sustained, and unable to contact any of our family members, my dad and I loaded up water, blankets, food and first aid supplies and headed out. We were going on a search and rescue mission, not knowing what to expect or what we would find. It started out okay, more trees down, electrical wires hanging... but as we drove further south, the landscape began to change. This familiar route became more and more foreign to me. Housing complexes crashed in from the top. Areas once covered with tree canopy looking like open savannah. The #MiamiZoo campus, with its new aviary, completely unidentifiable.
Once we got off the highway, which had been somewhat cleared of the debris, crumpled metal signs and their poles had been moved out of the center lane onto the shoulder. It was even hard to know where to get off, the landmarks were all missing. The short journey from the highway to the neighborhood where my mothers grandmother lived was the most difficult part of all. There were command centers set up, long lines of people looking disheveled. Soldiers handing out water. As we got closer it seemed to get more difficult to figure out where we were. At this point, there were no trees in sight. Not a single leaf anywhere. Many homes we passed were in various states of collapse, yards were littered with random debris, aluminum siding, patio furniture, buckets. We finally managed to locate the house. It too was bare of trees, foliage, just the trunk of the giant avocado stood behind as a sentinel of sorts... but the house was still standing! We found a clear spot to park. Got out. And the door opened! I was so happy and relieved to find my three grandmothers all alive and relatively well. There were parts of the house that were in shambles, roof busted, but they were okay. We brought in the food, water, and supplies that we'd brought. Dad got to work with the chainsaw, clearing fallen trees from the driveway. And honestly, I don't even remember the ride home! All I know is that I was really happy that our search and rescue mission was successful. The rest is #history....
Watching the spiral of the seasons change fly by at gale force speed; reflecting on thirty years of work in the field of museums, education and community building; ten years since the water forum in Mexico; feeling gleeful and daunted by that double four approaching just one equinox away...
The struggle of life is a good one, seems that we're always headed up hill, but that's how it is when you're engaged in the process of building, constructing, however, wherever it's possible to carve out a little space for equity, dignity, dialogue and learning.
It's tough at times, intentionally participating in this collaborative venture to prevent oblivion with the few hundred ties we have to other members of this human species we proudly belong to...
And then there are times just like this moment, when in the process of making new connections, you come to realize how delicious it is to enjoy the tattered, frayed imperfection of those old and older relationships that have been there all along.
This month as I attended the annual Baron Bliss Day (aka Heroes and Benefactors Day) gathering of the Belize Association of Florida, I watched the older heads come in, with their grown kids, grand kids and great grands... and I watched my kids play with them the same way I used to play in my day... and suddenly I remembered my spot on the living room floor, folding letters and stuffing envelopes at just about the same age my pre-teen son is now. The memory was so sudden and vivid and it brought back a host of others... of floats & banners, buttons & beads...
The next day I checked the database... 30 years it's been since that moment! The Belize Association has been an active part of the South Florida community and the Belizean Diaspora for thirty years this year. That's my formative training. Do what you must to build something. Make the time. Find the resources. Keep it going. Make it happen. I am so glad that I happened to be here this year. To remember. To appreciate. To mark the anniversary of this work that my mom, dad and their friends did to build something for our community.
Of course, now... the question is... "what will I do..." #laluchasigue
Just a few short words this month - early for a change - because they want to be said now. Here's what happened today at work. I was there a bit earlier than usual - it was my first day of tour listening and we knew we'd have a sizeable group to prep for. After a bit of running to and fro, a glint caught my eye and to my dismay, I saw a beautiful irridescent spotted butterfly fall to the ground just outside the replica of Fort Lauderdale's first school house. I froze in my tracks - worried that I'd inadvertently squished it. However, as my internal frames-per-second slowed down, I took the time to see what was happening in the micro habitat of this hopefully-not-squished butterfly.
To my relief and delight, the swish of my skirt had not squished the butterfly's guts out, but had knocked a recently hatched atala and its chrysalis - to which it was clinging - off the coontie plant that is their home. Upon further observation of the tiny neighborhood - I was treated to a beautiful surprise. What I had stumbled across was an urban neighborhood of #atala butterflies in both pre and post hatching phases of their life cycle.
These butterflies I knew were special because I had heard about them last year and how they are making a remarkable recovery from the brink of human - induced extinction. For anyone who's read my past work, interest in insects should come as no surprise. But to see a whole microcosm of atala life... with their beautiful sparkly wing spots and that remarkable red thorax... just a most incredible gift to witness. And I am so thankful!
Then after the noon day sun began to recede, I realized my second incredible gift of the day. I was standing on the boardwalk overlooking the wetland trail at Miramar Pinelands. As the soft shell turtles swam over and the waxing moon tipped over the shallows... I remembered that this too was an ecosystem in regeneration - restored to its historical contours and hydrological morphology as closely as possible. By returning the land to the way it was at the time of the first European settlements, the ecosystem has been able to regenerate itself - naturally returning turtles, fish, frogs, foxes, ospreys, even an eagle and untold numbers of insects... (See my Miramar Pinelands media set on facebook)
These two distinct yet comparable success stories in human conservation and restoration practices are just what the doctor ordered in my current, not-so-stress-free analysis of what we need to do to get back to basic respect of each other and this beautiful garden we have the luxury and responsibility to live in and care for. No matter how many cool space travel pics NASA releases, as humans, we are still bound to this earth in a trust relationship with our future generations that we need to seriously reflect on and start acting like responsible adults.
