seven things of which I cannot get enough

*Ahem.*

1. Sunflower nut butter and jam sandwiches on Ezekiel's sprouted bread.


2. Kombucha. Seriously, I am like a junkie. I expect to find myself pawning jewelry soon in order to finance my $3.50-to-$4.00-a-bottle habit. Meanwhile, there is a kombucha mother (the mushroom-y material you can use to make your own brew) just languishing in the back of my fridge. It's preposterous, really.



3. 31 and Falling, by Chris Pureka. (Listen all the way through. You'll thank me!) The rest of her material is pretty awesome, too.

4. Craigslist. In the past week I've made friends with a Uruguayan aspiring public interest lawyer (the dating moratorium is still in effect, I'm just trolling for new friends), lined up a cool writing gig for when I go part-time at my job in October, and found the apartment of my dreams.

5. Red-leaf lettuce lettuce tossed with feta, fresh fennel, grapes, and balsamic vinaigrette.

6. Exuberantly singing songs with my pals.

7. Downtown Oakland. Pretty much the coolest place ever! Basically, and this is a proven fact, it has the highest concentration of hidden culture-y and restaurant-y gems per square block of any city in America. Maybe the world. I don't know. I just know that if loving downtown Oakland is wrong, I don't want to be right.

So TELL me, my pretties, what is one thing YOU find yourself unable to live without during these waning days of summer?

some shimmering precipice

Everything still looks the same. There are soft shadows stretching across the floor and flickering on the wall. My stomach is empty and I need to eat, but not as much as I need to write. No matter that everything looks the same; it is different now.

Over the weekend I went up to Mt. Shasta, to a beautiful place called Headwaters Outdoors School. I was invited there by the president of a personal development group here in San Francisco, a group of folks I've recently been admiring from the periphery. I started meeting many of them in May after that course I mentioned, Arete; a few of the people involved in ASF took the course with me, and I got to know them pretty well during those three days.

After I had my Arete experience, I wrote a letter to the online listserv for course graduates to share a bit about my life and ask for advice. I shared with them that I was frustrated with my job, but scared to quit; as much as I felt the deeper pull of unformed passions, I also felt the fear of leaving the safety and prestige that this job afforded me. For the most part, I wasn't feeling inspired, but I was feeling safe. Even as I felt the edges of stress bearing in on me in a multitude of ways, I was surviving, supporting myself, going along.

So I asked for advice, and I got a few extraordinary e-mails in return. One of those began with what is perhaps the finest first line of any e-mail I could hope to receive: "I've been liking you!" That was from the president of the group I mentioned earlier. In his e-mail, then over lunch, he told me about his vision for growing the work of his organization, which now includes a focus on dating and relationship dynamics, to include a focus on the ways in which healthy human-human relationships lead to sustainable human-earth relationships.

We had a great lunch. He invited me to be on the board of the organization, and to join them for their staff retreat up on the land at Shasta. Say no more, right? I'm in.

It was a phenomenal weekend. We spent time with Tim, the director of the school, and a wise old bear of a man. He guided us to climb a huge Doug Fir, blindfolded, and then to find our way into connection with the tree. He spoke to us about earth medicine, about how to ask a rock a question and then receive the answer.

And he led us in two sweat lodges. I've probably done about 5 or 6 sweats in my life, but none so intense as I experienced this weekend, and certainly never twice in a day. We completed a four-round sweat on Saturday morning, and the same on Saturday evening. The rounds lasted 10 or 15 minutes; the door was opened between the first and the second, and then between the third and the fourth. Between the second and third rounds, we all got out.

I hadn't before had such a focused experience of, literally, cooking in my discomfort. Tim runs a hot sweat lodge. We chanted with him as he beat his frame drum and poured water on the glowing, glittering stones, huge mother stones which had been culled from the mountain and heated in the searing fire. We breathed deeply, made low animal noises as wave after wave of heat met us. Welcome steam, we called. Welcome heat. Welcome, fluttering panic. Now, now, now. Only now, in the sweat lodge.

