The Coming Season for the Monarchs

     There is hope. 
     On Monday, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced a partnership with the non-profit National Wildlife Federation to take focused action to save the monarch butterfly population, which is in steep decline. They backed their words with money, setting up a fund with an initial $1.2 million which will be matched by other public and private donors. They are also directing 

USFWS photo. Sully's Hill Game Preserve, North Dakota.

another $2 million to restore 200,000 acres of habitat largely focused in the critical Texas-to-Minnesota corridor. Monarch caterpillars feed exclusively on native milkweed, and its rapid disappearance due to habitat loss and herbicide use is a warning not only for the monarchs, but for the entire interconnected ecosystem. (You can find the press release here.) 

     What makes me tear up is the list of projects that are being funded (don't laugh, I really did). Everyone from the corporate partners of the Wildlife Habitat Council, to U.S. and state Forestry Services, to national and local conservation organizations are working together. And this is really cool: the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is establishing a 21st Century Conservation Service Corps (21CSC) for Monarch Conservation. "Corps members will be placed in urban areas and would develop outreach and environmental education materials, create schoolyard and community habitats, train volunteers in seed collection and planting, and other outreach-related activities." Specifically, the money will "Support youth placed in strategic urban areas in the monarch’s range for periods of 4 to 8 months". Click here for a link to the list of projects.

Overwintering monarchs. USFWS photo.

     There is more good news: the few monarchs that made it to Mexico for the winter are surviving. Conditions have been favorable with no reported winter storms. I will stop all my complaining about the snow and arctic cold that this winter's storm track is throwing at us in New England if it means the monarchs remain safely unaffected by polar vortexes dipping south. They just need to hang on a little longer because in only a few weeks they will begin migrating northward towards the new schoolyard milkweed gardens and restored greenways we are planting for them.
     I feel like I want to thank someone. Thank you U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for using your resources to put governmental clout behind this effort. Thank you National Wildlife Federation for reaching across the U.S. to help form a mosaic of conservation groups, education partners and private landowners to work within this cooperative effort. Thank you regular people like you and me who have talked about it, posted about it on facebook, raised awareness, stopped spraying for "weeds", and stayed informed with resources like Journey North's monarch migration and education website.
     Last night at dinner, Bob, Andrew, Anna and I were talking about whether taking individual action to slow climate change was even worth it, given the magnitude of the problem. Despite some cynicism that arose, I think we agreed that we must act, both to do our own small part, and to urge the leaders of the large governmental and economic systems to cooperate. The story of the monarch is food for our souls: we must continue to do our small part, and we must cooperate -- and it is starting to happen. Thank you. There is hope. Let's keep it alive. 
    

Fear of the Unknown III – Facing Fear as a Pack

     That was really hard (see previous post). I had to look into a dark place in myself and see the fear, crouched and gnawing at me, that I have been hiding from. Now that I've named it, what do I do? You can't choose your dreams, but you can choose your response. Naming and standing up to fear is the first and often scariest step, but I'm still frozen until I move through it.
     My mammalian self offers these responses: fight, or flight. When it comes to catastrophic climate change, neither is really possible as an individual.
     Fleeing is what most of us do, including our elected officials. Isn't that what the deniers are all about? They are so afraid that they deny climate change even exists. And the rest of us, myself included, try not to remember as we live the fossil-fuel-dependent lifestyles that would take wrenching acts to break free from.

     And fighting seems futile: Even doing the good things we do – driving hybrid electric cars, putting solar hot water and photovoltaic systems on our roofs, buying carbon offsets – won't hold back the flood waters. After all, what can one person, one family, change?

      So where does that leave us?

      Come on people: we are herd animals! We live in packs, tribes, colonies. We survive precisely because we are not self-sufficient: we cooperate. And the leaders of our pack are failing us. How can an aging man with an eternal suntan not understand the power of the sun over fossil fuels ground from Canadian shale? He's holding on to the way the world was when he was younger. And then there are the 28 from the other political party who voted in favor of the Keystone XL pipeline – what kind of investment is that for our future?

