2023-2024 Gray Whale Census - the people who count

An incredible year of being with the Gray Whale Census & Behavior Project for ACS-LA at the Point Vincente Interpretive Center. This was my first 100 hours waking up before 5 am to count and study the marine mammals, but specifically the gray whales. It rained and shined, was often cold and dark early and the sun warmed me up by the end of my 3-4 hour shift. The folks who have been running this project for over 40 years now are a link to the information and study of our many ecosystems and big blue oceans!

The total count is yet to come in, but some alarming numbers have been showing record lows. In May, we have yet to spot a cow/calf pair heading North from our station- for the first season on record. However, this pair below was off of Dana Point. It’s been a process of learning, observing, and resilience on the volunteer citizen scientists to identify and record these numbers. The obvious connections of other reports point to the changes in our oceans and the lack of food from the glaciers melting. https://acs-la.org/todays-whale-count/

I can’t help but think of the many times I’ve heard things about climate change like “you’re overreacting, there is no climate change” or “climate change is beyond my control so why bother?” or “we’re all doomed, and there is nothing we can do about it.” maybe you have too? Maybe it affects your empathy, as it does mine? Bearing witness to the environment is no small order. It becomes more and more apparent that to take action, we need to care for our mental health. With the mental health reports declining and also greater than ever before on record - it becomes clearer this interconnection. To address the climate crisis, we must address this mental health crisis, to address the mental health crisis, we must address the climate crisis.

A small group of spiritual-care friends for the planet are holding space on Mondays and Fridays. You are welcome to join for a guided meditation from different people. Reach out for the Zoom info!

The gray whales are remarkable reminders of resilience as they were almost hunted into extinction from commercial whaling once before. They also travel one of the longest annual migrations of any mammal! (about 12,000 miles between the Arctic and Mexico NOAA)! There are so many lessons to learn from observing nature, these beauties have been a gift, and so have been their stewards. I’m so grateful to have joined this season.

Thanks, Alisa Schulman-Janiger and ACS Crew for the patience and fortitude to follow these remarkable mammals.

Opening

Last year, 2023, was a bit different for me. All years tend to be different from the next. A few major things that felt like shifts under my feet took place in my life. I graduated with a Buddhist MDiv from the University of the West. I am now a practicing Spiritual Care Counselor. I’m without the responsibility of caring full-time for a four-legged family member, although the grief is still here and I take the lessons of caring for them to care for myself. This has created space for me to travel, contemplate, hike, volunteer, explore, and breathe. My movie poster gigs have almost completely stopped following the Hollywood strikes, and have yet to emerge. Beginning again and again with new ways of relating to art and technology and I’m sure people too. Here I am wondering how to transition my website to this newness. I am still taking photographs, still meditating, still creating. As I lean into this big unknown I only imagine it might be a bit confusing to any onlookers, it sure is confusing for me too.

For the new year, I will be inviting creatives to join in some exploration as well. I have been enjoying leading small groups with mindfulness and creative expression and I hope to have some offerings up. There is also room for one-on-ones for anyone looking for spiritual care. I hold sessions in nature, at my home, or on zoom. More to come on this, what it entails, and how it might be helpful. We are facing staggering environmental challenges and most of my creative friends feel this sensitivity. It might show up as agitation, anger, exhaustion, grief (often unexplainable), or dullness. My work for myself, and others, is to hold space for the inner climate.

I will always remember when I first noticed the seasons and my inner emotional landscape mirroring as a kid. I would spend days in the woods behind our home in Michigan, often alone, and often daydreaming. I found space there to let nature hold my array of feelings and be held by the elements. In the winter it was often snow. The snow has a profound way of clearing space in our minds. Walking and knowing we are leaving footprints, or seeing the beings that were there before us (and the prints that they left) in the snow showed me interconnection. The melting and mud of the winter felt hard. And when the whole field might be recovered with the white blanket again, it was like a fresh start.