By the fourth round of the morning sweat we were all lying down, seeking some relief from the intense heat against our skin. I survived by knowing that death wasn't going to come, even though it felt that way during some moments, and meeting the moment over and over again. Rubbing mud on my face. Breathing deep and crying out. Holding a rutilated crystal against my heart, feeling my heart-space expanding outwards. There was no escape, so I stopped seeking it.

Exiting the sweat with a bow, sinking into the cold creek water, Shasta's sweet snowmelt, I didn't know anything beyond the animal shudders and coos coming from within me. The crystal, in my lap under the water, caught the light and cast rainbows on my skin. Sunlight glanced off the water. My heart broke, and I began to cry. I could hear the creek rushing and as some heart-chasm in me began to widen to meet life, the rushing became a little louder and a little faster. I felt the widening and the resistance. The tears were quiet and stilted, and I felt myself to be so held there, by the others around me and by life's gentle invitation.

This -- here -- now -- yes.

It was a quickening within and without. It ended soon. I emerged from the creek and stood shivering by the fire, opened.

The sweat in the evening was easy and sweet, compared to the morning sweat. I found myself welcoming the heat, revelling in the opportunity to be washed through. During the last round, when the pain on my skin was like bandages being ripped off, I remembered that it wasn't too long ago that women were burned alive for being powerful, for knowing secrets, for loving each other. In remembering it I could open to the heat, somehow connecting to the power of that lineage. And I felt the blessings of being alive in this time when Tim shouted, "Open up!" and we all crawled out, safe and intact.

There were so many sweetnesses this weekend.

And I knew that today was going to be the day that I would tell my boss that I was leaving. I had planned for a long time to give him one month's notice until I'd end my full-time employment with him. Feeling that, out on the land, I knew it was right, and yet I was terrified. And today I was terrified. What if this is a terrible, foolhardy decision? What if there's nothing on the other side? What if none of these feelings are real? What if I'm just taking advantage of my privilege? What if I'm just a lazy, compulsive, useless person?

These questions flooded me today. But then my friends sent messages of support, reminding me of what I know inside my being. And so finally, at 4:54 p.m. I walked into my boss's office and told him in a gentle voice that it's time for me to follow the increasingly-insistent inner compass, which has been guiding me towards indigenous environmental justice work, toxics and women's health, healing arts. In so many words I told him that I need to see about it, to say 'yes' in whatever way I can to all the medicine that has called to me so mightily.

He understood, and agreed. With sadness he told me that he honored my choice and my passion, and that he knew on some level that it was coming. We agreed that I will stay on through the end of 2008, after I return from the Southwest, on a part-time basis. We agreed to stay in contact, to explore whatever points of collaboration might arise, which may be few but will undoubtedly be fruitful.

On the phone afterwards, my father asked me what my Plan is. I told him a few things I've been thinking. I could feel his concern: "you have to get back into the swing of things at some point, you know." Oh Dad, you'll never know what things are swinging for me, will you? And still, little by little, I feel myself letting go of the constant quest to appease him. It is an unfolding dance.

And here I sit, alone in my sweet apartment, broken open, heartbeat like bird's wings. What will become of me? What will the world ask of me? How will I give, how will I learn, whom will I meet? I can only take one step after another, and go forward to discover the answer. There is no longer any way to be told what I should do.

A quickening. An affirmation. An agreement, a surrender, a commitment. No choice but to say yes.

R.W. Emerson says:

"Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.

Accept the place the divine Providence has found for you; the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men [and women] have always done so and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age, betraying their perception that Eternal was stirring at their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all their being."

Only yes.

the mysteries of love

Seriously, though.

It is one hell of a mystery!

Rumi says: "Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you built against it." That's so true for me. In my particular worldview, which defies categorization but is perhaps something along the lines of technopagantribaljewishurbangypsyearthmama, maybe, um . . . oh yes! In my worldview, love is the very fabric of the universe. Love is the animating force for the first exhale of God, a breath that imbued life into all of creation in a millionth of an instant. Love is what we are. It is not something we do, or something outside of us, it is something we are unfolding as, continually.