 These “leaders” need to hear from us, to be reminded that their families will suffer, that we are afraid, and that we have the ability to turn climate change around if we act NOW. They need to know that America can be a leader in the world, that we can have a strong economy based on clean energy and conservation, and that they will be honored for leading us to that world. But we have to growl and snarl and nip and bite and take them down if they won't get out of the way, and let the practical visionaries lead our pack.

      Fear has frozen us for too long. People vote to stick with what they know. So there is another way besides snarling. Let's use our voices to show the beauty and safety of a world that we can get to by changing our ways. We have to draw the picture of an asthma-free world with low health care costs, where chimneys are historical artifacts of the industrial age and noiseless cars and trucks quietly zoom down highways; where roofing materials harvest the sun, pipelines carry solar-generated power, and the weather no longer makes regular headlines.

      This requires us to speak up. And this is the one thing that each of us individuals must do. Say that you are afraid, if you can say it. Say what you want in a re-structured world. Say it again and again. Nip at their heels, and it will start to hurt. Give them a way forward, and maybe they will finally move. 

 

      I commit to writing a letter or email every week. I'm putting it on my calendar to remind me until I've done it. Join me. I need you. You're my pack.

Fear of the Unknown II - Standing up to Fear

     I was going to write my second "Fear of the Unknown" post about some heady thoughts I've been contemplating around the role of imagination in fear and how culturing it through TV alienates us from the wild outdoors...
... when I had a dream last night.
           The dream woke me up,
                because it came to the ultimate ending.

     Even as I write this, my mind is dodging it, asking why I need to write it. And the answer is that I need to face my own fear. Out loud. With courage and honesty. As Thoreau said, "How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live."

The dream was simple:
     The people of the earth -- us -- passed the no-turning-back deadline to prevent catastrophic global warming.
     And so the melting of the polar ice caps accelerated.
     And I climbed to the top of the highest of the hills with my family
     as the waters rose,
     and we held hands and sang,
     until there was no more.

      I have no thoughts about this now.  Only that I am still an optimist, and I believe in the earth's beauty as the eyes into God's soul. But I'm standing up, with my fear naked beside me, and I don't know what will happen.
      Stand with me. Let's face our fears and not deny. And in that naked place, let the soft and gentle morning light begin to warm us. Then let's get to work.



  

Fear of the Unknown I - Naming Fear

     Every now and then I am reminded that I am a mammal.
     One evening last summer, when the dark was finally claiming the land after a long twilight, Bob and I stepped outside as we usually do about then, the dogs on their leashes, for a last walk down our quiet road before bed.
     What we heard froze us in our tracks. My heart-rate jumped up, and I stared into the darkness in the direction of the unknown danger. A harsh shrieking sliced through the night from the woods that border the field. Poised on the edge of fight or flight, my mind scanned for what it could possibly be.

     Predator?... fox, coyote, lunatic with an axe? Something sick: a rabid raccoon that might come staggering out with spirals in its eyes and foam dripping from its fangs? The Wendigo? 

     Fear of the unknown is paralyzing, as it should be – briefly. That moment is the moment of assessment. The whole body is involved, adrenaline triggering heightened receptivity in the sensory organs and preparing our muscles for action. What we know as stress is a prolonged state of this fear of the unknown: can I meet my work deadlines? will traffic get in my way? is there enough money? what havoc will climate change bring to my family's future?
   Constant stress is not healthy. We can't live in paralysis, in fight, or in flight. We need to name the danger, identify our fear, make a decision and move through it. When the deer in our field see two humans and two dogs coming, they freeze, then either turn tail and bound off, or decide we are no threat for the moment and resume eating.

      Naming our fear is the first step. Relief begins to come when the unknown becomes known.

      Bob figured it out: that harsh shrieking that we have heard almost every night now since last summer is a juvenile Great Horned Owl begging for food. We don't really understand why the begging has gone on so long, or when the owl will grow up, but no longer does it inspire fear. In fact, we've become kind of fond of him, poor little shrieking fellow. We even named him Oscar.

