The Magical Month of March: Whiz... Blurrr... Wheee...!

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

News Reel on Baron Bliss Day at Belize Association of Florida (minute 1:12 - 1:34)

On Preservation & Restoration

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.

Carnival!

Carnival Season is here.

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.

Milkweed seeds by Adrienne Chadwick

That's it for 2015!

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...


Tara's Year in Review

Cheers!

The Season....

Photo credit: Jeff Holmes

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.

No matter what, keep going.

So that is what we must do.

That is what we will do.

What I will do.

Keep going.

Photo credit: Adrienne Chadwick

Open hearts

Hard to believe a month has gone by... I'm gonna start out on a brave note, with a little bit of stream of consciousness writing again... vulnerability...

Well the thing is, it's becoming so clear how in sharing our stories, those most personal of feelings, the ones we sometimes find difficult or uncomfortable sharing with others, are the very ones that bring us such profound healing and connectivity... it's in those most special and meaningful spaces that we find the healing, the truth, the things that allow us to see ourselves in each other...

And those are the elements of true community building... the lasting stuff that relationships are built on, those kinds of bonds that are strong, lasting and as flexible as a spider web in a storm.

So much seems to be happening right now in the micro and macrocosm world around us, sometimes it feels difficult to keep up with all the changes that are happening. And yet all that change produces relatively little difference in the big picture, in the long term.

One of the interesting parts of living in a diverse urban area is that if or when one encounters the opportunity to share stories between cultures, the roots of many of our historical and contemporary experiences reveal uncanny likeness in experience and impact.

This month I was honored to work with the Broward County Public School Board on an intensely impactful art project encouraging anonymous personal reflections around the process of achieving equity in diversity.  A magnificent question for our particular geographic and demographic locale where no majority cultural, ethnic or racial group exists... here in the present, we are a reflection of the future.

It was so beautiful and also jarring to see a snapshot of what our educators and administrators may not be able or willing to share verbally as a matter of daily or even periodic conversation.  They were deeply personal "thought selfies" with identifying characteristics absent.

TRUTH.  FREEDOM. EQUITY.  In Action.

The process of co-facilitating the collaborative creation of the thought-quilt was quite spectacular in itself. The practice of engaging in art making, placing one's thoughts into action, the bravery of stating one's truth... each was incredibly varied in the approach, the level of comfort, and the amount of time each collaborator was willing to invest - if even they invested at all.

The end results of the collaborative work...well - the results in-process, or to-date... speak for themselves in attesting to the beauty, integrity and strength that is possible when we are able to share willingly, with our hearts open....

Florida Fall

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!

Bawshkeengwabigun.