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Last Saturday, nine of us gathered here at the farmette to practice what we call “ora et labora.” Ora et Labora is Latin for “prayer and work,” and is a Benedictine monastic practice, that marries contemplation and action. The day began with some reflection and a chant, and we then moved outdoors to begin our practice, while constructing a dry-stack stone wall behind the old corn crib. But we did not construct just any old dry-stack stone wall. We are calling this “the wailing wall.”

In Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees, May Boatwright is the highly sensitive sister of June and August Boatwright. May is what you would call an “empath;” she has the ability to feel the pain of another in her own body. Whenever May learns of a tragedy affecting someone in her community, May is overcome with grief and goes to the “wailing wall,” a stone structure behind their house to weep and wail. At the wall, May leaves her tears and also small slips of paper, containing the names of the people for whom she is grieving. May Boatwright engages in what I think many are missing in our society: rituals to honor grief.

When my family moved to this farmhouse and surrounding green space, there was a small patch of woods at the top of the yard, mostly consisting of the invasive “tree of heaven,” brush, and vines. And in the center of this small patch of woods was a huge pile of rubble, overgrown by weeds and poison ivy. My husband and I decided to clear back the overgrowth, freeing the native trees that were being choked and crowded, and exposing the large pile of rubble, made up mostly of field stone and some old pieces of concrete. We decided that we wanted to make something beautiful from this pile of rubble and began dreaming of building short dry-stack walls at the edges of the woods.

I saw in this pile of exposed rubble what the year 2020 seemed to offer: a laying bare of many ugly truths. First, we learned that we are not as invincible a species that we modern humans had assumed. We learned that diseases can spread rapidly and widely, and that each us is vulnerable. In our nation, we witnessed the murder of George Floyd by the foot and the indifference of white police officers, and many of us saw for the first time the legacy of white supremacy that still exists in many of our institutions and communities. We also witnessed the most divisive presidential election of our time and the rise of hate groups and national terrorism. Our vulnerability as a species, systematic racism, and extremism were just like the rubble in our woods. 2020 was the great unveiling of what has always been. And for many, myself included, these collective wounds brought with them immense grief.

And so with May Boatwright’s wailing wall as our inspiration, and with our own griefs in mind, our group of nine began removing rocks from the pile of rubble and carrying them to our wall site. And as we did, we built something beautiful… a wailing wall that will serve as a space to hold prayers of lament. We fell into a rhythm of work and prayer, moving at our own pace, mostly in silence. Some of us chose to carry one stone at a time, holding a different concern in our hearts with each held rock and releasing it into the wall. Others worked in tandem, filling and emptying wheelbarrows together. We rested when our bodies asked for rest. We drank water when we were thirsty. We found the joy of shared labor, realizing building a wall is like the work of justice… it takes time and requires attentiveness, but is easier and more joyful when many hands work together.

And like the unfinished work of justice or the work of grief, the wall is not yet complete. The pile of rubble, though smaller, still exists. In our world, there is still much to grieve… the loss of loved ones, relationships, jobs, dreams. There is still injustice. But working on this wailing wall brought me back to what I sometimes lose hold of: hope. Everytime I stopped and looked about me, I saw each one doing their small part. I was reminded that all I can do is my part. When we all do our own part, we can really build something beautiful out of a pile rubble, whether that be in our backyards, in our community, or in the world.

May it be so.

Life just feels generally overwhelming these days. Though I consciously limit my intake of news, the heat of wildfires, the terror of what is happening in Afghanistan, the spread of the Delta variant and the violence on social media and in the streets of America all creep into my psyche—might I even say, into my very cells. Perhaps that is why the muscles stiffen behind our shoulders, and our legs and chests feel so heavy some days. The science of trauma is teaching us that we carry pain in our bodies, long after the initial pain has ended.

And yet. And yet, when I look out my window, the meadow is stubbornly green and the sun audaciously dances, and a breeze stirs on this impossibly hot day. The earth reminds me that not all is lost; life continues, even as death seeks to destroy.

This weekend my family gathered at a cabin in Pine Creek, where we’ve spent many a summer getaway through the years. The reality of death accompanied each of our lively days. We were gathering on the weekend of what would have been my brother’s 45^th birthday and which also was the 8^th anniversary of his passing. This place was where we had last been all together, two weeks before the accident; the last time I saw him, hugged him, heard his laugh. But somehow this weekend, he was present in the daily visits of a hummingbird, in the memory of his laughter echoing across the creek, in our hike along the trail that we tread on our way to scatter some of his ashes in those mountains he had loved.