Love is the aliveness in every cell of our being. It is what motivates our lives, what drives us to create and expand and explore. "Work is love made manifest," said Kahlil Gibran.

And of course, love is what impels us to seek our Other. I suspect, although I certainly don't know, that 'true love' is what happens when two people come together and their hearts come open into the realization and reality of who and what they truly are -- which is Love. Together, two people in love and in partnership -- two people who are truly compatible, who may even have been destined for one another -- can reflect to one another the divinity that is enfolded into every aspect of their humanity.

So, okay, this is all perfectly cool by me. The universal love stuff? No problem whatsoever. It makes sense, I get it, I seriously dig it, I feel psyched to be able to access the amazing experience of being connected to all hearts and to earth's heart, all that good stuff.

But interpersonal love? Another story entirely, friends. Una otra historia. In this arena, I am certifiably an imbecile. If you are the betting type, I'd say a good 85% of the time the odds are in your favor that intimate partnership is not what's happening for your homegirl here. That other wildcard 15%? You'll find me either leaving a trail of broken hearts in my hapless wake, or pining hopelessly after love-misers who deign to toss me a crumb now and then. Precisely 0% of the time am I happily and healthfully dating one person who is kind, sexy, down to earth, passionate, and smart, not to mention who lives within a 15-mile radius of me.

You know what, though? I am giving up something major. I am sacrificing upon the altar of truth, any notion that I've been coyly hanging on to for all these years that "there's something wrong with me." That people just don't *like* me or don't *notice* me because I'm physically unacceptable or emotionally inferior or in any way non-viable as a warm-bodied human being. Because that attitude is B.S., my friends and neighbors. It is just a cute little way for me to not take responsibility for the walls I myself am putting up.

Yeah, I got a wall in front of my heart. I know it, I feel it. Who doesn't, at least now and then? What I'm realizing is that I have to take a look at this wall. Sit with it for a bit. Leave the dynamite and the sledgehammer and the spraypaint at home, and just go on over and lean against this wall for a while. What's it made of? What are its contours, its textures? How long has it been there and who were its stonemasons?

Good old inquiry, y'all. Not denying it, not railing against it, not condemning it. Taking a real, curious, compassionate look at the thing, and maybe even coming to understand it.

Because until I do that, it's just plain irresponsible of me to act like I'm ready to engage in intimate relationship with anyone. Because as beautiful as my words may come across to a potential lover about how open and ready I am, and as well-oiled as my steely intellectual machinations may be when the going gets tough, my heart is still yearning to be free but this heart-wall is still standing strong. And what all that means is that the love energy leaks out in all kinds of unconscious ways, which just can't attract anything good and wholesome.

*Sigh.* They're the bitterest medicine, these ill-fated love affairs. But medicine is medicine, and after this most recent bout of watching another weird stilted heartbreak play out in front of me, I am realizing that it's high time that I have a little meeting with myself. A meeting that may last several months. A meeting in which I am sequestered with myself and only myself, and all these tempting tantalizing people who keep popping up will just. have. to. wait. A meeting in which I ask myself some probing questions, to which I shall reply honestly and to the best of my ability. A meeting which may involve power-point presentations and/ or shamanic journeys, as the situation calls.

My hope is that once the meeting is adjourned, I can re-emerge from that stuffy boardroom (just kidding - we're going on retreat!) into the wild and wonderful world of turning-towards-love, but this time with confidence and with integrity, knowing full well who I am, where I am at, what I am offering, and most importantly, what *I* want. I look forward to a time of standing with two feet fully planted into the earth, spine in balance, awareness centered in my belly and my heart, so my outstretched arms can embrace Love without me toppling forwards or collapsing backwards.

All of this, so that one day it shall come to pass in my life that, finally, there are no words for the gift that arrives: "Although I may try to write about Love I am rendered helpless; my pen breaks and the paper slips away at the ineffable place where Love, Loving and Loved are one." ~Rumi.

How July is (so far)

Believe me, dear readers, I did not mean to leave you here alone for all these many weeks!

