California On Fire: Life’s New Abnormal
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
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?
One Year: Thomas Fire Remembrance Dec. 1
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…
Get Active with this FREE Guide from Patagonia
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…
#GreenFriday #OptOutside #Gratitude #ClimateChange #ClimateChangeReport
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?
Jungian Analysis of Wenders’ “Wings of Desire”; 4K Restoration Tours US
Thirty years ago, my favorite film of all time was released: WINGS OF DESIRE by Wim Wenders. I will never forget watching it for the first time, alone in the loft of my arts studio at Art City Ventura CA after I stumbled upon the film in the mid-90s at Salzer’s Video. I watched the film over the course of a few nights, loving every moment: the language, the images, the story. It filled me with hope.
So when given the opportunity in grad school in a Jungian Psychology class to write about a film from a depth psychological and Jungian perspective, I jumped at the chance to go deeper into my favorite film, and today, on the even of seeing a restoration of Wings of Desire, I reread my paper to see if I wanted to share it here… and you can find it below the trailer.
On #WorldKindnessDay: Attend a Vigil or Volunteer, hear Indigenous Speakers or “The Crucible”
Today is #WorldKindnessDay. It sure seems like we need it.
Because many of our district’s students, faculty, and staff have been adversely affected this past week by major fires and a mass shooting, Moorpark College campus will be CLOSED on Tuesday, November 13 and classes have been canceled, while Ventura College and Oxnard College have classes and activities as scheduled including a vigil and other activities today from 10-1pm at VC.
This week, Ventura College also welcomes three guest speakers for Indigenous Speaker Series and offers the fall theater production, The Crucible.
Under Fire Again #CaliforniaWildFires
Fire seen from my house in midtown Ventura; 6pm Fri. Nov. 9, 2018.
Less than a year after the Thomas Fire, Ventura County is under fire once again, under siege from the Hill Fire near Camarillo and the much larger Woolsey Fire which started near the Borderline Bar in Thousand Oaks where 12 people were killed at a College Night by a man who also killed himself a few hours before on Weds. Nov. 7, 2018. Read more about Thousand Oaks in this personal essay here by Suzanne Roberts.
In addition to evacuation of people and pets, exotic animals are on the run also: Read more…
art predator 