Celebrating Wishgiving

     The table was set, new candles waited in the brass candlesticks, and outside the turkey was turning on a spit over the grill's charcoal-and-applewood coals. In the living room, three people sat huddled over pieces of paper, sometimes emitting a sigh of angst, sometimes crumpling a piece of paper and starting over.  Thanksgiving preparations were coming to a close, and it was nearly time to gather around the table.
    "I don't know what to wish!" complained one of my children. 
     Exactly. 
     This year, we asked everyone coming to the Thanksgiving table to bring one simple wish, written on a piece of paper, for every other person at the table. Usually we go around the table and say something we're thankful for. It's a good thing to do. But I also think it's a first step. You are standing in your own shoes examining the blessings that affect your life. Even if you're grateful that someone who was very, very sick has recovered -- it's still your own gratitude that is responding.
     To make a wish for someone else means you have to take the next step: to think about her, you need to get out of your shoes and try standing in hers for a minute. What does she need or want? What is he up to in his life? What is important? It's not a pop quiz; we told everyone a week ahead that we would be doing this. Even the out-of-town guests had a couple of days to discover a thing or two about the others who would be at the Thanksgiving table. So why the angst in the living room?
     Many of us are not in the habit of actively listening to each other. In our family, a lot of our conversations are about what happened that day, or what needs to happen. To be wish-givers, we have to exercise new muscles by asking more curiosity questions and listening between the lines. We have to be givers instead of receivers. And do this across generations.
     So there we were, eight people, each with a motley pile of paper next to our plate of heaping food. We ate and laughed and talked and listened, and when we finally slowed down, surreptitious nervous glances at the little piles signaled it was time to start.
     My brother-in-law volunteered to be first.  He read a wish for Anna, and gave it to her. That was easy. Then she picked up one of her wishes, and read it to her grandmother, who loved it. Gammy then read one to my sister, who then read one to me, and then I read one to Andrew... each followed by handing the paper wish across the table to that person. There were murmurs of surprise and appreciation, empathy and love. 

By the end, we all had a new motley pile of paper next to our plates, but in each pile were seven distinct wishes conceived, expressed and given personally to us. It was a wealth of wishes. And we were a family woven a little tighter, connected by the intimacy of wishing specific goodness for each other, out loud, in the presence of all at the table. 

     I think this is more than a new Thanksgiving tradition. Wishgiving can happen any time: at a Sunday night dinner, when a book group wraps up, on Christmas or New Year's Day, when a child is about to depart for college. As someone at our table said while looking through her pile of wishes: "I really felt heard." That's something to be thankful for.
 

Seeing through her eyes

     The letter from camp was two full hand-written pages (including a mini-route map she'd drawn) about their 42 day, 1100 mile canoe trip to Hudson Bay. Nina talked about bone-chilling cold and rain and the sunny see-forever days; the moose, bears, eagles... and clouds of mosquitoes; she described running big rapids, portaging canoes over boulders and through mud, and playing softball in the native Ojibway communities where they made friends. They fished, sang Grateful Dead songs, and slept hard every night. Bob and I drank in her stories with the thirst born of her long absence.
     Then came this paragraph:

     "Lastly, thank you for sending me here. I'm so incredibly lucky to see what I see and to do what I do. I wish you could see my views sometimes, and feel what I feel. It is an experience like no other, and I know that for my entire life I will value what my years at Wabun have given me."
     I sucked in my breath.
     "I wish you could see my views sometimes, and feel what I feel..."

*               *               *               *               *               *

     The girl that came home was strong and radiant. Nina had everything she needed to move confidently ahead with her life. And this fall, that would be dominated by changing schools as a high school junior.

