The Forest is Femme
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The Forest is Femme

forest

I am ensconced in my new gable nook, my rincón, soaking in the light from an artificial sun, and looking at four framed little forest poems that were given me after my initiation. And I realized something I had known all along, but had never verbalized to myself.

The forest is feminine. Female. Dark and dangerous in so many cultures. Full of mystery, unknown paths, wild beings and creatures, and home to solitary witches and wise women of story.

So much of our culture sees the forest only as something to use. I bore the title of forester and fought against that view of the forest for 25 years. I saw myself not as a Steward of the forest, but rather as a Servant. And when necessary, a Scythe. 

And I saw up close the men (mostly, though not all) who see the forest as something to take from, rather than as a spirit to befriend. They all had powerful arguments for why their way was best for the forest.

“We must protect forests in exactly the degraded and unhealthy state the past has brought them to. It is hubris to think that mere humans could heal some of the injuries they inflicted in the past.” 

Or, “The climate emergency is the only thing we can afford to think of. Whatever other things we might have been doing with forests before must stop, so that we can use the forest to produce as much biomass from carbon as possible. Water quality, wildlife habitat, recreation, and even spiritual values must be sacrificed on the altar of carbon.”

Or, “Forests must serve humanity. We must reward forest owners who meet even their most basic needs, while allowing them to take what they want: timber, water, wildlife, fresh air. And the State must also own forests, managing them to serve the interests of the voting public so the everyday citizen can use forests for recreation too.”

All of these arguments treat a forest as a thing, or a place. As an other to be enslaved and used. And not as a being, not as a manifestation of spirit. Anyone who has worked with forests instead of simply working in forests knows that she is both. The forest is a woman. The trees are her bones, the leaves her hair. She gathers a skirt of soil around her roots, weathers rocks, and composts life to extract elements. She breathes in carbon for her bones, and drinks in the rains to soak her soil and water her trees. She was born when a change in micro-climate allowed the first trees to immigrate to the fields or marshes or tundra where she grew. And inevitably, she will die. Either destroyed and replaced with more humans and their structures, or becoming some new natural community not dominated by trees.

The forest is a woman. She has changed since her earliest days when the first trees started growing on the tundra and taiga of a receding glacier or the loess deposited on a still-cooling volcanic island or any of the other ways that trees took hold in a new place. Once enough trees had migrated to an area, they made it their own. They created new microclimates to support their favored microbes and insects and plants and animals. Individual trees became an ecosystem, and the forest awoke.

The forest is a woman. Our society thinks mostly about how they can use her. How she can serve them. What they can take from her. We know better. We know that enslaving a forest is no more ethical than enslaving another person. We know that the forest is spirit. The forest is a being. The forest is a woman. 

And so we learn to listen instead of speak. We learn that trying to make the forest live at the speed of human thought will kill her. Her thoughts move over centuries and millennia. We need to slow down in order to meet her midway. We need to buffer her the best we can from the catastrophically rapid changes we are making in the world. We need to treat her and her sisters as the most treasured beings in our region. We must learn to offer friendship instead of extracting resources, become neighbors and friends instead of colonizers and pillagers.

The forest is a woman. 

And I am too.

-Rowan Hawthorne (she/her)

Rowan Hawthorne shares her corner of the world with her wife, the wood between the brooks, songbirds, ravens, turkeys, bears, coyotes, bob cats, white-tailed deer, rabbits, foxes, a small spruce bog, and some lovely rock outcroppings.

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Forest Cat Clan, Twilight Covening

Editor’s note: Though Forest Cat Clan was not proposed for 2025, Tchipakkan’s thoughts here are a fitting example of what happens in one of the clans at Twilight Covening each October.

While the world is sometimes dangerous and human bodies fragile, we are stronger together. I feel this is at the core of Twilight Covening. We share our strengths, and become more than we are as individuals.

I identify as a healer (as well as soothsayer and artist), but would rather teach someone how to heal themselves and others than simply heal them. Not “Drink this, it will help,” but “this is how you make a tea that will help.” (Moose Clan) I’d rather show people ways to find the information they need and how to use it, than do a reading for them (Snowy Owl Clan). In the Forest Cat, we are working with runes, which are powerful energetic tools, which have been used in Northern Europe for two millennia for magick, even more than they were used for divination.

