A message I received early this morning from Starcross Community in Sonoma County, California

Dear Friends of Starcross, We think there is something our friends should know. It was a hot evening, Wednesday, August 14, 2019, when a peaceful group of almost 500 people with NEVER AGAIN ACTION gathered to demonstrate outside of the Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls, Rhode Island. Since March 2019 local activists have been calling for the closure of this private, quasi-public prison that has been acting as an ICE detention center for hundreds of immigrants. On Wednesday, just before 10 pm a truck, unprovoked, swerved forcefully toward a line of protesters who were seated peacefully blocking the entrance to the facility parking lot, singing songs and talking. The driver was identified as a captain of the corrections employees of the Wyatt Detention Center. He drove into the group—sending people screaming and scattering for their safety.  The truck jolted forward again, hitting some folks, while other protesters gathered to surround the vehicle. Some moments later, the driver of the truck was joined by other correctional employees who came from inside the facility, to confront and forcefully move out of the way those who were a part of the nonviolent civil disobedience. In a mere matter of minutes, people were suddenly and unexpectedly pepper sprayed by the guards as protesters scrambled to flee the immediate area. Many were affected as people fell to the ground in pain. Several individuals needed to be taken to the hospital—one for an injured leg and all for extreme effects from the debilitating pepper spray.  All were later released. This news has been carried internationally by the BBC along with national news outlets, such as NPR. Brother Toby says he is sickened by how close the event in Rhode Island came to the 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, where a participant drove a car over and back over nonviolent counter-demonstrator, Heather Heyer, murdering her. Among these peaceful protesters were two of Starcross’ long-time friends and advisers, Cathy and Lee Clasper-Torch. Lee is an ordained minister and a retired professor of Religion and Philosophy, who works closely with civil disobedience and nonviolent action groups in Rhode Island. Cathy is a professional musician, and daughter of Paul Clasper, a friend who was instrumental in the establishment of Starcross half a century ago. He was someone who was greatly influenced by his many years living in Asia, building bridges between Western and Eastern spirituality, a path Cathy and Lee have followed. Their daughter Chloe, has recently begun working here with us at Starcross. In the days following this news, Lee and Cathy wrote to us, sharing their experiences. Lee, who was hit by the pepper spray in an attempt to protect others explained,  “We were there in large part on behalf of the children.” Cathy added, “We'll all be there again.  I feel so strongly that our presence, now as Elders and keepers of so many memories/so much cultural knowledge and experience, have an important role to play simply in presence and witness.” Just before the demonstration on Wednesday, August 14th, Aaron Regunberg a young organizer of the movement, and former Representative for the State of Rhode Island, wrote about the upcoming protest at the Wyatt Detention Facility, “Once, a young girl wrote in her diary, “Terrible things are happening outside. At any time of night and day, poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes… Families are torn apart: men, women and children are separated. Children come home from school to find their parents have disappeared.” It sounds like this could have been written in 2019. But it wasn't - it was written by Anne Frank in 1943. That's why we are coming together on Wednesday to repeat that Never Again means Never Again for everyone.” In next Friday’s reflection Brother Toby is asking, “Has America reached the point where it doesn’t really care about its kids anymore?” It’s clear that while there are many in power who do not, there are a multitude among us, that care very, very much. This is a time when we must speak up, speak out, and in solidarity with protesters as those did last Wednesday evening in Rhode Island, and with many people around our nation, who assert,  “Never Again means Never Again for everyone.”

We are in a crisis and it doesn’t seem as if its getting better. We may all feel ourselves, where our friends Cathy and Lee were on the 14th. It’s important to remember that we are not alone. As St. Francis would have closed, “Pax et bonum” -- Peace and all good things to you.”

Then this appeared in my email box: https://soundcloud.com/brainpicker/wendell-berry-questionnaire-amanda-palmer

Josephine's mandalas: #4 of 21

11/2/89

(Shevat 15)

(For Tu Bishvat 02/10/90)

Trees are forever

(Click on the image for additional details)

Today I'm going to try something different.  I'm going to give a good look at my mother's 4th mandala and then take a walk and think about her mandala and then finish this blog post.  I'll be back in about an hour.

