Dreaming together

“Nobody knows what direction to take. It’s not just you and the organizations you work with. We’re all searching for a way to make a difference,” Anaïs assured me as we shared tea and cornbread at my house this morning. She would know. She has chaired organizations and boards, has organized mass gatherings in the streets. For years she has led Portland’s largest climate justice organization. We observe that street protest fails when politicians only respond to people with money.

We brainstormed. Her day job is public health research, and she’s currently exploring “sacred” research. Fascinating. I have years of background in oral history and oral cultures. How can I use that? She told me about an eight-year-old project in Melbourne, Australia encouraging people to write letters (or emails) to trees. 

How can we help to build relationships between people and trees, the young and the old, people who are housed and those who are not? Dreaming with Anaïs, imagining beside her, I could hear wheels turning. It helps to pay attention. To listen. To dream. To wait patiently, alert for the next thing.

Update on yesterday’s poetry project: many pages of short poems and excerpts gathered and saved. Not sure where I’m going with this, but I’m having a fine time, and your helpful suggestions are going smack into the collection.