At this point in our history, we need the ability to heal ourselves and each other almost daily. The RúnValdr system gives us access to the powers of runic energy, in a way that’s easy and fast. While Reiki draws on our life force to give the body what it needs to heal, the runes are not so benevolent. I tend to use them for healing (almost daily), and so that’s what I concentrate on, but let’s face it, Woden was most interested in gaining more knowledge and power, defeating his enemies, and yes, seducing women. The runes were used to smite as well as to heal.

When I first started using RúnValdr I wondered if I’d ever use the runes Hagal or Thurs, which are powerful but destructive. Then I realized that if you want to break up a tumor, Hagal (then use Lagu to wash the bits away) is the right rune for the job! There are both fire and ice runes for healing burns and warming. Runes are tools, and how you use them is what defines their purpose.

I sometimes joke that attuning people to RúnValdr is like “giving chainsaws to children.”  But remember that every child needs to learn how to use knives and needles, stoves and matches, eventually computers and cars. If you don’t teach them how to use tools safely and effectively, they will remain helpless, or, more likely, they could hurt themselves using them without any instruction. We empower each other at any age by sharing tools, and we can use them to do so much more than we can do without them.

Most of what we know about runes, as with many tools, is based on what we’ve learned by using them. We usually start by studying the Lore in the Rune poems and the Sagas, but that is sparse, and cryptic. For example, Lagu in the Old English rune poem says: “The ocean seems interminable to men, if they venture on the rolling bark and the waves of the sea terrify them and the courser of the deep heed not its bridle.”

Old Norwegian gives us: “A waterfall is a River which falls from a mountain-side; but ornaments are of gold.”
Old Icelandic: “Eddying stream and broad geyser and the land of the fish.”
I suppose it’s not surprising, what symbol takes more forms than water?

After the older lore, we turn to modern writings of others who’ve studied runes, but then we need to learn by using them ourselves. The more we have personal feedback, the more confident we become that we understand them. As people of spirit, many use meditation and trance work to contact the runes directly. We develop relationships with them. We come to trust our visions and personal gnosis.

Another benefit of this system is that since we are using the runes as tools, it’s often easier to use them to direct healing on ourselves, something that is often difficult, especially when there is an emotional aspect to the healing required. Since we are using energy not materials, space and time offer no limits to where the healing (or other energy) is sent. I have even discovered that we can change the past, in as much as we allow ourselves to do so.

Beyond healing, RúnValdr can be used to open doorways to other worlds, to awaken inanimate objects and call awareness into them, to forge or sever links between ourselves and others, to ward and to attract, to make other magickal tools, to bless and to seal workings.  

Runes can be used for anything we can imagine, … with practice. We have to learn how, learn to discern why it works better one way than another, and then learn to do it that way.
The tool works whether you totally understand how or not. (I know I don’t understand how computers do what they do, but I like them!) if you already understand the runes, you can use them more easily from the start, but if not, you can learn about them as you use them. I liken it to giving a chef a set of master kitchen tools, enabling him to do what he already knows more easily. But if you give a beginner the best tools to learn on, the process will be faster and easier. Did you ever try to cut with a dull knife?

Very early on a new student who didn’t know anything about the runes, but knew dowsing, learned that there was a hurricane headed for her Florida home, a thousand miles away. She used her pendulum to select runes for her, and the system she’d learned that day to send protection down to her house. The next day she called her neighbor to see if she had to return home immediately to make repairs. The neighbor told her that the hurricane had gone right through their neighborhood, but that her house was the only one on the street that had sustained no damage. A tree had fallen behind the house, but hit nothing. She came to me to ask what the runes the pendulum had directed her to were. They were two protection runes, and one for home. That’s what these tools can do whether you know what they mean or not.