I realized something this weekend. My family knows how to grieve; and we do this well. In my family, tears are welcomed; being vulnerable is safe. And no one is left to grieve alone. Rituals of remembering remind us that grieving is sacred work; as Valarie Kaur says, “grief is the price of love.” And so, encircled around a fire on Friday night, we made space for each of us, if we wanted, to read letters we had written to my brother. And since music has healing qualities, we played the song that accompanied a flower ceremony we had organized at his memorial service and recreated that ceremony, ending the evening encircled within one another’s arms.

Grief work, I am quite certain, is what more of us need to be practicing. And there is so much to grieve. When we grieve, we loosen some of that heaviness that we carry around in our bodies. When we grieve, we offer space for our wounds to heal. I am an activist at heart. I have always been moved to participate in the work of justice. And I will continue to do so. But I also feel a call to wound tending, to making space for others to attend to both personal grief and collective wounds. I am learning that the work of justice is hard, long, discouraging work. It is no wonder many activists burn out or give way to cynicism, despair, or numbing. Grief work is the medicine our souls require when the overwhelm sets in. Grieving is what is needed in order to continue the work of justice.

And moreover, grief work opens the door to deeper joy and wonder. I’ve witnessed this so many times. The laughter and lightness that bubbles up after a shared cry. The wonder of being connected to another human being after sharing one’s deepest pain. And this weekend, the silliness and laughter that erupted soon after our tears around the fire. The tenderness we offered ourselves and one another opened our hearts to the strength of love available to each of us.

In speaking about the lack of release and refreshment from this summer that so many of us needed, in her most recent newsletter, Krista Tippet so eloquently reminds us of this truth: “As we are able, we must build practices of accompaniment, of tending refreshment — in equal measure to repairing and building and growing — into life, and life together.” I love this. “Practices of accompaniment.” Accompanying both grief and refreshment. Tending to both wounds and joy. Giving space for pleasure and for rebuilding our world.

This is the work I am trying to show up for right now. This “both/and” work. I am finding joy in the simple act of cutting sunflowers, in walking along the creek behind our house, in the taste of morning coffee and summer ice cream, in going for dinner with friends. And I am also making space for hard emotions that continue to arise. There are tears. There are fears. There is sharing my pain with others.

There is so much to be done. So many causes calling for attention. I intend to continue advocating for human and planetary rights, for equity in our school systems, and to discover my role in creating welcome for the many Afghan refugees coming to our country. But I also intend to pause from that work when the overwhelm sets in and to make space for tending to both grief and joy.

Finally, if you or someone you know is interested in the opportunity to tend to collective grief, I will be facilitating an online program called “Becoming Wound Tenders” in October. There is something powerful when we do grief work together, and I’d love for you to join.

I began reading Braiding Sweetgrass almost a year ago. I’m not sure where to begin with describing the journey this book has taken me on. I might describe it as a conversion experience, if conversion means seeing with new eyes. For though I thought I was fairly woke to the violence inflicted upon American indigenous peoples with the coming of European colonizers, my level of understanding was that of a 2^nd grader. I had so much more to learn, and I am still not even close to graduation.

And though I have been greatly concerned about humans’ exploitation of the earth since 6^th grade environmental science, I did not know to what extent this land I call “my country” and what many indigenous people call “Turtle Island” had been so vastly altered since the European colonizers stole land, committed genocide, and sought to scourge out indigenous language, cultures, and sacred spiritual teachings through forced Christian conversion.

“All powers have two sides, the power to create and the power to destroy.

We must recognize them both, but invest our gifts on the side of creation.”

all quotations in blue are from Robin Wall Kimmerer in Braiding Sweetgrass

I didn’t know the stories of young native American children who were taken from the arms of their parents, sent to boarding schools, like the one in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and punished for speaking their mother tongue, shamed for their long hair and clothing, and ridiculed for the customs inherited from their ancestors. I did not know any of the spiritual teachings of indigenous cultures–full of wisdom, compassion, and humility. I did not know it was possible to live so in tune with the natural world, in ways that honored the life in every gift of Creation. I did not know that the Potawatomi were instructed to take only what they needed and not more than half of what was given, that they were warned of greed, that when they took from the earth or from the waters or the lives of other animals, that they were instructed to give thanks and to offer gifts in return, so that always they remembered that life was sacred, life was gift.

“Had the new people learned what Original Man was taught

…never damage Creation, and never interfere with the sacred

purpose of another being—the eagle would look down on a different world.

The salmon would be crowding the rivers, and passenger pigeons would darken the sky.

Wolves, cranes, Nehalem, cougars, Lenape, old-growth forests would still be here,

each fulfilling their sacred purpose.”

