I know the posts I send to this list are often full of urgency and outrage, sometimes grief and despair. After Miami, a surprising number of people wrote to me suggesting I needed a break. Well I did, and I've had one, or at least some time to be home, do a bit of work in my own garden, catch up on sleep, and get repairs on all my electronic and mechanical devices which seemed to all break down at once.
So I've have some personal good news:
For over ten years, I've been working on a documentary
together with my dear friend Donna Read, who directed
"Goddess Remembered,"" Burning Times", and "Full
Circle" for the National Film Board of Canada. We
worked together on those films, and wanted to continue
when the series was complete, so we began our own
small company, Belili productions, and started work
on a documentary on the life of Marija Gimbutas,
the archaeologist who did some of the germinal work
on the Goddess cultures of Old Europe. The project
was fraught with difficulties and setbacks, but
we finally finished this winter, and launched "Signs
Out of Time: The Story of Archaeologist Marija Gimbutas"
on February 1 with a wonderful gala showing organized
by Mara Keller, director of the Women's Spirituality
Program at California Institute of Integral Studies.
The gala was sold out weeks in advance, and was
a wonderful evening, with music by Stellamara and
Jennifer Berezon, and a panel of many of the scholars
interviewed in the video. Everyone seemed to like
the video and more screenings are being planned
around the country. You can find out the schedule,
or order the video, at www.gimbutas.org.
As I write this, solar panels are being installed on our house in San Francisco. We won't be entirely off the grid, but will certainly diminish our dependence on PG & E. A combination of refinancing at low interest rates and a rebate from the utility company let us do it at essentially no real cost to us, which proves that good public policy can make a difference.
We're organizing like crazy for the big biotech conference planned in San Francisco June 6-8, and putting into practice all our visions of creating alternatives--so much easier to do on our own home ground. So we're not just planning to blockade the conference, we're doing neighborhood projects months ahead that involve creating gardens, propagating plants, greening the streets, and beginning to build toward real democracy and self-reliance. This allows me to combine two of my great passions: agitation and gardening, not to mention alliance building, and has been really, really fun. For more info, see www.reclaimthecommons.net.
And meanwhile, some very good things have happened politically:
Our new mayor in San Francisco, Gavin Newsome, decided to order the city Registrar to register gay marriages, just before Valentine's Day. His act inspired thousands of people to throng City Hall and get married, and the whole city has basked in a romantic glow for weeks. Not only that, San Francisco has now set off a wave of other cities following suit, and significantly changed the debate about gay rights in this country.
This was all the more surprising because Newsome was the very essence of the machine-backed politician, who won very narrowly over a Green candidate that all the progressives loved and worked for and even anarchists campaigned for. Matt Gonsalez got 47 per cent of the vote (possibly more in reality as there are serious accusations of voter fraud--in some places The Dead Walk! But in San Francisco they apparently vote, and what's odd is that no matter how progressive you are in life once you're dead you apparently become very conservative. Then there were city employees pressured to campaign for Newsome--and the tale goes on.) He's also done other good things for the city that have pleased even those of us who opposed him--appointed a decent police chief, started to craft a better policy on the homeless.
Which brings me to my own theory about electoral politics--that it's not so much who gets elected as whom they feel they have to answer to. It's our job to continue to make ourselves a force that they have to reckon with.
Another good thing--Humboldt County, at the northern edge of California, has been the center of battles around logging for decades. Forest defenders have been subjected to horrific, heart-stopping violence. Last spring tree sitters were beaten up in their platforms by agents of Maxxam Corporation--some literally tortured, dangled 180 feet above the ground from ropes tied around ankles.
Recently the county elected a decent DA, Paul Gallegos, who brought suit against Pacific Lumber, now Maxxam's subsidiary, for their illegal logging practices. Maxxam mounted a vicious counterattack, pushing for a recall, and spending a quarter of a million dollars. In the March 2 elections, they were resoundingly defeated--61% voted No on the recall--a huge victory!
And in neighboring Mendocino County, an initiative to ban the growing of GMO crops also won by 56%, in spite of half a million dollars the biotech industry spent to defeat it--close to $60 per voter! This is a huge victory--because it is just the beginning. Other counties and states are now looking at possible bans. We still have a window of opportunity to stop this destructive technology from taking over the world's food system--and we're doing it!
The sun is shining, all the jonquils and narcissus have bloomed at once this week, early and late ones together, the fruit trees are blossoming, hope and spring are in the air. Yes, all the bad things are still happening, but to have the energy to challenge them we need to be able to take in the joy, the victories, and the ordinary beauty of the world we fight for. Today, I just feel blessed to be alive amidst this glut of daffodils!
Copyright (c) 2004 by Starhawk. All rights reserved.
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