Boom and Bust

Been a busy couple of days-- no time to write. I am hoping to get a bluetooth keyboard for my iphone now that it's supported, though, which will make my driving adventure to Idaho a font of tales for your amusement. Well, that or I'll write it in a notebook with a pen and promise myself to transcribe it and never get around to it.

Maybe I'll write to someone.

Lots of good friends, not so much sleep in the last little bit. It'll get worse before it gets better, but tonight is the only night left before I leave, so there's only one more sleep-lite night to go. Need to remember to do all that stuff I've gotta do.

Bound and determined to get some form of long distance for the trip and call people. Wish me luck.

(no subject)

Thanks

Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water looking out
in different directions.
back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you
looking up from tables we are saying thank you
in a culture up to its chin in shame
living in the stench it has chosen we are saying thank you
over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the back door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you
in the banks that use us we are saying thank you
with the crooks in office with the rich and fashionable
unchanged we go on saying thank you thank you
with the animals dying around us
our lost feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us like the earth
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
we are saying thank you and waving
dark though it is

WS Merwin

Birthday Present?

NW Radical Herbalists Gathering

.........
August 27 - 30, 2010
*Unceded Coast Salish territory on Vancouver Island, 'bc'.*
.........

*Y*ou are cordially invited to a gathering of Pacific North-West herbalists
and plant enthusiasts of an anarchist, anti-oppressive, and community-minded
persuasion. We are open to radical herbalists and plant nerds of all skill
levels to challenge, learn, and share.

*W*e are loosely organizing the gathering around skill shares, workshops,
discussion groups, group outings, and fun times! We would like to discuss
ways of collaborating regionally with other herbalists, sharing medicines
and resources, sharing knowledge, skills, and inspiration and figuring out
ways of supporting each other and our cross border, cross ocean
communities.

*A*s a growing number of radical herbalists emerge, we feel the need to
explore how our work as herbalists and plant lovers fits into the rest of
our resistance work and the work we are doing to build the world that we
want, especially in the face of main stream and regulatory herbalism. Please
bring your thoughts about this.

*I*f you would like to offer a workshop/ skill share or facilitate a
discussion, please email us with your ideas, just so we know we have some
bases covered. We will be camping so please come prepared to sleep outside.
There may be a possibility for some inside accommodation for those who need
it, please let us know ahead of time so we can work it out. For those of you
coming from south of the border, we suggest you take the ferry from Port
Angeles, the border crossing is much easier there and we will be arranging
car pools from Victoria.

*
*
*S*ome workshops / facilitated discussions we'd like to see happen are:

- constitution
- cultural appropriation
- tongue/ pulse diagnosis
- pathology
- case studies
- plant attunement/ communication
- herbal medicine for trans folx
- connection with our bio region
- access to and sustainability of community projects
- clinical skills
- establishing healthy boundaries as a health practitioner
- plant profiles
- gender, class and race dynamics in practice and in the herbalist
community
- percolation/advanced medicine making
- make yer own perc cones
- colonization and herbal medicine
- the hi)her)story of herbalism in 'n, amerika'
- the intersection of food and medicine
- non-plant based medicine
- western herbs and TCM (in a nut shell)
- getting to know strong medicine plants of this area

let us know if you can facilitate any of these, and please offer any other
ideas you have!

And, it?s going to be blueberry season in the mountains during this
gathering, and we?re all hoping to fill our (and your) bellies!
..............................
......................

When: August 27th-30th ish 2010
Where: Mid-Vancouver Island

Feel free to forward this message to people that you know who may be
interested.

If you are interested in participating in this please contact Janette or
Philippa for additional information and details at widenightsky@gmail.com,
or call (250) 334-7334.

Birthday Present?

NW Radical Herbalists Gathering

.........
August 27 - 30, 2010
*Unceded Coast Salish territory on Vancouver Island, 'bc'.*
.........

*Y*ou are cordially invited to a gathering of Pacific North-West herbalists
and plant enthusiasts of an anarchist, anti-oppressive, and community-minded
persuasion. We are open to radical herbalists and plant nerds of all skill
levels to challenge, learn, and share.

*W*e are loosely organizing the gathering around skill shares, workshops,
discussion groups, group outings, and fun times! We would like to discuss
ways of collaborating regionally with other herbalists, sharing medicines
and resources, sharing knowledge, skills, and inspiration and figuring out
ways of supporting each other and our cross border, cross ocean
communities.

*A*s a growing number of radical herbalists emerge, we feel the need to
explore how our work as herbalists and plant lovers fits into the rest of
our resistance work and the work we are doing to build the world that we
want, especially in the face of main stream and regulatory herbalism. Please
bring your thoughts about this.

*I*f you would like to offer a workshop/ skill share or facilitate a
discussion, please email us with your ideas, just so we know we have some
bases covered. We will be camping so please come prepared to sleep outside.
There may be a possibility for some inside accommodation for those who need
it, please let us know ahead of time so we can work it out. For those of you
coming from south of the border, we suggest you take the ferry from Port
Angeles, the border crossing is much easier there and we will be arranging
car pools from Victoria.

*
*
*S*ome workshops / facilitated discussions we'd like to see happen are:

- constitution
- cultural appropriation
- tongue/ pulse diagnosis
- pathology
- case studies
- plant attunement/ communication
- herbal medicine for trans folx
- connection with our bio region
- access to and sustainability of community projects
- clinical skills
- establishing healthy boundaries as a health practitioner
- plant profiles
- gender, class and race dynamics in practice and in the herbalist
community
- percolation/advanced medicine making
- make yer own perc cones
- colonization and herbal medicine
- the hi)her)story of herbalism in 'n, amerika'
- the intersection of food and medicine
- non-plant based medicine
- western herbs and TCM (in a nut shell)
- getting to know strong medicine plants of this area

let us know if you can facilitate any of these, and please offer any other
ideas you have!

And, it?s going to be blueberry season in the mountains during this
gathering, and we?re all hoping to fill our (and your) bellies!
..............................
......................

When: August 27th-30th ish 2010
Where: Mid-Vancouver Island

Feel free to forward this message to people that you know who may be
interested.

If you are interested in participating in this please contact Janette or
Philippa for additional information and details at widenightsky@gmail.com,
or call (250) 334-7334.

Wow.

I suspect you'll appreciate this one, Writer, or perhaps I'm just thinking of you sitting there with the letter opener that day.

Gifts of Love

I gave them to you
for your earlobes, your fingers. I gilded
the time on your wrist,
I hung lots of glittery things on you
so you'd sway for me in the wind, so you'd chime softly over me
to soothe my sleep.

I comforted you with apples, as it says
in the Song of Songs,
I lined your bed with them,
so we could roll smoothly on red-apple bearings.

I covered your skin with a pink chiffon,
transparent as baby lizards - the ones with
black diamond eyes on summer nights.

You helped me live for a couple of months
without needing religion
or a point of view.

You gave me a letter opener made of silver.
Real letters aren't opened that way;
they're torn open,
torn, <>torn.

Yehuda Amichai
(tr. from the Hebrew by Assia Gutmann)