I did not know that the west coast waters were once filled with wild salmon and that ceremonies to honor their annual return were what kept salmon returning, for they were never over-fished, and the wetlands were welcome homes before the white man stopped up the tributaries and destroyed their nesting places. I did not know that black ash trees, maples, and redwood, now endangered, were such giving species to humans. I did not know that entire lakes, which now are poisoned by the filth of factories, were once home to humans, rice, plants and animals that lived in harmony with one another. I did not know that the western ways of farming would destroy fertile soil and lessen production, so that farmers would feel the need to spray chemicals to make things grow and to keep away pests, while poisoning the food, the soil, the water, the air, and yes, humans, with these chemicals. I did not know that this land was once a garden of Eden for thousands of years, and that in such a short time, a few centuries, our entire planet home would be threatened.

“All of our flourishing is mutual.”

This book has produced deep grief for what had been and what could have been, had the original caretakers of this land been allowed to continue their God-given responsibility to be stewards (not lords) of this land and had the white man not forgotten that he was part of creation, too. That every human is a sacred being, and not a savage.

“By honoring the knowledge of the land, and caring for its keepers,

we start to become indigenous to place.”

But Robin did not write a book of lament, though lamentation, is certainly invoked within anyone who cares about our planet and about future generations. Robin wrote a book that is closer to a love story. A love story between humans and Mother Earth that has been nearly lost over time, and yet is still alive and that is being rediscovered. A love story where Mother Earth continues to give of her gifts like any loving mother does for her children and an invitation for humanity to live, not just with gratitude, but in a reciprocal relationship, where we offer our gifts back to her in the forms of care, respect, simplified living, stewardship, creativity, sharing of resources with other humans, etc… A love story that invites us into gift economies, versus commodity economies… into harvesting honorably, versus exploiting greedily… into cultures of gratitude, versus cultures of insatiable consumerism.

“’Our first thoughts are not, ‘What can we take?’

but ‘What can we give to Mother Earth?’

That’s how it’s supposed to be.’”

– Carol Crowe, an Algonquin ecologist at a meeting on indigenous models of sustainability

The majority of Americans identify as Christian today, and certainly stewardship and love of land are woven into both Jewish and Christian scriptures. But certain strains of Christianity have tragically valued domination over cooperation, patriarchy over equality, exploitation over co-creation, human hubris over interconnection, and the afterlife over heaven-on-earth. Many Christians are now seeing what St. Francis, Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, George Fox, and so many Christian mystics had been awake to all along: humans are not above creation, we are part of creation.

Science is revealing what Wisdom has always known. Our flourishing depends upon the flourishing of our planet and other species. And their flourishing depends upon us. We are intricately connected, like a huge spider web, like an embroidered tapestry, just as the Creator made us to be. And we westernized, intelligent beings, whether we identify as Christian, or not, would do well to listen to the wisdom of indigenous peoples and their sacred teachings. If I could, I would make Braiding Sweetgrass required reading for every American today. The wisdom contained in these pages imagines new possibilities of living into a future that could sustain life for all our children’s children’s children. I pray that it may be so. I pray that I may know my gifts and carry them responsibly. I pray that you will, too.

“The most important thing each of us can know is our unique gift and how to use it in the world…. to carry a gift is also to carry a responsibility.”

I haven’t known what to say. Where to begin. So many times I’ve gone to share articles on Facebook, hoping that the facts and world history and the warnings will do what they need to do to wake everyone up. I’ve drafted posts and scribbled in my journal. I’ve felt my heart break in two, as it did when the sob erupted from my throat after seeing the image of a noose hanging on a gallows at the Capitol, and thought of the trauma that image inflicts on my black brothers and sisters. And later that night I awoke from a nightmare that neighbors were turning against neighbors. I’ve cried, like today while walking my dog, inconsolable, angry, and aching tears, that the Jesus I was introduced to as a child, the one who stood up to religious hypocrites and stood beside the outcasts and the needy, the one who never tried to create a Christian nation and never even asked to be worshipped, has been drug into violent conflicts, slapped onto bracelets and bumper stickers, and wielded like a weapon for the past 2000 years. I keep reviewing these last four years, like a long dark movie, remembering back to all I had feared slowly come to be when D.T. was elected in 2016. I’ve feared and I’ve mourned for my Muslim, black, Latinx, refugee, and immigrant brothers and sisters, especially my sisters. I feel the strong temptation to shame those who have allowed some of their revered religious leaders to convince them that if a bully dresses himself with a Bible or a Jesus flag, that he can be trusted. How many good sheep have I solemnly watched following a wolf? 

I have had many people tell me, “thank you for your positive posts,” but I am not feeling very positive these days. I want to say something unifying, something hopeful, but I won’t say something insincerely. And I don’t believe that now is a time for cute sayings and shallow promises.

