reader. writer.

My weekly check-in, commenting on some of my favorite topics

What works

While this is a bit on the nose for me, I just have to mention the power of journaling, especially as self-coaching. Talking to myself in my journal helps me get focused and/or unpack what is getting in my way (spoiler: me, it’s me, I’m getting in my way). Even though the problems don’t vanish, working through them on paper helps open up room for me to get moving again.

What I’m reading

I’m actually reading three books right now, but one of them deserves a huge shout out: Robert Macfarlane’s Is A River Alive? The beginning moved slowly for me, though it had a lovely meditative quality. The more I read, the more I got into it. I just finished the first section, in which I felt transported to experience firsthand the estimated 1.5 million-year-old Los Cedros Cloud-Forest in Ecuador. Macfarlane then skillfully introduces lively individuals connected to the “thunderclap” ruling in 2021, when the Constitutional Court sided with the Rights of Nature against the mining companies. The ongoing political histories and environmental concerns hit home hard, and turned out to be exactly what I needed to be reading right now.

What I’m writing

I am still finding it helpful to search my draft by character name (or in one case, an object) to avoid inconsistencies and catch other concerns. 

Democracy, yes, please

I head out later today to take part in a nearby Good Trouble Lives On protest—even my protest posters are overly earnest, as today’s photo reveals. At the last march, another marcher asked me if I was a lawyer, perhaps because I listed all the terrible governmental actions I did NOT consent to. I’m also still digesting the burst of inspiration and insight from the #OneMillionRising zoom training last night, especially the reminder that we are all in this together.

A quote I like

“‘The timescales are that over one to ten years, maybe, mining pays. But what happens after that, when the mine is exhausted, when the company goes? What is left behind? Nothing. No life. This cannot happen in Los Cedros.’ He chops the edge of one hand into the palm of the other in emphasis.

I have a strong sense of embattlement: of siege having been methodically laid to this cloud-forest over many years—and of enemies still circling, out there in the darkness.” 

Robert Macfarlane’s Is a river alive?