It's just that I went backpacking deep into the Trinity Alps, where we could see the reflections of the planets in the glossy black surface of Caribou lake, and the exhilarating explosion of cold water in the morning followed by my back on the warm rocks brought me close to earth again...




and then I fell into a torrid two-week romance, which, as you might imagine, ended torridly...


and then I drove through grey-brown distant-mountained deserts to the glittering green hills of Ruby Valley, NV for the Indigenous Environmental Network conference, and the original people of our lands spoke about the many devastations that add up to the great disaster we are visiting upon ourselves, we who are so cut adrift from the anchor of reverence...


and in between, there were of course dazzling blown-glass exhibits and inspired lunch meetings and dinner delivery to new parents and women's circles. And all the mundane and awesome moments that make a life.



These weeks of summer are so full, and bring so much, and fly so quick.

I haven't forgotten, I've just been testing you to see if you're paying attention

Dear reader, by now you may be a bit perplexed. "Um," you are saying. "What about the food?"

At the beginning of this blog I had my chest all puffed out about my new identity as a food blogger, yes indeed. And trust me when I tell you that the puffery was sincere. I had every intention of developing this space as a cohesive tribute to my experimentations and epiphanies in all things epicurean, from procuring my food (oh, those sweet bicycle-rides down to the farmer's market) to cheery ventures in front of the stove, to revelations in flavor.

So, yeah, best laid plans, and all that. It turns out that I still love to blather on at length about Deep Life Topics like right livelihood and pesticides and health care and such things. And oh, how I *love* to write about my many feeeeeeelings. They are dark and angst-ridden; they must be recorded!

(I ask myself, just like Angela asked Jordan Catalano in the boiler room, "why are you like this?" ["Like what?" "Like, how you are." Ladies? Can I get an amen.] Not sure. Would love to know. Parents would also love to know. But that's another story. I digress.)

Anyway, so, this blog has undergone a kind of de facto expansion in its range, which is pretty fun for me, and I hope you are having a good time too. Dear reader, I just want you to be happy! And I haven't forgotten about food, you know. I've been buying it and cooking it and eating it pretty consistently since I started this blog, and expect to continue within those general parameters for quite some time.

As does all things, food goes in waves. Sometimes I enjoy periods of all home-cooked and home-prepared meals using the finest, local organic ingredients; sometimes I am buying breakfast from the Bagel Street Cafe and lunch from the Golden Lotus and dinner from Mitama Sushi. Not all the time, I promise (mom), but sometimes. I recently purchased a breakfast crepe from a place called Metro Cafe, where all of the crepes are named after cities. I.e. the Mill Valley has eggs, tomatoes, and cheese, while the Barcelona has turkey and pesto. I swear to you that there is an item on the menu called the Las Vegas: "any crepe and a spanking." $25. Would I lie about such a thing? No.

This weekend I ate some Indian food which just didn't agree with me, and I was depressed for about 36 hours. The connection between food and mood is amazing. So now my fridge is stockpiled with leafy greens and radishes and other cleansing vegetables. Oh, the body knows, the body knows.

Really, though, the reason I'm writing all of this is because I wanted to share two bona fide food blog items with you.

Thing One:

I think that the executive chef at this restaurant just moved into the studio apartment downstairs from me. I enjoyed a fine dish of tender duck meat and savory potatoes there in January with my beloved Cuz, and it was perhaps one of the most flavorful meals I have ever experienced. And now the dude is my downstairs neighbor?

AWESOME.

Thing Two:

Could there be a more compelling package for a loaf of pumpernickel bread?



I think not, dear readers. I think not.

a world of we

I just finished watching "Sicko," Michael Moore's documentary about the health care system in America. Have you seen this movie? It came out a while ago, but I didn't see it because I so rarely make it to the movie theatre, even though every friend who'd seen it implored the rest of us to go. (But I really would like to see "Mongol" on the big screen -- anybody want to see that one with me?) Zelig even brought it up when we were in the high desert back country on our vision quest last summer.

