Dear friends,
I have been battling a spring cold, which is not as active a pursuit as my word choice suggests. It has left time for thinking about the confluence of celebratory days and weeks and months and about how we protect and honor what matters most. As always, I have been thinking about language, which frames the way we understand the world.
So I reread a short piece by Robin Wall Kimmerer, an Indigenous author, botanist, writer, and teacher.
Kimmerer has undertaken, as an adult, the study of Potawatomi, an almost-lost language that is 70 percent verbs, unlike English, which is replete with nouns.
Kimmerer notes that the nouns in English reflect our cultural concern with things, while the verbs in Potawatomi reflect a concern with being. At first she cursed the numerous verbs used for things that are, well. . .things. And then she had a realization:
A bay is a noun only if water is dead. When “bay” is a noun, it is defined by humans, trapped between its shores, and contained by the word. But wiikegama, to be a bay, the verb releases the water from bondage and lets it live. “To be a bay” holds the wonder that for this moment, the living water has decided to shelter itself between these shores, conversing with cedar roots and a flock of baby mergansers.
In “Learning the Grammar of Animacy,” Kimmerer writes about a discussion with her students, who reject anthropomorphism as unscientific; but one student, Andy, argues for counting other species as people.
Maybe Andy is right. Learning the grammar of animacy could well be a restraint on our mindless exploitation of land. But there’s more to it. I have heard our elders give advice; you should go among the standing people.
The ‘standing people’ are the trees,
beings worthy of respect, of inclusion in a peopled world. Imagine the access we would have to different perspectives, the things we see through other eyes, the wisdom that surrounds us.
Wind and wildfire are devastating the standing people of the American West again.
Donate to the Arbor Day Foundation’s Community Tree Recovery Program.
Wildfires in Siberia are smoking up western skies in the US. Russia’s firefighting capacity is limited because it generally relies on the military to aid firefighters. If only they were not otherwise engaged. The moon appeared red over Seattle.
More than 130 million Americans are exposed to dangerous levels of air pollution, including particulate pollution from wildfires, factories, and gas-powered vehicles.
Tell the EPA that we need stricter emissions regulations for commercial trucking! This 15-second (!) action comes from the Hip Hop Caucus.
As members of the public, we can shape the proposed scoping plan from New York State’s Climate Action Plan. The new comment from NY Renews is focused on justice for workers and frontline communities.
Call on NYS to plan for a just transition by providing training, apprenticeship opportunities, and direct support to displaced workers and establishing strong labor standards.
If you missed the other recent comments, here they are again; you can make all three comments in under 45 seconds!
Call on NYS to create more farms, gardens, forests, urban greenery, and state parks.
Call for diverse representation on Regional Economic Development Councils.
Thursdays are for throwing back to older actions and this one's a long throw. Last June, before the legislature’s six month recess in NYS, we were trying to get the Adult Survivors Act passed. Technically, this is still the same legislative session (2021-2022), and the Adult Survivors Act has now passed the Senate, with unanimous support.
The bill is important because it would create a bigger window for adult victims of sexual assault to bring civil cases, without regard to the statute of limitations for criminal prosecution. The bill has gained new co-sponsors in the Assembly on both sides of the aisle, and may need a push to get out of committee to a floor vote.
Tell the Chair of the Judiciary Committee and your Assembly rep to pass the Adult Survivors Act.
Beginning this evening, I’ll be working with students at a Bronx school, which I haven’t done since 1987. Friday posts are likely to arrive later in the day.
Have a great day!
with love,
L
being a red moon, angry and sad, watching her sister, reaching, unable to touch . . .