We may move slowly at times - but it is truly wondrous to see the fruit of an unfulfilled childhood dream come to life before your eyes - that is the miracle we call life unfolding around us each and every moment - if we just slow down enough to notice.
Yes, I'm a somewhat slow learner... not growing up a religious person per se, I'm just beginning to see the links between the Winter Carnival that I heard so much about in Quebec, the Saint Paul Winter Carnival we love so much, the Mardi Gras of New Orleans and Carnival of Rio and Trinidad that is now celebrated so vehemently in Belize, Miami-Broward, Toronto and throughout the Caribbean.
It's incredible to see the emergence of such amazingly vibrant colors and textures on incredible engineering designs expressing sailors, flowers, fire, birds, butterflies and bugs! Trinidad Carnival Queen Competition For the first time, I'm learning the history of carnival and connections to cultural, ecological traditions marking the scientific cycles of seasons change. Even the correlation between Valentine's Day and carnival traditions are surprisingly relevant to our increasing desire to play mas.
Agriculture. That basic necessity for food and water is at the root of what still drives our motivation to participate in community even today.
So in an effort to ensure that our access to safe and healthful food and water will improve rather than deteriorate, we take notice and action on current events and steps to the future. Clean water is one of those primary building blocks of life. Right now, it's our responsibility to clean up our mistakes, and train ourselves for a future that protects water as a basic right of humans and the natural world.
Obviously, besides air, food is the next basic element that we need. And to protect our food requires us to fully comprehend and defend the complex and interconnected systems that contribute to our ability to access safe, healthy food. Pollinators. Climate. Biodiversity. Hydrology. Harvest. Distribution. Seeds.
These are milkweed seeds. We brought them to last week's Martin Luther King Day Parade and celebration. Because these seeds represent a human decision to take action. In this case, action on behalf of one family to encourage others to replant this single source of monarch caterpillar food. That butterfly that is now endangered due to habitat loss and pesticide pollution. That plant ecosystem that once sustained aphids, ladybugs, ants and butterflies... that no longer exists as expanses of fields holding fuel for the seventh generation of monarch before their great annual journey south and north across this great continent... I remember those many, many monarchs... gathering like orange maple leaves changing over a frosty late summer evening on the north shore of Lake Ontario... And I intend to see the day when my children get to witness those monarchs en masse, following the cycles on a path to safe, clean food and water across the lap of our beautiful earth mother once again.
Each cycle is a transition... and life is a series of cycles... birth, growth, expansion, contraction, transition... and repeat...
Here's an oldie but goodie: "Reflections on the Reef" from Tobacco Caye back in 1998...
Thinking about that possibility of a multiverse - not the TV or satellite or gaming cube... but the mathematical, astrophysical, scientific concept of infinite universes...
Kinda makes sense, logically. And really puts a focus on how much our actions, choices and impacts really boil down to: what is it that is so important to me that I can make no other decision other than to take this path right here.
Subjective, yes perhaps. Lacking critical analysis... maybe. Considered rebellious by the mainstream population... most likely. But if we are careful to include continual critical analysis in our daily life habits, then the points at which we have the opportunity to take action will necessarily reflect an ongoing critical perspective.
Wellness is a state of balance that is constantly in motion... wobbling, either perceptively or not, between the range of possible extremes.
And so, we vow to continue on... and jump in to another cycle, with reverie, resoultions and respect for our own self discovery as individuals in relationship with families, communities, organizations and other individuals all over this beautiful land and infinite interspace...
It is upon us again... that time of year that comes with the official end and beginning of all things transformative in the subtropical paradise we know as south eastern Florida. Folks from the mid latitudes tend to think of this place as the South... little do they realize that perched on the edge of this peninsula... the trading happens in over 60 languages, across all seven continents, and if they were to look at their own achievement, health and equity gaps... they'd realize that the North is way more southern than south eastern Florida.
Photo credit: Yours truly
Nope we're more of a portal. The northern most tropical port in an interconnected continental divide that is rooted in 100,000 years of genetic memory carrying biological migration patterns that awaken in us like hormones in the endocrine system of a healthy young 12 year old. Like the karst and marine atoll topography thirstily absorbing minerals flowing south through the rivers, rivers of grass filtering out nitrogen, bringing in the memories of an ancient and distant volcano... if we sit for a moment and ponder... we realize we will never forget. Who we are. Who's come by. How we are related. What we must do.
Like every ant, beetle and spider, our ever so humble task:
Pass the torch. Continue the spark. Remember. Understand. Learn. Keep going.
Just a little stream of consciousness blogging this time - it's my birthday month after all! And that beautiful time of year when I get to enjoy avocados from the tree so generously planted by my mother in our almost non-existant back yard! It's amazing what you can grow, even with very little space. The eggplants that sewed from seed at the start of summer have blossomed all month, but not a single fruit. The leaves are beauties though - not sure why no one has them as houseplants! Maybe they're like squash and it takes a human touch to ensure pollination...
So many thoughts, so little time. One of the most exciting highlights of the month was seeing the bald eagle again across the street. Signs of hope. Hopefully. And of course knowing that we've entered a new era, according to the count of the moon. New is always good, at least if it's all natural - by the way, it may not be actually, if there's a label involved....
Okay, so now that I'm feeling all shy and embarrassed for providing a short glimpse into the raw, unedited mind of me... I'll close for now... Enjoy the beauty of the season!
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