I have personally stopped migraines (according to the people who had them); it takes about 15 seconds. I’ve sped healing disease, injuries, burns, and emotional distress. I expect that only my belief in our consensual reality prevents me from more dramatic miracles. I also believe firmly that we are often given challenges from which we are meant to learn, and wouldn’t want to interfere with that. I want to work with my allies, not against them. Since it’s our will directing our working, I expect allies of each practitioner, gods and guides, will be working with them in different unique ways.  

A finger pointing at a collection of Nordic rune symbols.

The chances are good that the reason I use RúnValdr for healing more than anything else is because I know it works. While I don’t subscribe to “Harm none,” I do believe in consequences, so I try not to put out anything I wouldn’t want to get back on myself. Don’t call up what you can’t put down, clean up your own mess, learn from your mistakes, or even better, learn from the mistakes you see others make. RúnValdr, like other forms of magick, follows the same rules as the rest of the world, so we have what we need to understand it if we try. On the other hand, it could be because so much healing is needed these days.
I am a pragmatist — I like to know why and how things work, and understand the connections, but if I see that something works, I’ll use it. I prefer solutions that are quicker, easier, less expensive, and more effective (and with a better risk to benefit ratio). Anything we can do for ourselves, now, and without tools or materials, appeals to me!  

Tchipakkan

Tchipakkan is an artist, writer, healer, and eclectic pagan/heathen/rustic, quietly but openly pagan for the last 50 years, author of Divine Cookies, co-Founder of Changing Times-Changing Worlds Conference. She practices and teaches RúnValdr, Reiki, Dynamind, huna healing, herbalism, and soothsaying with runes, palmistry, tarot, and other systems.
Singing in the Rain
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Singing in the Rain

Rose Sinclair

While it is true that as a child I was thrilled by Gene Kelly’s performance in Singing in the Rain, and while he might have inspired my love of the rain early on — this isn’t about that kind of singing in the rain.  It’s about sudden storms, and golden light, and daring.

I was driving home, rain was falling, I was semi-miserable from having been bent in half most of the day, and wanted nothing more than to be standing in the rain somewhere not caring about anything else — just me and the rain. We are in a severe drought right now, and a few minutes after the rain started falling it stopped, and I was very sad. The sun broke through the clouds with that particular quality of light that only happens after a brief rain, that glittering with golden light off each raindrop that can stop any other thought when it is beheld. I had a thought then — what if I really did allow that golden warmth/light into my solar plexus? What might happen if I actively chose to work this specific magic? (many of my physiological malfunctions reside there, many of them I was born with).

Well, here’s what happened.  A song spontaneously emerged from me — took some singing to clarify the message but it finally landed — and when I sing it, I allow that sunrise/starshine to emerge in and from my solar plexus as a ritual of healing and self-care.

I offer it here to you, sans melody, and invite you to create what melody you will if you desire to bring this sentiment into your life.   

Golden sun rising inside of me
Golden star shining in spite of me
My Lady teach me to Be, to Know and to See
When I See me, I behold Thee
When I behold Thee, it’s me I See.
When I look through me, up to me,
the Whole and the true me
When I See me, I behold Thee
When I behold Thee, it’s me I See

Rose Sinclair August 31, 2022
Waxing moon in Libra

I’ve sung it alone, sung it with others, sung it in a round, sung it as a collective. I find it relatively soothing while also being challenging — a low impact spirit workout, as it were, going to the place I Am Not Strong, but can be stronger.

Magical Transformations through Body Paint
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Magical Transformations through Body Paint

Shara Bliss Osgood

I have had the honor to be known in our Earth Spirit community as “the” face painter. I have been painting people’s faces, arms, legs, and bodies for over 30 years. It has always been a magical experience for me. I saw, early on in my career, how much impact and transformational power body paint can have on the painted person and the painter.

A lot of the experience is about the interaction and the conversation between brush, paint, and body. There is an alchemical process that occurs through a distillation of intention and invocation. When I paint a child’s face into a dragon or a butterfly, they put their energy into the intention. Then, I channel that inner dragon or tiger or faerie into color on their face, giving them permission to transform. I am always humbled by the pureness and the embodiment that can happen when we collaborate with magical intention.

