Life after snow

The snow stayed on the ground for a long, long time. We began to think it was never going away. Even the sun coming out and the temps hitting 40 couldn't make it disappear. We continued to have a running dialogue about it here in our little love nest. I saw the snow as this incredible brilliance lighting up the otherwise stark gray winter. Courtney saw it as a personal assault on his well-being. We went round and round about it and still the snow sat on our deck, and the yard and the wood pile.



Courtney had to admit it was invigorating (maybe just to shut me up) and we both felt pretty darned hardy (and frostbitten) standing out at the vigils lately with the cold wind whipping our signs and banners. It is truly amazing to me that the Alternatives To War group here has stood in front of the Courthouse from 5-6pm every day for more than five years. We try to keep that in mind when we're shivering and ready to go home.



At least the sun has been out lately and it's been clear and beautiful. It's the same kind of cold crisp blue sky weather that Aaron had this past weekend in Tahoe where he went skiing (for his first time!) with kids from his middle school. He had sooooo much fun and could only say how awesome it all was. He's a natural athlete so skiing came pretty easy for him. When I asked him how it was to be back at school on Monday he said "Fine, but I'd rather be skiing!" Looks like the next generation of ski bums is born.




Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we're having to contain Ben as best we can until we child-proof our place. But as one comedian said, no matter how much you child-proof your house, they always find a way in!

Now, seriously, folks! Ben is crawling! Our lives have changed forever. The days of setting him some place and adoring how precious he is are over! When we set him down now, he's onto his knees and off he goes! Cute as a bug, but what are we to do? We have an eensy, teensy place and it's no distance at all from one electrical outlet to a kitchen drawer full of knives to.....you get the picture. What's to become of my Buddhas and potted plants and shell collections and river rocks in pottery saucers--all on the floor and very interesting. Now his naps are shorter too. Yikes!




Below is a shot of the side of Courtney's car (though we've now taken the Bush poster down out of fear of retribution!) We'll take up calling our reps again tomorrow as follow-up to the big peace demonstration in Washington, DC, this last Saturday. Many people, including some friends from here, stayed in Washington to meet with our congress people.

Rabbi Michael Lerner gave a great opening speech at the rally before the march. You can read the text of his speech at www.tikkun.org. He said he's used to speaking in front of 300-400 people, so addressing a crowd of possibly 300,000-400,000 was a new experience for him. But, God bless him, he led all those demonstrators in a guided visualization and they did it! Well, the times they are a'changing.




What else has happened around here in the past two weeks? Students at OSU organized an event called "Your Voice/Your Conference." They put on some good workshops on direct action, effective organizing strategies, Oaxaca, hiphop as a tool for social change, addressing white priviledge, permaculture. Courtney went to workshops all three days of the conference. He and I both want to bridge the gap between community activists and student activists and Courtney is really doing it. I, on the other hand, have been on campus much less than he. But I made it to workshops on the last day of the conference and then to hear Angela Davis speak at the closing ceremony. She made some good points about thinking in terms of the collective good, rather than individual achievement, and slyly re-named the event "Our Voice/Our Conference."

Also last week, a young human rights activist (from Corvallis but now living in Ashland) named Josh gave a report back from his recent trip to Israel/Palestine to our Friends of Middle East Peace group. He was part of a Christian Peacemaker Teams delegation. He of course had plenty to say, good slides and maps, distressing stories to tell. We had a good turnout of students for his presentation. Josh's father teaches Greek and he had coerced his students to come! They were obviously intrigued to hear Josh's experiences and affected by the injustices he described.

He showed slides of Bethlehem, completely surrounded by the new Separation Wall; the only entrance to the city is through military checkpoints. An enormous Jewish settlement looms over the city from the adjacent hillside. And yet there's a Bethlehem Peace Center on Manger Square in the center of the city. Josh had a slide to prove it.

Josh and other Peacemakers stood with Palestinian workers from Bethlehem in line 3-4 hours, waiting (as they do daily) to enter East Jerusalem to work. Josh pointed out that these workers were only trying to move from one place to another within the Occupied Territories, not even trying to enter Israel proper. His observation is that there's no way for the Palestinians to have a stable economy, much less a viable state, with the current set-up.

He described Hebron, a city inhabited for centuries by Palestinian Arabs, where the Israeli government has, in recent years, moved in hundreds of militant settlers (and thousands of Israeli soldiers to protect them) to the center of the city. Entire apartment buildings in Arab neighborhoods are occupied by the most aggressive and zealous settlers. Essentially all Palestinian businesses have closed because of the danger and the tension in these areas. It's incredibly complicated to go from one part of the city to another because of the hundreds of huge concrete cubes blocking roads everywhere.

Part of the work that Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) do is escorting Palestinian children past settler outposts and safely to school. They document (by video) attacks on the children and report them to the local military authorities who are supposed to protect the local population (Arabs and Jews). When asked if the Peacemakers would protect Jews who were threatened, he said yes, the motto of CPT is: "We stand beside whoever the gun is pointed at."

Josh also talked about olives, which is an enormously sensitive issue in Palestine. In the West Bank, 40% of the cultivated land is olive groves. (The Palestinian economy, before it was destroyed, was based on agriculture.) Olives still provide the primary income for 100,000 families. But the Israeli military sabatoges their harvests by imposing curfews; and more and more Palestinians are cut off from their groves by the Separartion Wall. Then their land is declared abandoned and then confiscated. Already 2.5 million olive trees are on the other side of the Separation Wall from the Palestinians who own them, but now have no access to them.

Thank you, Josh, for your desire for peace and justice in this world, for making this trip to the Middle East and for returning to tell us what you saw and how you felt.

For those interested in knowing more about Christian Peacemaker Teams, go to www.cpt.org.