I am also not despairing. I do not believe that all is lost. I am looking as hard and straight and honestly as I can to what is happening. What happened on January 6^th was not shocking. It is what many of us knew was a possibility as white hate groups have been emboldened by D.T. since his campaign days. White supremacy is an old, old story. So is patriarchy, abuse of power, and worship of fame and money. So is fear-mongering and scape-goating. These are the weapons and results of these old stories, and they will get louder as their systems are threatened. 

But the reason I do not despair is that I also believe in another story. A story that is happening simultaneously, and one that is far more ancient than even those old stories. It is the story of creation, of birth, of love, of LIFE. It so often looks to be losing, because it doesn’t fight with the weapons of patriarchy and power. No. Its weapons are imagination, co-creation, nurturing, sheltering, bridge-building, love. These “weapons” may sound weak, but they are immeasurably strong and those who choose them are most courageous. They look at evil in the face and don’t turn away and hide. They reach out to those who are suffering. They take care of the most vulnerable. They speak truth to power, even when it lands them in prison, or worse. They tend to the wounded. They create networks of community and caring. They make music that calms and poetry that inspires. They are the children of creation, and they believe everyone belongs.

I do not despair because this story of creation is still at work, and always has been, even as the stories of destruction rise and fall. I also do not offer blind optimism that everything will get better tomorrow. There have always been, and always will be two stories happening. The question right now is not “which one is going to win?” The question is, which story do you and I want to be a part of? I choose the latter.

Three days a week I commute to Reading Area Community College where I tutor multi-lingual students, or students whose first language is something other than English. There I hear many stories about home. Most of these students currently live in an urban setting, but many come from rural roots and talk longingly about the family farm they grew up on, among mango trees and banana groves, the pueblos in South America or villages in Africa or India. Most when speaking about their childhood homes, whether from a big city or a small town, light up brightly, remembering relatives they haven’t seen in years, flavors and spices that make their mouths water, and neighbors who all look out for one another. 

In September, I participated in the Run4Refugees campaign to raise money for Church World Service’s work to support refugees here and around the globe, people who have quite literally been forced to leave their homes. As I walked the 35^th and last mile of my challenge for the week, the word home kept arising within me, like a mantra. Home. I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of home, and what that means. Does everyone who has a house feel at home? What is home? And isn’t home what every person desires and deserves?

My belief is that a home is more than a place of residence. Home is a place not just to lie down our heads at night, but a place to sleep in peace. Home is a place where we feel free to be ourselves. Home is where we are loved, cherished, wanted.

One of the reasons I chose to walk for refugees and write about their stories and one reason I am passionate about empowering immigrant students to reach their dreams at my local community college, is because for the last four years, the idea of home has been threatened for many here in the United States of America. 

The reason I wore black on November 4^th, 2016, was because I was grieving. Not for myself. Not because my preferred candidate was not elected, and I was sad that “my team” lost. I was grieving for the harm I saw coming to many who call this nation “home” – for the most vulnerable in our country, beginning with our refugee and immigrant neighbors (and how many of us are not the great-grandchildren of refugees and immigrants?), extending to all people of color, to my friends with sexual orientation different from my own, for anyone who might be considered on the fringes of society.

Today I learned from a colleague that her immigrant students also were grieving that day four years ago. One student, a mother of young children, said in tears that she wondered if her children would not be better off back in her home country, though moving there would mean they’d give up access to electricity and running water. This may sound dramatic to those of us who pass as white or who have lived in this nation for several generations. We feel at home and our status feels secure. But this home, once proudly known for its welcome of the marginalized and touted for being a land of opportunity and freedom, does not feel like home to all of its residents.

It has been terribly painful to watch the harm I feared come in waves these last four years. From the disparaging rhetoric of the president toward my Mexican neighbors breeding fear of Latinx Americans, to the threat of pulling significant funds from the peace-keeping and humanitarian efforts of the UN, to the devastating executive order slamming the door on refugee settlement programs here in the U.S. and the travel ban targeting Muslim countries, to the funding of walls and prisons splitting up Central American families seeking asylum (as opposed to using that funding to address the root problems of migration), to withdrawing troops along the border of Turkey who were maintaining peace in Syria, to wanting to break promises for Dreamers by seeking to end the DACA program that protects thousands of children living in America, including personal friends of mine, to the fanning of the flames of hateful white supremacist groups. The toll on these lives over the last four years has been insurmountable.

Home has been threatened in this nation in which I have always called home. And not just for foreign-born Americans, but also for black Americans (many who would perhaps say that this nation has never lived up to its definition of home for them), for LGBTQ Americans, and really for all of the rest of us. For what becomes of a home when it is divided against itself? 