I have had a unique perspective while painting kids for the Maypole every year at Rites of Spring. I get to paint and interact with kids from the time they are 5 or 6, checking in every year until they are teens. Watching our community grow and evolve is its own special magic that I treasure. I am now painting the children of parents that I painted when they were children.

Beyond that, I collaborate with spirit when I do body paint and mehndi henna at festivals. I help people to tap into “other” and deeper aspects of self, anima, and archetypes. A friend dubbed me “She Who Paints Souls on Skin”. I breathe into that quite often. I have studied many body maps and energy healing modalities, including Reiki, biofield flow and vagus nerve decompression. All of these are utilized as I channel the energy through my paint/henna language of line and form. 

I often refer to myself as the conduit or gateway, helping people to access hidden aspects of self. It can be as basic as feeling beautiful and empowered to do one’s own work. It can also be deeply transformational. Others have shared stories of healing ancestral grief and past life trauma through their experience as a painted being. I have been humbled by the deep magic that I get to do within our community. It is a special space to hold and I am honored to hold it.

Eulogy for Old Man Winter
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Eulogy for Old Man Winter

Kate Greenough Richardson

Each year around Beltaine, some friends of mine from the hilltowns of Massachusetts make an effigy of Old Man Winter. On May Day morning he is ceremonially thrown off a scenic gorge into the rushing water below. Before his departure, I have been for a number of years delivering a eulogy to honor the season’s passing. If Winter were a man who was born around Solstice, reached his prime around Imbolc, waned into his elder years through the Equinox and finally died by Beltane, what kind of a person was he? What did he achieve, bring us, or teach us during his life? Here follows my eulogy for the winter that just passed.

Kate brings Old Man Winter around the circle for a final Good-bye.


Eulogy for Old Man Winter 2025
How shall we remember this Winter now that his time has passed?

I have spoken to so many people who have had hard times and much loss since Winter was born between Samhain and Solstice. In the course of his life, there’s been so much upheaval and anxiety in the world, and so much work that needs doing.
In this context the Winter came like a gentleman. He certainly had his own work to do, and he did it, but without an unduly heavy hand. He offered early ice to skate on. Later there was snow for skiing, though not as much as some might wish. I even heard him called a weakling on account of the shortage of good skiing in the hills. But others called him considerate, even cozy. Myself, I wonder if maybe he was a bit depressed, just hanging on and filling out his obligations, waiting out the time till his inevitable end.
When it was time to depart, he did so without much fuss. There was one last April snow, but in most places it was more nostalgic than earnest. Big flakes to remind us of the feeling of the early winter’s fat harvest festivals, and the snowpiles were soon gone without the town ever breaking out the plows.
Now as spring emerges so do the people, seeking each other and seeking the warmth and the energy to do the work that still needs to be done. The green and the blooms cheer us on as we make our way down Winter’s funeral path. We are reminded that, however sad and dire things may be, life will go on. We must acknowledge the hardships, but we should also celebrate the joys.
Let us look to each other and see that we are still standing, while Old Man Winter has fallen, as all tyrants eventually must fall. Tie your sorrows to his withered corpse, and heave them away; make room for the hope and promise of renewal.
Hail the Spring!

Burning Old Man Winter

Photos by Chris LaFond

The Magic of Dancing Into Spring
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The Magic of Dancing Into Spring

Christopher Croucher, Stormdancer

March 30th, 2025

“Come join in the dance of spring, to dance the earth into life again!”
—Will Rowan, The Dance of Spring, 2021

We are now past the Equinox, the marker of springtime in the Northern Hemisphere, and while the weather patterns may be shifting and teasing and playing with our emotions a bit, we know that the Wheel is turning and we will be celebrating the Spring very soon. There is a powerful magic in that anticipation, the waiting that brings about a (hopefully) satisfying breakthrough as we finally enter the glorious time of Goldilocks-style “just right” days.