So, I recently acquired a TV/ DVD player (which I keep tucked behind the couch most of the time, thankyouverymuch) and have signed up for Netflix. I ordered Sicko out of a sense of obligation, really, like it was part of my civic duty to check out this film about health care. How bad could it be, really? The health care situation can't be as bad as, say, the 9/11 situation, or the gun situation (which, incidentally, got a lot worse today, thanks to the Supremes), both of which Moore exposed so masterfully.

I am engaged to an extent with western medicine because of a condition I have, that requires doctor visits and pharmaceuticals and such. I've always had health coverage, and I've always been able to afford the prescriptions. Yes, it's a bummer to shell out a $40 co-pay and $50 at the pharmacist, but in the context of my privileged lifestyle, it isn't a major concern of mine. There has always been a cushion between me and any kind of real, pit-in-the-stomach fear about medical care, so I get to spend my time and resources on things like stopping aerial pesticide spray and transformational workshops. Other than my personal health situation, concerns about healthcare -- mine, or the overall state of the system -- don't really penetrate my reality.

Um, I mean, until I finished watching "Sicko". If you haven't seen it, it's an intense and unflinching expose of our deeply broken health-care system. People suffer debilitating illness for years on end because they can't afford to pay the exorbitant costs for simple treatment that could help them; toddlers die because they are turned away from emergency rooms which don't accept the type of coverage that their parents possess; families go bankrupt because of unexpected health conditions; members of Al Qaeda imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay receive free, highly-advanced medical care while one American man had to choose between having the joint on his fourth finger re-attached for $12,000, or the one on his third finger for $60,000 after an accident with a saw.

The worst part, though, the most embarrassing part of this whole movie was the fact that Moore, as he does, told the story of other nations in order to contextualize the American story. And, as usual, those comparisons end up illustrating just how profoundly alienated, mistrustful, and selfishly-motivated we are here in the U.S. He went to France, Canada, England, and Cuba, all of which have extremely low-cost or free prescription medicines, entirely free medical coverage, and even house-call doctors. All paid for by the government. Moore repeatedly asked people in all of these places: how much did you pay for procedure X or surgery Y or doctor's visit Z? And the answer was always: nothing. With a chuckle! None of the people he spoke to could fathom the possibility of paying out-of-pocket, much less paying the astronomical costs that we pay, for any goods or services related to healthcare.

At the end of the film, Moore took a group of individuals who were ill from exposure to 9/11 chemicals to Cuba, where they not only received medical attention of the highest caliber (just like everyone else in Cuba) for free (just like the Cubans), and where they could purchase medications that cost $120 in the U.S. for $0.05, but where they received friendly and even loving attention from the providers, the pharmacists, and receptionists.

Mind-boggling.

Now, yes, I'm sure that this is an idealized look at things to some extent. If Moore had gone, for example, to the Parisian ghettos where all the Algerian immigrants live, I'm sure that it wouldn't have been as tidy of a picture. But the gist of it is that we in America just do not take care of our own the way that most other places in the world do.

As I was watching this movie I started inquiring into my own stereotypes about caring for others, because they started to enter my thoughts as the movie went on. Things like, poor people and privileged people naturally receive different standards of treatment; that's just the way it is. There are too many people and not enough resources to adequately care for everyone. I started to notice in my head a context of: everyone is basically on their own when it comes to health and well-being. People don't take care of each other, really, and that's just how it is.

And I thought about all the friends I've known over the years who work as social workers, or who run struggling non-profits that do things like provide childcare for low-income women. These friends were all striving to do the basic work of caring for fellow citizens. This is poorly-compensated work, mostly done by women. Government funding for social services is sparse, and lately what has been coming down the pike is being funneled towards religious institutions. (Remember that whole debacle?)