I was raised in a home that often housed more than just my parents, my two brothers, and myself. Since as long as I can remember, our home was a place of welcome. Our home welcomed a refugee from Ethiopia escaping civil war, exchange students from Germany and Japan, a friend recovering from traumatic loss, and many others who needed temporary housing. These additional guests at our dinner table enriched our lives. I learned that home is a place not just for kin, but a place of hospitality, a place of welcome, a place for the “outsider” and the “stranger-soon-to-be-friend.”

I’ve also tasted the hospitality of homes away from home. I have experienced only a very small bit of what it means to be a visitor in another land, and my experiences were pleasant and privileged. The rich warm mugs of chai and beaded jewelry placed in my hands when I visited strangers’ homes in Kenya… the sincere smiles and pura vida greetings when our family visited Costa Rica. The friendly warmth and cead mile failte we received when we spent a week in Ireland. I want to receive others as warmly as I have been received.

So, my prayer for my family’s home, and for this nation that I call home, is that we would always leave room at the table for another. 

I once heard a story of a poor man from Nazareth who fed a crowd of people with just two fish and five loaves of bread. From him, I learned that love and sustenance multiply exponentially when we take just what we need and share generously with others, when we make room at the table for “the other” and open our homes, and our hearts, in welcome. May it be so.

It has been a couple of months since I last wrote anything here. There are times that I, as a writer, cannot write. The words dry up in the heavy heat of a world on fire. I have found it hard to find words to express all that my body has been feeling since the killing of George Floyd. I am one who has been gifted with deep sensitivity, the ability to feel in my body the pain of another. It is a gift, but a heavy one at times. I’ve been carrying the collective pain of a nation divided against itself between states of red and blue, of oppressor and oppressed, of power and privilege and those held back and pushed down, again and again and again. I feel the weight of an oncoming election, and I’ve followed the emotional rollercoaster of DACA dreamers, asylum-seekers, of refugees and the unemployed. As Brene’ Brown has said in her podcast interviews, those who are not feeling turbulence at this time are not awake to what is happening in our world.

Instead of writing, I’ve been taking in the words of others. Ibram X. Kendi. Glennon Doyle. John Lewis. Parker Palmer. Marilyn Nelson. I’ve been reading the voices and perspectives of people with a skin color and life experience different from my own. I’ve been letting music and poetry wash over me and bring comfort and inspiration.

During this dry spell, the earth within my soul has been tilled up and turned over. New seeds have been planted, and I’ve had to step away many times from the news and the articles and the angst on social media to allow some breathing room for these seeds to grow… to literally sit or walk beside running water at the creek banks near my home, inviting the watering of soul, the cooling of mind. I find myself needing the medicine of green spaces, the nutrients of earth to grow these seeds into thoughts, words, hope, action.

Most recently, I’ve immersed myself in interviews with the late representative and civil rights icon, John Lewis. When I listen to the words of this great man of faith, this leader of love and justice-making, I feel hope for our next generation. I feel hope even for this presently divided country. John Lewis lived with the long-view in mind, deeply believing that a new world is possible, the kind of world that Jesus told stories about, and Dr. King, Dorothy Day, Gandhi and many others non-violently worked for. He also believed that each of us have a moral responsibility to speak up and make “good trouble” whenever we see injustice, to use our gifts to work toward that new world.

I’ve come to believe there are always two realities happening… the one that we see through images from our news media outlets… a world run by greed, fear, and scarcity mindset – where competition and exploitation tear the human family apart and rape our Mother Earth. But there is another reality, too. It is one that we tap into and form through our dreams and imagination–a world created through Wisdom, Love and Spirit. It looks like the sharing of resources, the building of bridges, the crumbling of walls, and the sacred valuing of all living things. I caught a glimpse of it, just recently, when walking along the river trail.

I take to the river trail
images from my television screen – 


another hurricane hits the coast
disruption of home and hope


a fire is set in Portland
military personnel attack civilians


the clash of white and black
wealth and poverty
power and oppression
truth and lies

I come here 
to the riverbank where life 
breathes in shades of green
here
where the hawk hovers above my head
on his low-hanging hickory branch
and whose flight to a sistering tree
I might have missed 
had it not been for the slow 
stride and astute eyes of a man and a woman
walking wrinkled hand in wrinkled hand,
heads bent toward the trees.


a birthday party is happening 
up on the hill – 
the women wear long, simple dresses and cover their heads;
generations of farmers and faith
stroll in their quiet ways.
I watch as a young man playfully pulls his lover toward the trail;
she touches her hand to her bonnet,
laughs,
and they run down the path
toward dusk and dreams.


Along the bridge
a fisherman is packing his pole and his catch of the day.


I pass raspberry bushes
pushing their fruit
and mothers their strollers;
a little girl leans from her seat and smiles at me.