And thanks to all of you reading this for wanting to know about our lives,

Valori

Dang! Aaron leaves and the snow returns!

Here's my little boys--Aaron fresh from the shower and Ben with a cough and cold, so the rosy cheeks. They're both growing up and changing--and both such sources of joy for me. Aaron and I had so many laughs and so many cozy moments together during this holiday break. There's a transitional time when he leaves that's a little difficult and sad, though I know he's happy and flourishing in his life in Monterey. Then we all settle into our lives and he and I talk almost daily by cell phone and that makes it much easier for us both.



But sometimes life is so unfair! Aaron left on January 5th, heading north to Whidbey Island, WA, with his dad to see their family. They had a great three days up there and then flew home to California. And as soon as he was out of sight, it started snowing here! After two and a half weeks of him wishing and watching for snow here, and then he misses it by a day!



We had a couple days of pouring snow, huge wet flakes, and little swirls and flurries. Then it stopped and we figured the sun that's been coming out every day would melt the snow away. But no! We've had snow on the ground for five or six days now. It's beautifully picturesque for me, anxiety-producing for Courtney, and hard on our wood supply. The lows at nights have been in the teens and some days (like today) the temperature won't make it to 30.



I know that there appears to be a theme with these pictures. It looks like all we do is stare out the windows at the snow. That's not so. For instance, last Thursday night, January 11th, we joined 75-100 others in the Alternatives To War group and stood on street corners around downtown Corvallis from 4:30-6pm holding signs encouraging the passing motorists to join us in speaking out against any escalation of troops to Iraq. Many of the signs said call your congressional reps and tell them no more funding for this war. And while you're at it: No War With Iran! I felt pretty darned hardy vigiling in the snow! And glad to be doing so. Passivity during times of crisis only make me feel more disheartened--and it seems like we're always in a crisis these past six years. Hmmm......what could change that?




Meanwhile, a lot of great people are doing alot of great things and that's what keeps me out of the dismal state of mind I could easily fall into. Last Saturday I helped staff the information table at a music benefit raising money for the defense fund of Lt. Ehren Watada, the first commissioned soldier to refuse to return to Iraq. We packed the house, a downtown cafe called Sunnyside Up, with more that 100 people, everyone LOVED the music and the cause, and we raised $750!

Ehren's court-martial begins on Feb 5th at Ft. Lewis, WA. You can find out more about his case at www.ThankYouLt.org or at www.couragetoresist.org.

In addition, Courtney is helping show a series of four films on Venezuela and the Bolivarian Revolution at the Wednesday night Corvallis World Forum. He's pairing up with a woman named Aleita from Witness For Peace to introduce the films and lead the discussions afterwards. At the first of the four, which was last Wednesday, they had a good turnout of students (just back for the new semester and not yet overloaded with school work) which makes it all worth while.

I'm part of a study group reading Jimmy Carter's Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. We got the bright idea to invite Mr. Carter to speak at OSU and do a booksigning at the campus bookstore as well as an independent local bookstore. We put out the word to other activist groups in Oregon: would they be interested in hosting him in their communities if an Oregon tour came together? The response was overwhelmingly positive. But then reality reared its ugly head and we began hearing figures anywhere from $35,000-50,000 for his speaking fee. Sooooooooo..... back to the drawing board.

In the meanwhile, if you are one of those people, like myself, who greatly appreciate Mr. Carter's courage to put himself out there in the dangerous world where criticism of Israel's policies is not tolerated, then please join me in sending him letters and postcards of thanks.
You can send them to :

The Carter Center
One Copenhill
453 Freedom Pkwy
Atlanta, GA 30307

I love Israeli peace activist Jeff Halper's comment on all the hoopla over Mr. Carter using the term apartheid when talking about Palestine:

"What is apartheid? It is the forced separation of populations in which one people establishes a regime of permanent and structured domination over another. This is exactly what Israel is doing, from annexing its huge settlement blocs to imprisoning the Palestinians behind 26' concrete walls and electrified fences. I don't even see what the 'controversy' is about. Just go to the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem and open your eyes. It's not just a policy or a response to terrorism or occupation--it is a full-blown, thought-out, intentional system of control and domination. Let's thank Carter for giving us a handle on this thing. Let's stop arguing about the semantics and get on with the job of stopping it."

Here's to opening up dialogue in this country about the dangerous paths we've been hurdling down, and here's to changing direction while we can. Where the U.S. government puts our tax
dollars and its foreign aid is closely watched around the world and it's not making us any friends. Maybe we should be paying more attention to exactly what our government is supporting. Maybe it's time to put the participatory back in democracy!

From the bunny in our backyard, the robin in the holly tree, and the towhees flitting about in the snow and the leaves, from Courtney cooking acorn squash and stoking the fire, and from me at the laptop with my tired little fingers, we say:

Good luck to us all, and we send you our love,

Valori

New Year's Wishes For Us All

Ta daaaaa! Clang! Clang! Clang! Everyone up--it's 2007! Time to wake up and come alive! The Earth needs us, the future generations need us, we need us to care more deeply, be more bold, show our love more freely! May we actively support one another in our efforts to create the world we want. In our dear friend Lisa Wartinger's words: "May all of our intentions and actions bring hope and peace to our world in the coming year!" And in the words of the ever-inspiring Jelaluddin Rumi:

BEGIN

This is now. Now is. Don't postpone
till then. Spend the spark of iron

on stone. Sit at the head of the table.
Dip your spoon in the bowl. Seat yourself

next to your joy and have your awakened soul pour wine.
Branches in the spring wind,

easy dance of jasmine and cypress.
Cloth from green robes has been cut from pure

absence. You're the tailor settled
among his shop goods, quietly sewing.