As a dancer and a witch, I’ve been pondering what it means to dance into this coming season, particularly in a year when dancing and celebrating might feel at odds with what’s going on around us. Will Rowan’s song The Dance of Spring, which we sing in a sacred circle dance every year at Rites of Spring in the EarthSpirit Community, has been wandering through my mind. It calls us to join in the dance to “dance the earth into life again.” We “stamp [our] feet and lock [our] hands and weave [our] song into the land.” As the community triple-steps in concentric rings in this traditional dance of Brittany called an An Dro, I like to picture the beating of our feet breaking open the soil that was recently frozen, planting our song and our community in the soil and allowing the potential of spring to break through into new growth.

This, in and of itself, is a magical act that can be reproduced individually or in community, and really in any season though it’s particularly perfect for Spring, by dancing, walking, and drumming on the land. It’s an intentional act of beating the ground to wake up potential. You’re knocking on the door to the Otherworld with your feet, raising magic from within the earth to imbue your intention with the driving force it needs to take root and grow. It’s a simple and elegant form of magic that needs nothing but a little bit of movement and your breath.

It is also worth noting that we sing this song and do this circle dance every year to begin our Community Web Ritual in which we weave a web of connection out into the world. This is where “dancing into spring” gets really interesting…

Eminent mycologist Paul Stamets has claimed a theory that mycelium, the networks of fungi that are now shown to support the foundations of life on Earth, may tend to grow where humans have celebrated. Studies have revealed that mycelia respond to music and low-level vibrations which suggests that the music, drumming, dancing and pounding feet on the ground in our Springtime revelries are stimulating the growth of this fungal network. Being that these interconnected roots support the growth and thriving of life on our planet, in our Dance of Spring we really are, quite literally, dancing the earth into life again while weaving a web of connection under the soil.

 So right now, what does it mean to dance into the Spring? Winters can feel harsh and isolating, as can the world in difficult times. Spring is often seen as the embodiment of the freedom that comes when the iron grip of Winter loosens. Right now, after what for many of us has felt like a particularly dark Winter, it may seem counterintuitive to celebrate the Spring when many of the metaphorical tendrils of ice continue to grip at us with little hope of relenting in the near future. These webs of connection that our Springtime magic weaves are a lifeline, a symbol that we are here for one another and for the world in whatever ways we can be as part of a Web that can support us all. In my personal magical belief, the magic that we make in that circle, dancing and singing and weaving the Web together, is a literal force in the world that is a power for blessing and change. I hope that, with all of these layers of Magic and science to show us how potent our celebrations really are, we can see this act of gathering and dancing and welcoming in the Spring as the powerful act blessing for the world that it really is and that we will joyfully “dance the earth into life again” very soon.

Stamets, Paul. (November 22, 2023). There are time honored traditions and celebrations [Post]. Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/PaulStamets/videos/there-are-time-honored-traditions-and-celebrations-that-create-sounds-and-vibrat/1292344501263582/

Power in Community
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Power in Community

by Deirdre Pulgram-Arthen

This moment in US history is extremely hard for me to fathom. As the child of a Holocaust survivor, I have been feeling triggered over and over, especially, most recently, by the abductions and disappearances. I consider “Christian Nationalism” and I feel the terror personally, while at the same time I feel angry and resent this administration using “smokescreen antisemitism” as a justification for some of these actions, as a cover for their own racism, Islamophobia and actual antisemitism. 

Over the past six weeks I have also been meeting with a group of committed pagans from across the US most of whom have once, or currently lead groups, many of them older teachers and organizers, like me, with some younger people as well who are in leadership roles in their own communities. We are trying to find ways to build a network that can help hold all kinds of pagans in this time of crisis. Even as we struggle with the shape of what we hope to create, it is good to see these friends in the Zoom windows and know that we are struggling together.

At a time like this it is important not to be alone. When I find myself sliding and wanting to retreat into isolation and fear, I know that it is time to reach out. It is time to get together with a friend for lunch or for a walk, time to gather and sing with my spiritual community, even time to try to wade through social media to see who is there that I can wave to. Rites of Spring planning sessions enliven me. Working together with others and with a shared purpose in service of community is fuel for my heart.