Nearing the red bridge,
I hear music –
the marimba, the maracas, the vihuela – 
a fiesta is taking place
across the creek;
laughter and Spanish bubble up 
from the water where the children splash
and a man is building a cairn of rocks.


And up in the field
which now stands golden in day's end light, 
two families, in beautiful shades of milky chocolate,
pose for a portrait shoot.
The woman wears a wedding veil, 
the man a buttoned white shirt;
the children are giggling.

I remember again the images from my television screen
and consider how the beautiful and the brutal
live as neighbors
on the same spinning planet.


And I see now 
what the TV cameras failed to capture –

rescuers reaching out hands and help
to hurricane victims 

healthcare workers risking again their lives
to save lives


peaceful protestors, 
descendants of slavery, children of Jim Crow and mass incarceration,
holding up signs beside white friends and allies, 
descendants of privilege,
all of them moving toward a fuller fulfillment of "the dream."


I see 
the beauty of bravery
the elegance of courage 
the grace of resilience.


The unimaginative may say, these are dangerous times to be living,
and they are right.


And also true 
is that 
it is raspberry season,
and sustenance abounds
wherever life is nurtured by love, not greed,
whenever room is made,
like here at the riverbank,
for the plain family's party
and the lively fiesta,
for the fisherman
and the hawks, 
the photographers and the joggers,
and the blending of families,
the young and the old – 


here where air holds space 
for english, ebonics, spanish, and german
and the language of hawk 
and hickory.


And to those who wish to make America great again,
I say,
let's dream bigger than that;
let's make America 
greater
than it's ever 
been before.


Come with me to the riverbank;
it's dreaming America here.






© Annette Garber

Last Friday I responded to an invitation I saw on Facebook. An invitation to participate in a dedication walk in honor of Ahmoud Arbery. The walk took place on what was supposed to be his 26th birthday, and we were asked to walk 2.23 miles, to remember the date in which he was murdered by two white men, February 23rd, 2020.

It is important for me to note the year 2020. The killing of Ahmoud did not take place in the 1864, the year before Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. It did not take place in 1968, the year of Dr. King’s assassination. It took place THIS year, in 2020.

I note this date because it speaks to the fact that racism and bias is a nasty, bloody stain that, yes, is still with us today. I note this because my son has conversations about what is happening in the world with his peers on social media, and some of his peers believe that white men are just as likely as black men to be victims of violence. They believe racial injustice a thing of the past. I can forgive their ignorance, because I also would have believed this at their age. They haven’t received the proper education, as I had not.

But these are not the facts, and this belief, that racism is in the past, keeps hidden biases in the dark, rather than bringing them into the light where those biases can be transformed by truth and love. And it is up to me and my generation to educate our children and their peers about the legacy of racial injustice and violence that leaves people of color more vulnerable to profiling, more vulnerable to police brutality, more vulnerable to all sorts of blind prejudice from even well-meaning people – educators, peers, neighbors, coworkers, bosses, etc…

I share this poem to reveal the process I am undertaking of bringing my biases into the light. I share this because I have been trying to listen more closely to stories of people of color, and I am weary of these stories of senseless violence toward black men in particular. I share this because I have been told that the fundamental work in being an ally for people of color is to raise my voice in my white circles, to call out our hidden biases, my own and others. I share this in remembrance of a young man whose life was stolen from him, Ahmoud Arbery.

Here are my reflections from the 2.23 dedication walk for Ahmaud Arbery.

Walking 2.23 Miles in a Black Man's Shoes


I lace up my shoes
and head out the door.


Why am I walking these 2.23 miles?
I ask the clouds,
which gather tears in their eyes.


Walking can't bring back the dead,
can't erase centuries of racism,
can't put an end to generational trauma
slavery,
Jim Crow,
the noose around the neck,
the over-abundance of brown bodies behind bars,
the under-abundance of fairness, equal opportunity, reparations.


I walk through the neighborhood
past all the pretty houses with their pink peonies
and painted doors
and mulch,
still warm and smelling.


I think about the people who live
within these pretty houses,
people like me,
who wear the fair skin of European ancestry,
the descendents of colonialism,
and I think about what skeletons lie buried in our closets
behind our pretty doors
and neatly trimmed hedges.


A pretty house can hold a lot of secrets.


Believing bullets make us safe,
we hide guns under the mattress,
though our weapons
are more likely to take life
than defend it.


And in our closets,
lie the bones of all our shadows -
the opiate addiction,
the sexual abuse,
the depression,
the anxiety,
the stains of slave blood
and hidden bias in our cells.


It strikes me now that I've never stopped to wonder,
when my teenage son hops on his bike,
hoody pulled over his ears
and pedals past the pretty houses,
     will he return home alive?
Should I remind him not to reach in his back pocket
for his candy bar or phone;
     they may think you have a gun.