This winter is a fresh start and a blank page. I am curious who else is holding this emptiness too? In connecting with other creatives we have a unique power to imagine things all over again. We can often let go of what did not work yesterday, because to be creative, you have to. Our whole process is about starting again and again. Sometimes looking around to see what else might have walked in our path or just making the very first mark on a page with any old tool lying around, we start anew. At times the most challenging part for me is setting aside all of the ways I have done things before. After the repetition of life takes hold, it takes me effort to also release the patterning. Our brains enjoy patterns and our creative mind can often rest in them.
With all of this, I am here now, sharing a little about the creative and spiritual journey I am on in the form of a blog post and without any idea who might be reading it. To me, these are connected and always tied to nature. Buddhism has been a gift in my secular life and it has given me a training I never even knew I was looking for. For the new year, I call on some tried and true patterns that keep me thriving. I will leave you with these.

Write. First thing.
Drink Water. Second thing.
Meditate with others.
Walk in sacred spaces where the animals play.
Spot and look, then wait and look longer.
Eat root vegetables every day to ground.
Look with the intention for joy.
Make eye contact, with self and others.
Give gratitude, especially when things feel hard.
Ask for help.
There is always time to move the body.
Make the bed.
Drink more water.
Make noise, hum, laugh, cry, yell, whisper, animal sounds, sing.
Sleep and put away the scrolling.

Make it stand out

Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

Force Of Nature

New work - I Wacomed this up with my friends at Ignition. Choosing to split my time to create posters and move toward Spiritual Care has not been simple or easy. I couldn’t be more grateful for the help I’ve received along the way. It’s been messy at times and other times baffling with admiration.

In many ways, spiritual care and movie poster design have some interesting parallels. For one, they both begin with “not knowing” what direction is next. We might get a patient chart or a creative brief, but so often that isn’t very telling. When creating a poster we have to get to know the film and often times with limited resources. We ask questions about the story being told and try to find a theme or deeper understanding. People always ask if I am given photos for posters upfront, sometimes yes, other times no. Both design and spiritual counseling can be scary to approach. I always have a little (or a lot) of anxiety about starting a project or visiting new people. I try to learn to be curious and set aside judgments (towards myself/others) in both scenarios. I never know if I’ll see the design again after sending it off to a client. This is the same when working with people one-on-one with spiritual encounters that may be related to trauma or grief. The learning to detach with care no matter the work I am doing is consistent and intentional.

This post is entirely too long. If you read it all, YOU are a force of nature! Thanks for letting me explore a strange duality my life has taken. And thanks to all of those who have been by my side.

Poster Design by Sarah Ford

Support and Defend the Constitution Postcard

Write your Congress, Senators and the President of the United States. Remind them of The First Amendment. On March 15th, each of us will mail Donald Trump a postcard that publicly expresses our opposition to him. And we, in vast numbers, from all corners of the world, will overwhelm the man with his unpopularity and failure. We will show the media and the politicians what standing with him — and against us — means. And most importantly, we will bury the White House post office in pink slips, all informing Donnie that he’s fired.

Each of us — every protester from every march, each congress calling citizen, every boycotter, volunteer, donor, and petition signer — if each of us writes even a single postcard and we put them all in the mail on the same day, March 15th, well: you do the math.

No alternative fact or Russian translation will explain away our record-breaking, officially-verifiable, warehouse-filling flood of fury. Hank Aaron currently holds the record for fan mail, having received 900,000 pieces in a year. We’re setting a new record: over a million pieces in a day, with not a single nice thing to say.

So sharpen your wit, unsheathe your writing implements, and see if your sincerest ill-wishes can pierce Donald’s famously thin skin.

Prepare for March 15th, 2017, a day hereafter to be known as #TheIdesOfTrump
Write one postcard. Write a dozen! Take a picture and post it on social media tagged with #TheIdesOfTrump ! Spread the word! Everyone on Earth should let Donnie know how he’s doing. They can’t build a wall high enough to stop the mail.

Then, on March 15th, mail your messages to:
President (for now) Donald J. Trump
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500