Community matters at a time like this. We are stronger when we are together, when we can hold each other up and keep each other from breaking. Community can energize us to keep standing and moving forward, to not give up.  A spiritual community, like EarthSpirit, can help us find strength in our practices, our shared beliefs and experiences, our shared rituals and our songs. When we come together anytime to sing of what is sacred, or celebrate the return of spring, we can open our hearts and let some light in, let some joy in, let some love in!  And now, at this dangerous time, finding ways to be together, especially in person, can be healing. Holding hands, joining voices, marching in resistance, being together in the name of what is life-affirming and good and sacred, knowing there are others next to you who feel as you do, who care for you and care about your well-being, these can lift some of the load that we each carry. 

Try it — find your people and gather. I think you will be glad that you did.

A Powerful Journey
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A Powerful Journey

A story from the Visioning Ritual at Twilight Covening 2024

Once, in the world between, there came a time of great trouble — so great that it felt to the people like their world was disappearing. They tried to listen and talk with one another, but somehow the languages they spoke were no longer understood by their neighbors. They tried to find peaceful solutions to conflict, but the violence around them expanded. They tried to find ways to care for their world, but it continued to become more barren. They felt powerless and angry, lost and afraid. 

Over generations, during times of struggle the people had always relied on a well of sacred water which held power. But they had drawn power from their sacred well so often in recent times, that even it was beginning to dry up. 

Faced with an ever depleting source of power, the people held a council to find a way forward. They considered rationing what water was left, they considered giving power only to the leaders to use as they thought best, they considered using only the power needed to survive, and turning away from the struggling world. They could not agree on what was most important. Finally, the oldest person in the village spoke and reminded the people that in earlier times of struggle their ancestors had journeyed to find new sources of power when their well was so depleted. The people agreed that the one thing left for them to do was to learn from those ancestors and embark on a similar journey themselves. 

No one had taken that journey in generations. They knew that it would be long and might be dangerous. They didn’t know the way. They knew from legend that they must begin by honoring their ancestors and then find their way to the Witch’s hut in the forest, but they didn’t know who else they might meet along the path. As afraid as they were about this journey, they were more afraid for the state of their world. And so, driven by their own desire to protect the things most precious to them, they set forth, each carrying a vessel of power drawn from the dwindling sacred well, to use as they needed it. A long journey began.

First they traveled to honor their ancestors. They stopped at the shrine to listen to whispers on the wind, telling where those gone before them had found sources of power and the uses they had put it to.  Then, inspired to continue, the travelers  moved further into the woods where they soon came to the Witch’s hut, as they expected. There they encountered the old Witch, who bade them consider the source of their personal power and stirred their words into her cauldron.  As they went on, they met other beings who taught them vital lessons about finding and using power. They experienced the wonder of the world and used some of their power to add beauty to it. They learned the importance of using power in service of others — or receiving from others when they needed it. Then they met a challenge that required all that they had. For some, it was more than they were prepared to give, but despite that, they continued forward — walking with emptiness for a long time. 

At last they were welcomed into a place of connection, with nature and with community, where they were renewed enough that they could imagine once again having the ability to give or receive. 

When they had reached that point of openness, they discovered that they could reshape themselves and create a completely new vessel for holding power. And then they learned how to find the power that could fill that new vessel — both from within, and from connection with infinite mystery — and that they could decide when and how to use that newly found power.

When the people returned to the village they saw that with the power that each of them now carried they could refill their collective well and get ready to face the problems around them.  And they now also knew that as long as they kept finding ways to replenish their own power, they would have enough to sustain themselves, to support each other, and to make changes to improve their world.

Story by Deirdre Pulgram-Arthen and Lyra Hilliard

photo © Moira Ashleigh
The Black River: Death Poems (press release)
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The Black River: Death Poems (press release)

Editor’s Note: This book was released November 2024, and was edited by Deirdre Pulgram-Arthen, the executive director of the EarthSpirit Community. To order the book directly from the publisher, please use the link at the bottom of this post.