I've never thought to say to my son,
     don't be too loud;
     don't bring attention to yourself;
     watch out for the cops.
I've never said any of these things to my son.


Because somehow,
despite the fact that the white man enslaved the black man,
despite the fact that the white man lynched, burned, abused the black man,
despite the fact that the white man sat on juries that exonerated violence against the black man,
despite the fact that the white man is far more likely to commit a mass shooting than a black man,
his white skin affords him protection
from the people behind these pretty doors.


I thought about young Ahmoud,
who on 2.23.20
went out for a jog,
perhaps in a neighborhood just like mine;
how two white men
assumed he was dangerous,
killed him,
then returned to their pretty house,
to their fear and their privilege,
placed their guns back under their beds...
until the next time a young black man
comes strolling through the neighborhood
    out for a jog.

© Annette Darity Garber

Today my mood has matched the weather – rainy, dreary, grey. I try and put it into words, make sense of it in my journal. Words help me find myself when I am lost. They allow me to harness my scattered thoughts and swirling feelings as I pin them to the penned page and invite them to slow down and rest, so I can find again my footing.

But sometimes the words don’t come. They, too, get lost in the swirl. And on those days, I often turn from prose and instead to poetry – that language of the soul which bypasses the rational way of knowing.

I wrote this when last week the rains came so heavy. It feels right to revisit again.

In Search of Flowers


This week
the rains came heavy from the West,
and the sister creeks
across the road
met hands
and became a river.


I watched the muddy water
from my windows
roll over the newly-greened meadow
burying everything in its flooding skirts.


I thought of our neighbors, the Canada geese and the mallards;
it is nesting season,
and I thought of a lost generation of wings,
hopes dashed like broken shells on rocks.


Today the sun is out
and the waters have receded.
I marvel that the sycamores still stand
that the green is not yet murdered.


I inventory the loss
and gather hope where I can,
like a weeping woman
gathers flowers,
like a little girl in search of color
in a garden of weeds.


Just now a mama goose
wanders slowly
cross the soggy meadow,
her head bobbing


Is she praying for her lost loves?
Is she mourning?
Does she come in search of flowers?


©Annette Darity Garber

I’ve been reading about the women mystics. If you’re much like me, you don’t know a lot about them, as women mystics, like most influential women in history, were often silenced during their day and never given equal sharing time to their male counterparts by the men who wrote our history books. Nonetheless, these women are forces to be reckoned with. And I’m grateful to Mirabai Starr who is giving me an education about these women across time and religion who lost, then found, themselves by falling in love with “the Beloved.”

“The way of the feminine mystic

is to adore the presence of the sacred in all things…. “

– Mirabai Starr in Wild Mercy: Living the Tender and Fierce Wisdom of the Wisdom Mystics

It is no wonder that these women mystics were also earthy women. They embraced the feminine qualities of the divine which western religion had almost completely abandoned (even though Jesus himself was a beautiful blend of masculine and feminine consciousness). But the feminine values, that have long been under-valued in western society, are nonetheless alive, are being regenerated, and are desperately needed if we are to engage in co-creating a sustainable future that works for all.

By engaging the very feminine values that have been missing from our religious and political institutions: the willingness to be present, to listen, and, most of all, to allow our hearts to be moved by the suffering of our world. The great gift of the brokenhearted is a deepening of care. When we have fully faced the injustices that rage like wildfires on the margins of society and across the wildernesses of the planet, we cannot help but offer ourselves in service. We bleed for our bleeding Mother. We spontaneously rise to tend her.”

– Mirabai Starr in Wild Mercy: Living the Tender and Fierce Wisdom of the Wisdom Mystics

I became an “environmentalist” when I was in the 6th grade. I like to joke that my environmental science class ruined me. Really it was an awakening. Learning that the earth was overpopulated, that we were shooting holes in our ozone layer, that the landfills were overflowing with styrofoam, plastic, and toxins, that our breathing systems, the forests, were being clearcut… all of this information set off alarm bells in my sensitive young being, and I really have not been the same. The veil had been lifted, and I could see that we all had a role to play in its destruction and in its care. And so that year, partly for extra credit, but also for conviction’s sake, my family began recycling, composting, and allowed a new tree to be planted in our yard. I would do my part.

 Women everywhere are rising to the collective call to step up and repair our broken Earth. And we are activating a paradigm shift such as the world has never seen.

