I’ve been on a rant for a few years now about technology and it’s impact on our souls.

First I read Richard Louv’s book about nature deficit disorder, Last Child in the Woods, and more recently, Florence William’s The Nature Fix. I’ve written repeatedly about the topic, and shared significant recent research in blog posts like this one from October 2017.

In particular, I am concerned that we need to disconnect with technology in order to connect with nature, other species, and with each other, in order to care about and save our planet from climate change and pollution.

Connecting to place, I would argue, is part and parcel to being human, and is as important to us and our survival as a species as is our connection to each other.

As an avid reader, I am drawn to texts that explore our world and our connection with it. When I can, I bring a few of these texts into the classroom, for example these beautifully written essays:

• George Orwell: “Shooting an Elephant” where he writes about an experience in India — a place where he question whether and where he belongs
• N. Scott Momaday: “Way to Rainy Mountain” where he writes about the place of his ancestors, the Kiowa; I love the entire book and have taught it in the past — this is a link to the prologue
• Charles Simic “A Reunion With Boredom” where he writes about what happens when the power goes out
• Alice Walker: “In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Creativity of Black Women in the South” (1974) — this essay was published in MS Magazine and is the title essay of her collection.
• E.B. White: “Once More to the Lake” where he explores both time and place

What are some of your favorite essays about people and place? What do they teach or offer to you?

THREE separate events have been announced to demand gun violence end in America.
March 14th: #NationalSchoolWalkout @womensmarch
March 24th: #MarchForOurLives @AMarch4OurLives
April 20th: #NationalSchoolWalkout @schoolwalkoutUS

The first one is this Wednesday, March 14. #ENOUGH – National School Walkout takes place at 10am and continues for 17 minutes across every time zone in remembrance of the 17 people who were murdered in Parkland, Florida on Valentine’s Day. Read more…

March is Women’s History Month and tomorrow, Thursday March 8, 2018 is International Women’s Day. with a theme of #PressforProgress.

According to organizers, International Women’s Day each year on March 8 “is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating gender parity. International Women’s Day (IWD) has occurred for well over a century, with the first​ ​March 8​ ​IWD gathering supported by over a million people in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland. Prior to this the​ Socialist Party of America, United Kingdom’s Suffragists and Suffragettes, and further groups campaigned for women equality. Today, IWD belongs to all groups collectively everywhere. IWD is not country, group or organisation specific.​ Make IWD your day! – everyday!”

While women have made progress, there is still a ways to go — not just elsewhere in the world but here in the United States where women make 77 cents to every $1 that men make. For women of color that is even less. Punk icon Alice Bag (who will be featured at Ventura College’s Diversity in Culture event Weds April 11 from 330-5pm in ASC 150) has a new cd coming out with a single that addresses this very point:

Here are the lyrics: Read more…

“I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been like a boy playing o the sea-shore, and diverting myself now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me,” reflects physicist Sir Isaac Newton.

What are you distracted by?

For many it is the shiny pebble, the lustrous shell of our cell phones.

But it doesn’t have to be.

A few weeks ago on Valentine’s Day I suggested that we make the planet our sweetheart and that for lent, we follow the Pope’s hope that we confront our culture of indifference, and instead of giving up sugar or soda or some such,  we: Read more…

With so much conflict in the world, in our country, in our communities, and even within ourselves, we must periodically ask the question:

How do we build common ground?

An important tool is to reflect on our languages choices and to consider:

• what are our expectations,
• what our assumptions, and
• what are our differences?

Read more…

I’m getting evaluated this term at the college where I teach and so I’ve been thinking a lot this weekend about what all I’ve accomplished, particularly in the past three years since my last evaluation. Read more…

Pick up a rock. Any rock. You’ll feel better.

“When something bad happens, ” writes Karen Maesen Miller in Paradise in Plain Sight, “when you step into the quicksand of your gloom and doom, when your thoughts begin to race, when fear strangles your breath, despair wrenches your heart, and doubt suffocates the light right out of your day, pick up a rock and hold it in your hand.

Yes, any old rock will do. Any rock will bring you back to the here and now.

Faith in the here and now is faith that never leaves you. Besides, what else do you have to go on?”

Seriously? With everything that’s going wrong in the world? Why? 

There’s lots of research that’s come out about “Nature Deficit Disorder” and “The Nature Fix” that indicates that time in nature “makes us happier, healthier, and more creative” according to  journalist and science writer Florence Williams.

These days, too often the glow of the screen captivates us more than the glow of the moon or the sunset. Do we even remember to look up to see the first or the final rays of the sun sending tangerine and fuchsia light into the clouds infusing the beginning or the end of our days with a golden glow?  Read more…

The Year of the Dog begins on February 16th, 2018 and ends February 4th, 2019. Babies born between those dates have the dog as their Chinese zodiac sign. Further,  2018 is designated as an Earth year, one of the five elements that are cycled through the 12 sign Chinese zodiac. This means that an Earth Dog year only comes around once every 60 years. So if you were born between February 18th, 1958 and February 7th, 1959, this will be first time you will have been alive during a year that shares your exact birth sign. Like their namesakes, people born in the year of the dog are easy-going, friendly, exuberant, and loyal.  Read more.

Dogs play an important role in Chinese mythology. Often a dog accompanies a hero, and some ethnic groups claim  a magical dog as an ancestor. The Tiangou or “Heavenly Dog” resembles a black dog that, unless frightened away, eats the sun or moon during an eclipse — which we had yesterday as well as one on the Chinese New Year in 2009.

Events are held around the world to commemorate the occasion. Locally, a large event was held two weeks ago, and starting today, there are events at AN LAC BUDDHIST MISSION, the Ventura Buddhist Study Center on Saticoy Ave. in Ventura. Read more…

No matter how you spell it or say it, today is a day all about LOVE. Read Pablo Neruda’s Poem “Amor” here.

What a day! Following Fat Tuesday and Galentine’s Day, today is Ash Wednesday AND Valentine’s Day.

And tomorrow is the Chinese New Year which means there’s a new moon plus there’s a solar eclipse following last month’s BLOOD BLUE Moon — and, if you’re into astrology, there’s a bunch of planets doing interesting things as well as the significance of change in store from the eclipse not to mention that Ganesh, Remover of Obstacles, is out and about before and after an eclipse.

So woah! What a day!

January 2018’s blue blood moon in Ventura

As you may know, the origins of St. Valentine are shrouded in mythology and faith. In one popular story, St Valentine defies a Roman emperor to marry devoted lovers in secret. Whether or not this is true, it inspires us today to celebrate ALL LOVE and to resist against injustice toward people and planet. Read more…