Thirteen months ago, fire raged in Ventura County, and then the fire roared its way into Santa Barbara, setting the stage for destructive floods.

Today, Weds Jan. 9 is the one year anniversary of the debris flow in Montecito that took the lives of 23 people, destroyed hundreds of homes, and impacted countless businesses and workers.

As our community recovers, we grieve for our losses and we are grateful for what remains, and for the first responders who gave their all, and to those whose continuing efforts have helped those in need.

Just because the fire is out doesn’t mean it’s over. Read more…

Friday December 21 is the winter solstice 2018, the day with the least sunlight and the longest night.

A most important day for humans for millennia!

A The Smithsonian Magazine writer, asked Native friends about winter solstice traditions. The answer?

Winter is the time for storytelling and star gazing!

Read more…

I live in Ventura, in Ventura County. Growing up, I knew fire was a constant threat.

And then, a year ago, my town burned, and so did much of Western Ventura County. And then the rain brought killer debris flows.

And just a month ago, November 2018, Ventura County was on fire again. Both fires were unusually large and consumed many homes; both fires were fueled by drought and fanned by ferocious Santa Ana winds.  I wrote about them here.

the view from my house on Nov. 9, 2018

Read more…

Finally a fall feeling…The leaves have fallen and now the rain is falling also.

This semester my students and I began with Seth Godin’s Stop Stealing Dreams, and quickly moved into reflections on the writing process. Next we got our feet wet with plastic pollution in the ocean via our text Gyre, and we discussed in the context of fire and mud as well as Nature Deficit Disorder. We visited Art City and the Avant Garden and saw art in action. In October, we set our stories side by side with those of classmates and textbooks, and then with our book club books as well as the story behind Theodosia Burr Shepherd with a surprise guest appearance from her daughter. As the semester came to a close, we finished and closed our books after completing our research papers.

And we’ve produced a class publication which we will be reading from tonight Th. Dec. 6 Read more…

Dear Santa,

Santa, here in the Anthropocene, it seems like there’s a lot of confusion about some words– and this confusion is causing division. So I’m hoping you can help me answer these questions:

• What’s a Democratic Socialist?
• What’s a feminist?
• What’s the patriarchy?
• What’s Climate Change?

Read more…

Rain at Thanksgiving brought an end to one fear — fire — and raises another — floods.

Or more specifically, debris flows like the one which killed dozens in Montecito now threaten Malibu as well as the other areas hit by the Thomas Fire which struck Ventura and Santa Barbara counties almost one year ago. As I’ve discussed numerous times over the past year on this blog, climate change aka global warming is one of the reasons we’ve had such devastating drought followed by fire; I’ll be exploring this theme more with more discussion of the recently released Climate Assessment Report.

With this anniversary comes the Thomas Fire 1-Year Remembrance Event on Saturday, December 1st, 2018 with a free “Togetherness Village” from 11:00am – 6:00pm, food and drinks from 12:30 – 7:00pm, and a ticketed concert with headliners — and Ventura locals — Big Bad VooDoo Daddy from 145-7p all held at Ojai’s historic Libbey Bowl, 210 S. Signal St, Ojai, CA 93023.  Read more…

This sculpture called “Follow the Leaders” found in Berlin and created by Isaac Cordal has been dubbed ‘politicians discussing global warming.’ Isaac Cordal, a Spanish Galician artist born in 1974, often designs works which involve sculpture and photography in the urban environment and that call attention to environmental problems with a focus on global warming.

The Climate Assessment Report that came out on Friday Read more…

Instead of shopping today on #BlackFriday, I encourage you to join me in a different activity: go for a  #GreenFriday and #OptOutside. We usually go skiing at Mammoth Mountain in the Sierra Nevada, but last year, we camped at Refugio State Beach and went kayaking where we saw plenty of dolphins in the water just a few feet away. This year, we weren’t able to leave town so we’re going for a walk in the hillsides that burned in last year’s Thomas Fire, a landscape that has changed radically but is showing inspiring signs of recovery.

Climate change is increasing the number of severity of fires as our region is impacted by drought and other factors; details on a new report below. Read more…

With the holidays and finals for students around the corner, it’s a really stressful time for many. In California, this has been compounded by gunfire and wildfire. In the past few weeks hundreds of thousands of Californians have been displaced from their homes temporarily, many of them permanently, adding to the numbers of those who lost homes in the wildfires of 2017. Air quality in much of the state requires air filtration masks impacting even more people.

Henry David Thoreau reminds us: “As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.”

What are the thoughts that dominate our minds? What have we planted in the soil of contemplation?

Read more…