– Mirabai Starr in Wild Mercy: Living the Tender and Fierce Wisdom of the Wisdom Mystics

As I’ve grown, I’ve often been quite bewildered by the fact that more individuals appear to be deaf to the alarm bells. Why do so many people go about their “business as usual,” seemingly indifferent to how their actions and their purchasing power effect life systems that we know are intricately connected? Do they not read about the environmental and human devastation of the fast fashion industry? Or the food industry that benefits a few, destroys the natural landscape, leaves small farmers in the dust, and wreaks havoc on our health? Do they not hear about the plastic mounding in the oceans, the bellies of whales, and the throats of sea turtles? Do they not care about the melting of ice caps, rising of ocean levels, the increase of wildfires, hurricanes, and droughts?

When asked what do we most need to do to save our world, Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh replied, “What we most need to do is to hear within ourselves the sounds of the Earth crying.”

from Coming Back to Life by Joanna Macy and Molly Brown

I have been especially bewildered when people from the Christian faith deny the hard truths of climate change, who close their eyes to the suffering that consumerism and raping of the earth’s resources have on all of God’s children. This bewilders me because it is difficult to read the Hebrew and Christian scriptures without seeing God’s passionate love for all of creation. Part of this blindness is to be blamed on bad theology. How sad that the King James version of the Genesis account changed the intention for humans practicing stewardship of the earth to “having dominion” over the earth.

I began to recognize that there was a huge gap between the kind of exquisite attention that the biblical writers are giving to the fragile land on which they live and the kind of obliviousness that characterizes our culture, or did at that time, in respect to our use of land.

Ellen Davis, author of Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture: An Agrarian Reading of the Bible
in her interview with Krista Tippet on On Being.

If people believe they are supposed to rule supreme, versus to care and tend for creation, their lifestyles will reflect dominance and exploitation. But imagine if we knew ourselves to be a part of a web of life… and that each action we take either strengthens or weakens that web. Imagine if we knew that the weaver of the web loved ALL living creatures; imagine if we remembered that humans are also creatures, that our consciousness and ability to imagine are gifts to be utilized for co-creating with the great weaver. How beautiful and exciting is that!

We are Nature,

long have we been absent

but now we return.

– Walt Whitman (quoted in Coming Back to Life by Joanna Macy and Molly Brown)

This is why I am so grateful that Mirabai Starr is inviting us, both women and men alike, to reclaim the feminine side of God… the energies of nurture, collaboration, creativity, listening, tending, mending, and healing. And why I’m so grateful for the work of Joanna Macy, inviting us to honor our pain for the world, because facing the painful realities of our planet’s health is also where we touch into our love for our world, and our calling to be co-creators in its healing… mid-wives to a world reborn.

The Vessel


And what if the world
is pregnant with becoming –
on her way to birthing –
a mother with her center spreading, stretching,
space being made for something new?


And what if that center is also a heart –
a great, cosmic heart –
and within it,
visions, dreams, images, imaginings.


And what if this earth is not only imploding,
but despite all evidence of impending gloom,
these are the birth pains
for a world reborn?


And what if...
the dreams and dreamcatchers
the image-bearers,
the poets and potters,
artists and meditators,
what if they – what if we –
not only carry these dreams,
but are also,
the midwives.

© Annette Darity Garber

I can’t say how grateful I am that it happens to be spring in this corner of the world while the pandemic rages. I don’t know that the people around me, myself included, would be handling the stay-at-home orders as well if it were cold and dark, and we had to stay inside. Getting outdoors has always lifted my spirits, but it seems that spending time in the natural world–whether it be walking, cycling, gardening, or sitting on the porch–is what is helping to keep all of us more sane and balanced.

Since completing my training in ecotherapy, more than ever before I am convinced that our emotional, spiritual, and physical health is intricately linked to our connection with the natural world. Wisdom teachers have always known of this interconnection, but there is also ample scientific evidence to support this relationship between humans and the natural world, and some doctors are even now prescribing forest-bathing and other time spent in green space as medicine for their patients. It is no wonder that so many of us live with chronic stress, anxiety, and depression when our lives have been so out of harmony with what nurtures us as humans. Access to healthy food, access to green space and fresh air, and time to connect with ourselves, others, and the sacred outdoors is absolutely vital to our well-being.

“We often forget that WE ARE NATURE.

Nature is not something separate from us. So that when we say that we’ve lost our connection to nature, we’ve lost our connection to ourselves.”

– Andy Goldsworthy, nature artist

So especially during this time in our history, when there is much uncertainty about our health, our plans, our jobs and our finances, I am hoping that the human species allows this “global pause” to be an invitation to what many of us have long forgotten: that we are intricately connected to all living things and that nurturing that connection will sustain us, not just in “getting through this,” but will sustain our well-being as a species and a planet.

Today I’d like to share “The Peace of Wild Things” by Wendell Berry. Click here to listen to Wendell’s reading.

“The Peace of Wild Things”
by Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.