*

My mother rode horses when she was in her 20s and early 30s.  She did yoga in her 40s and tai chi in her 70s, but walking was not part of her life as far as I know.  My mother was a reader.  She traveled all over the world through books and magazines and films and television.

As I was walking in Whatcom Falls Park, which is deeply forested, I thought about the trees my mother drew on her 4th mandala and wondered if that was a tree from her childhood and what it meant to her.

The photo above may have been taken on her 7th birthday (April 30, 1923) in St. Paul, Minnesota.  While I was walking this morning I remembered the photo.  Until today, I would have said that she was standing next to her house in St. Paul, but looking at the photo now, I am guessing that she is in a public place -- maybe a park, maybe on church property.  Checking with the perennial calendar, I see that her birthday was on a Monday in 1923.  Perhaps the photo was taken at her school, although she does look as if she is dressed for church.  My guess is that her father took the photo.

My father planted two cherry trees side by side in our backyard in Redwood City.  I wonder if my mother asked him to plant them.  My father had planted an apple tree in another section of that backyard. When I was quite young and our family traveled from California to Minnesota, I remember an apple tree in the backyard of the house where my grandmother was still living after my grandfather had died.  I distinctly remember watching ants climbing on the tree.  I wanted to climb the tree but was discouraged from doing that.

My parents' home in Gualala was in Redwood country on the California's north coast, and my father planted a variety of evergreens on their property which previously had been a treeless grassy bluff.  I imagine, though, that there were lovely flowering trees in and around the town of Gualala in the spring.

I wonder if she had been thinking about the pink flowering almond tree that Thich Nhat Hanh writes about in his book The Energy of Prayer: How to Deepen Your Spiritual Practice:

It was in November of 1989 that my mother created this mandala. November on the north coast of California can be something like summer here in the Pacific Northwest.  My memory is that there are flowers blooming all year in Gualala.  My mother was blooming in her 70s.

I just noticed the pink branches with dark flowers that are branching from the pink curved line at the bottom part of the mandala.

Below are some of the flowers that are just beginning to bloom on my porch today:

Here is Josephine's great grandson, Pablo, who is almost two months old.  That must be my nephew holding him:

Pablo is looking up at something in much the way my mother was when she stood next to that flowering tree in St. Paul, Minnesota, when she was 7 years old.

Trees are forever.

KOAN? WHAT WAS YOUR HOME BEFORE YOU WERE BORN?

I saved the above three recent photos from a webcam in Sausalito, California because, for the first time, I noticed birds in the photos. There have certainly been birds in the images before, but I just didn't see them. If you click on the photos, the birds are easier to see. In the third image, there is a group of birds, silhouetted in the sky above the skyline, which might be pelicans. I'm not really sure if the object in the sky in the second image is a bird.

As I was looking more closely at the cityscape, I suddenly realized that as long as I have been stopping in to look at this webcam on a daily basis, it had never occurred to me that on the left side of the photo is the Marina District, which suffered major damage during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and is where my parents lived in an apartment before I was born. The landlord for that apartment building didn't allow children and, right after I was born, my parents moved down the San Francisco Peninsula to another apartment in San Mateo.

I can say that the Marina District was my "home" in the nine months before I was born in a city named after St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals, birds and the environment.

I've always been fascinated with photos taken before the Golden Gate Bridge was built. For those not familiar with San Francisco, the Golden Gate Bridge is out of sight on the right side of the webcam photos. The San Francisco Bay Bridge, badly damaged in the 1989 earthquake, is visible at the far left side of the photos.

I've been living almost a thousand miles from that "home" for almost all of my adult life.

"I'm out here a thousand miles from my home . . . "
(from "Song to Woody," by Bob Dylan, 1962)