      Like a canoe at the top of a set of rapids, she was lined up perfectly to shoot the Vs: pre-season soccer was the first chute she would enter, followed by four days camping with a small group in the school's “Outdoor Experience” program, and then finally the first academic day and the first soccer game. It started off well. She made the varsity team, came home talking about the girls she was meeting, and was eager to use her camping skills among new classmates.
      It was when she came back from visiting a friend over Labor Day weekend that it all blew up.
      “Mom, I had searing headaches on the drive. They were so bad I almost had to stop.”
      In hindsight, her concussion likely came from several impacts the preceding week during soccer: a header, a ball kicked at short range into her head, maybe others. Bob and I were blindsided; Nina hadn't even seen it herself.
     Concussion is not a measurable thing. No thermometer or x-ray or even color of mucus can report its status. No cough or limp betrays the inner illness. Even self-perception is unreliable, since it's asking the injured brain to assess itself.
      And then in Nina's case, add the unacceptable barrier a concussion would be for her smooth entry into a new school. It became nearly impossible for any of us to perceive her level of injury.
      While Nina's new friends were on the soccer field jelling as a team and her Outdoor Experience group was kayaking on Casco Bay, I sat by her bed and read to her from the book she needed to finish for summer reading. She was determined to heal, and her drive to get better worked – until after returning to school we realized that she couldn't remember what classes she'd gone to, and couldn't complete her homework.
      I felt like I was trying to see inside her head. What was her pain level? Was she dizzy at all? Did the light bother her? Was she just adjusting to low levels of these symptoms, or was she hiding them from us? I was also trying to see her world through her eyes. Did she have any friends to eat lunch with? Was she getting too far behind in Physics? And especially I tried to see the future: was there any way to return to soccer without a risk to her head? 
      Ultimately I just had to see it all clearly through my own eyes, and be honest about my filters of both empathy and fear that battled for the upper hand.
      Bob, the best partner in the world, was doing the same thing. Together we chose a path through the concussive fog. No more soccer. Go to bed early even if your homework isn't finished. After school come home and rest. Stay home if you're tired.

      Six weeks later, after she had been declared “healed”, Nina wrote about her concussion in an essay called “Hard Headed” for English class. Like her letter from Wabun, she shared with us her view of it all through her eyes. In it she wrote:
      "I was indeed healed, but I was vulnerable — too vulnerable. To my parents and the doctor, playing soccer for the rest of the season would not be worth the risk of missing a junior year of high school. Crushed, my narrow mindedness had lead me to blindly believe that my fragile cranium was ready to take on anything, yet in an attempt to convince myself that I was better, I had only made the truth more devastating.
      "As school progressed, I found the ambiguity and uncertainty of my present situation nearly as frustrating as the concussion itself. My role on the team had changed for good, and I was faced with the choice of determining how I could approach the school individually, team-less. To suffer or discover? I asked myself frequently. Refusing the former, I took an internal deep breath and began searching for ways to compromise my setback."

     And now, through my eyes:
      Nina, you are still the girl who has seen deep beauty, and you have a strength derived from overcoming challenges in the wilderness. That is in you. Your ability to look back on the wilderness of your concussion and see it honestly comes from that same core. It takes courage to see what is, instead of what you want to see. There will be other rivers, other rapids, and other wildernesses ahead. You'll make it through, like you made it to Hudson Bay. See the rapids you are in with clarity for what they are, and hold on to who you are, the girl of the northern rivers, the one who chooses to discover, instead of suffer.

The Democracy of Pie - postscript a year later

     Last October, I posted a recipe for really easy pie crust. While getting the post's URL to send to a friend who wants the recipe, I re-read it. In the last paragraph, amid a plea to eat home-cooked family dinners together (and not be afraid of pie crusts), I suggest "In fact, let's teach our sons to make – and share – pie."

     This is the pie Andrew made last night, his first using his grandmother's recipe. Apparently he volunteered to make and bring a pie for his advisory's Thanksgiving lunch on Tuesday. I love this coincidence, and especially love that he's making pies now!
     Happy Thanksgiving! May it be filled with sweet and savory pies.