NORTHFIELD, MA—NatureCulture announces the release of our 20th publication, The Black River: Death Poems. This is an anthology of poems about death and dying, available in two versions: portable paperback with owl cover for people who are grieving, and all-black large format hardcover for use by death ritual leaders. 69 authors from eight countries have contributed to this anthology of 149 poems grouped into four stages: Dying, Death, Remaining, and Journeying. The poems are heavily indexed: by relationship to deceased; by themes—memory loss, pregnancy loss, long/short illness, violence/war/suicide, hope, acceptance of death; by language—most are English and there are 3 in Spanish, 1 French, and 1 Arabic; and by suggested for use in ritual. This book is non-denominational and brings together contemporary poets writing on the many stages of grief and death. 250+ pages; featuring interior page decorations by artist Martin Bridge.

The editor, Deirdre Pulgram-Arthen, has worked in service to her local, spiritual, and interfaith communities for 40 years. She has a graduate degree in counseling psychology, is a certified Death Midwife, and a published author and composer of sacred chants. She is a mother and a grandmother, which is her favorite title. Deirdre lives in the Berkshire hills of western Massachusetts with a small community on a 130 acre nature preserve. Deirdre believes that “By using music and poetry to reach beyond rational thought and touch the depths of our felt experience, the arts serve as passageways for transformation and healing.” She has a passion for creating deeply spiritual, personal experiences of the sacred—in recognition of ourselves as a part of the natural world, and as a way of expanding our connections within the human community. As the director of EarthSpirit, a non-profit focused on current and traditional European earth-centered spiritualities, Deirdre creates rituals for celebration, seasonal cycles and rites of passage—including the sacred passage into death.

In keeping with NatureCulture’s mission to help people be in right relationship with the rest of Nature, this book addresses human existance within physical and spiritual relationships in the physical world and beyond. Publisher Lis McLoughlin believes “Poetry has an essential role to play in helping people come to terms with complexity, and the dying process, death itself, and the subsequent experiences of people who love the deceased, are among the most complex experiences humans encounter.”

The book is organized in such a way as to try to address feelings that arise at any stage of grief or grieving, without being prescriptive or simplifying, and includes a section directly related to Our Animal Kin. It adds powerful contemporary poetic voices to the conversation about, and rituals pertaining to death. The poets offer their experiences and insights so that no one will have to rely on an internet search for a one-size-fits-all classic poem, but rather, can choose something more personally meaningful.

A book launch with panel discussion and poetry reading was held November 3, 2024, online. The book can be ordered from your favorite bookstore. To order the book directly from the publisher: https://www.nature-culture.net/the-black-river-death-poems

Artwork by Martin Bridge

On Remembering Your “Why”
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On Remembering Your “Why”

by Tracy Wharton, PhD

I’ve been reading one of Father Greg Boyle’s books. G, as he is called, works with gang members, young people whose entire mindset is centered on violence and group identity. He shares stories about times that he got angry, frustrated, shaking his fist at the sky, and helplessness — not knowing what to do next. I was thinking about his stories and also about conversations I had with Dolores Huerta, a community organizer who has taught hundreds about meaningful equity and how to make meaningful change. These two people have what appears from the outside to be an unlimited energy, an insurmountable drive. But the truth is that they are just as human and subject to the emotional fallout of the actions of the world as the rest of us.

I remember one year during the 2016 election cycle, Dolores came to the university where I worked at the time. She was leading one of her famous get-out-the-vote tours and had come to rally our young adults. This civil rights icon could have filled the stadium for her rally, but she had been assigned a relatively small auditorium in the back area of the student union and the crowd spilled out into the hallways and central balcony area as people crammed shoulder to shoulder to hear this tiny force of nature. She and I found ourselves quietly waiting in a back hallway, listening to the crowd, for her entrance. “Can I ask you something, please, Dolores?” “Of course.” “My students talk about burnout,” I said, with tears unexplainedly starting to rise. “They ask how we keep going. I don’t know what to say. It’s so hard sometimes. Everything is just… so hard. And it just keeps going. How do you keep going? What do I say to them?” I asked as I tried not to let my own emotions rise to the surface. She paused, turned her body towards me fully and looked up at me with the deep compassion of a mother who has raised children and an activist who has rallied cities. She took my hand and patted it. “I see what has happened,” she said. “Your country has broken your heart.” I was stunned. We stared at each other for a heartbeat. “Don’t worry. It won’t be the last time. So get angry. Scream and stomp your feet. Have your pity party — that’s ok. …Then get your ass up, brush it off and get back to work.”