All of this just makes me realize, viscerally, that our ethic in this American society is really "every person for him or her self." Especially people of color, immigrants, poor people, people who are sick or weak or disfigured or otherwise not living out the dream of being wealthy and sexy. Even here, in our bubble of beauty and consciousness which I wouldn't trade for anything -- even here, notice how many people spend years of therapy and go through boxes of tissues in workshops because they (we) don't know how to ask for help? Like asking our friends and community for physical or emotional assistance would be placing this inordinate burden, this inconvenience, on their lives, because everyone's supposed to be just cruising along in their little self-contained unit of I've-already-figured-it-all-out. And yet, for me at least, I can't think of anything that makes me happier than helping people with their life cycle events: birthdays, weddings, births, career transitions.

You know what I mean? What greater joy is there, really, as a human, than building a marriage altar or bringing dinner to new parents or reflecting a friend's beauty and brilliance to them on their birthday?

It is remarkable and tragic how isolated we are from one another and from the earth. And our government encourages that, the print media encourages that, schools encourage that, the workplace encourages that, the legal system certainly encourages that, even our family structures encourage that. Why? I don't know. Because there's profit to be gained from fear-based consumption habits, from ignorance, from hopelessness.

We live in a world of "me," Moore said, and we suffer immensely from it, and the earth suffers. The most frustrating part is that there are nations all around us, right next door to us in fact, who live in a world of "we," and not because they're better humans than us or somehow different, but just because they made a choice to live that way. Somehow the collective wisdom in those other places hewed to the natural human impulse towards community and communal well-being as the highest value. We missed that memo, I guess, or maybe we're still just being swept along mindlessly by the sheer momentum of corporate dominance and its corresponding cultural malaise.

There are so many of us who want a different life. And we haven't yet figured out a way to achieve critical mass towards the radical changes we want to see implemented. What good is the federal government if it's not overseeing a national system of care-taking? But for all our prayer and meditation and cleansing, for all the hard and breathtakingly beautiful work we do here to support personal and planetary transformation, we can't overthrow the government. I mean, have you *met* the federal government? I read an article in SF Chron today about how the Bush administration actually told EPA that if EPA sent the White House documents revealing the truth about climate change, the White House WOULD NOT OPEN THE E-MAIL. Dubya is literally up in there with his fingers stuck in his ears going "la la la, I can't hear you!"

What gives me any hope at all is that all those people in Tuscaloosa and Des Moines and wherever the hell they are, just *waiting* for the hand of God to smite San Francisco and all these unholy homos getting MARRIED, those people actually do go to church, and do bring meatloaf to their ailing neighbors, and do just want to do right by the Lord and their families and stuff. And for them, maybe right now that means driving an SUV to Costco, an SUV that has a yellow ribbon sticker on the back because their 19 year old sons are over there in Sadr City, and hating gays and hating abortion and hating treesitters. But maybe at some point, if gas prices keep ballooning and the rivers keep rising and the sons keep dying, maybe those people too might notice that Something Is Wrong and we need to Come Together if we want to have any chance at all of living out our natural days on this precious planet.

I hope that when that time arrives, we're all ready to meet them with gentleness and kind language, just like the Cuban firefighters received the 9/11 volunteer EMTs, with a salute.

En Las Noticias

I used to write a different blog.

Yes! It's true. It's not my first time. Do you still love me? *sniff*

The old blog was anonymous, and mostly private, in the sense that I didn't share it with my friends here in the way that I share this one. It was much more of a "Dear Diary" sort of place than this is, and through my experience of writing it I discovered the distinct, 21st century cathartic satisfaction of pouring one's heart out to a circle of (mostly) far-flung strangers.

At some point, though, that sense of satisfaction wore thin and I realized that all the covert disclosure, all the connecting-under-the-cover-of-darkness made me feel, well, shrouded, like I was telling all these truths but the telling was somehow inappropriate or unwelcome in polite company.

So at some point I just said fuck it. I love to write more than most other activities, I have this bizarre compulsion to share the truths and the discoveries and the meanings that occur to me every day as I stroll through my funny little life, and I have an incredible community of people who I love and who also love me more than I've ever been loved before by people who were not my parents.

I declared (to all 5 people who were reading my old blog): I'm gonna write, and I'm gonna tell people about it!

And so here we are.

Perhaps by now you are a bit titillated, sitting on the edge of your seat waiting for me to tell you some intimate, heart-wrenching, vividly-detailed story about my life. Oh, dear reader, I can spin those yarns anytime. For whatever reason, I just *love* doing that. Maybe someday I'll write a whole book. And normally, just for you, because I want you to be happy, I would oblige.

But not today.

No, today I am interested in resurrecting a feature of the old blog that I particularly enjoyed. It wasn't a regular occurrence, but the need for it would arise every so often, when enough juicy tidbits had accumulated from my obsessive cruising of online news sources. (Hi, my name is Caitlin, and I'm cracked out on current events.) And so every so often, my five fabulous readers would be regaled with all the obscure, off-color, momentous-to-somebody-somewhere stuff that caught my attention.

Lately, a lot of stuff has caught my attention, folks. And so, without further ado, I give you:

IN THE NEWS, 2.o!

*Ahem*

First, we have a story that is near and dear to my heart: suddenly, without much advance warning, the state announced yesterday their plan to halt all spraying of urban areas, at any time, for the light brown apple moth!

This is simultaneously a hugely fabulous piece of news, and also just another sneaky tactic by the government to dispel activist energies. While it is *totally awesome* that we don't have to fight against the risk of having BHT and TMAC land on our homes and bodies and babies this autumn, the state and federal governments still plan on doing aerial spray of forested areas (meaning all that nasty stuff lands on rivers, lakes, animals, trees, insects -- even after we saw that last fall, hundreds of birds and pets up and died after the sprayings in Monterey and Santa Cruz), and are still planning to do ground treatments using incredibly toxic chemicals like permethrin. All because of a little moth that's not even a threat to agriculture!

And even though this is a victory, we're still living in the context of a regulatory system in which the profits of big ag and big chem are valued above human and ecological health. In my months of research on this issue (I have taken to calling myself "moth lawyer") I have looked into the very heart of the pesticide behemoth, and let me tell you, dear readers, it is a dark, dark heart. Our federal pesticide governance regime is probably one of the most corrupt, secretive, and undemocratic systems of rules in the entire federal government. It boggles my mind, the extent to which decision-makers value profit above health, and even above life itself, as so much of this stuff is endocrine-disruptive and causes infertility.

So our work is very much still cut out for us. But for now, yes indeed, there is cause for celebration! I wonder if I should leave the "Stop the Spray" bumper sticker on my car, though.

Next on our news docket: gay marriage! Yep, gay and lesbian couples all over California (excepting Kern County) have been able to tie the knot since Tuesday morning. I have been jubilant about this major progressive step towards equality and justice for all in our great state, but what's been the most enjoyable to see are the pictures.

There are so many wonderful shots in all the newspapers of people who are so clearly in love with each other, so pleased to finally have validation of that love from the community (and all the attendant healthcare and legal benefits), and just so cute! I tell ya, nothing brings a tear to my eye like seeing images of people who are totally head over heels for each other, and who can finally choose to affirm their love with a legal bond, just like everyone else.

The funniest part has been reading all the arguments against gay marriage, which mostly boil down to: it's not traditional, it's not historical, it's not in the bible. Oh GAWD. That's all you got? Blah blah blah, insert usual litany of responses to such allegations (i.e. if we were still acting all biblical we'd be keeping slaves, stoning people to death, et cetera). It's such a curious phenomenon, this way in which some people need to harass other people about "morality" and lifestyle choices. What's the big fear? Let me assure you all, The Gay is not actually contagious.

Anyway, yeah, lots of joy about that one.

And finally, I could certainly insert here a nod to the various crises of the day: skyrocketing oil prices, water shortages, worldwide hunger as food prices spike, escalating brutality and misery in the war without end, devastating floods in the midwest, China's attempt to rebuild from the earthquake, and all of the various, quiet atrocities that may never even get picked up by the AP.

But you can scan NYT or LAT or SFChron and find out about all that stuff for yourself.

So instead, I will leave you with this exemplary piece of journalism, a veritable model of the kind of intrepid reporting that makes the world a better, or at least more interesting, place.

And that's that. Stay tuned!