I recently had the opportunity to visit the foundation that she started with her daughters in California. They live and work in the same place where Dolores led grape worker strikes all those years ago, now a deeply “red” political district, kept that way by redistricting every time power from the people rises too far. I met vecinos (community members) who had learned English to be able to testify about poisoned water, youth who had led a campaign to install sidewalks near schools, middle schoolers who led get-out-the-vote campaigns; and I walked with Dolores and her daughter Camila in the field where she had first taken up a megaphone. We talked about “just doing the next thing,” and how there was always something else — sometimes small, sometimes enormous, but always equally important to the people in the way. The work was not just about clean water, vaccines, and voting, but also about swimming pools and soccer fields — places to find joy and fun. Equity and community are not just about keeping hate at bay — they are also about building good lives for people.

At the end of the day, after a full agenda of business meetings, walking tours, and photo ops, we were leaving from dinner. Dolores turned to me and Liz, who was going to give us rides home, and asked “hey- do you want to go see some jazz?” Liz and I looked at each other. “Jazz?,” we asked, “really? I mean, it’s been a long day.” “There’s this group that gets together every Tuesday night to jam, and tonight there are some students that I know sitting in. It’s on a patio — great space. Want to go? I mean, if you’re too tired, I understand. The times zones and all…” Liz and I agreed and we headed to jazz night. We got drinks at the bar — Dolores asked for the good tequila — sat near the back, and we had a thoroughly lovely time for a few hours. I asked Dolores how often she came and she told me “as often as I can. You have to do fun things and this is soo good.” As we got up to leave, a group of women across the room noticed her as the crowd parted and came rushing over, asking for photos and autographs. Now nearly 10pm on a Tuesday night, Liz and I looked at each other, wondering if we needed to help her escape, but Dolores moved towards them without an ounce of hesitation. I watched as she shook each hand, made eye contact and asked “Hello! What’s your name and what do you do for your community?”

What a profound and simple question — what do you do for your community? And not just that — name yourself and take credit for what you do. Don’t seek out recognition, but don’t shy away from it either. As she spoke to every person who came up to her, a growing line as we watched, she greeted every person equally and without an ounce of hesitation. I watched from just behind her right shoulder. I saw genuine curiosity, and a knowingness that her question prompted something important that immediately told people what was important to her. And every response — every response, no matter how seemingly insignificant — was validated with a smile and encouragement.

There is something central and important here about how we do things and what we choose to do. The call to action is to do something. Anything. It actually doesn’t matter how small, because lots of small things add up to big things. Everyone doing something moves us in a direction, and we can see each other in how we relate to and support one another. Our differences are there, but so are our relationships, and those relationships give us common ground. Sometimes it’s just an inch of common ground, but it’s there.

The other important lesson from Father G and Dolores is to do things that make you happy and don’t forget the joy in the world — go see jazz. Be present and enjoy the good tequila. Remember why you fight and what you are fighting for. You have to remember your “why.” There is just so much happening in the world, and while we all take breaks from the news barrage, turning away is not an option. It is easy to feel helpless in the face of so much hatred, death, and destruction. I found myself bolstered by knowing that Father G sometimes feels helpless, sometimes doesn’t know what to say. I found myself reminded that Dolores knows exactly how I feel; she has felt it too. And both know that change is incremental — it’s a long game, sometimes very long, but that the time scale of the world doesn’t always match what we want it to be, and nothing happens if we do nothing. Sometimes we are just doing “the next thing,” the small thing in front of us in our little corner of the world. But we cannot lose sight of our “why.” We cannot lose sight of the impact that we have when we take action, and what is at stake. When you lose sight of that, it’s all just paperwork and responsibility, and it’s heavy and hard. Knowing your “why” doesn’t make it less hard, or less heavy, but it does remind you that you are not alone and that you are not carrying anything by yourself. Community becomes a magic word. So — What do you do for your community? What’s your ”why?”

All photos © Tracy Wharton