holy rights, Mary Oliver + some too-big questions

Babes and bots, 

It's time for some truth bombs. If you don't wanna get real with me about climate change, water rights, wildfires, and abortion, feel free to skip #2, #3, and "less preaching more aggression."

1. Mary Oliver is depressing as fuck. And super Christian. Who knew she was so into God? A lesbian nature poet? I had no idea. Shows you how many assumptions I make about people...I should really stop doing that. 

2. If you had any reservations about the state of the world, don't worry, everything is still awful. But there are some pretty awesome people out there still doing great things, and you can be one of them. If you're up on the Line 3 pipeline situation, you're probably about as upset as I am. And if you have a unique stake in the matter because your family's land continues to be ravaged by Big Oil, who is in cahoots with the government despite the fact that it suits no one, you are probably a great deal more of many things, "upset" being the least precise. Either way, you can write the Army Corp of Engineers and Pres. Biden about your feelings. Could be cathartic? Could plant a seed? Who knows. 

3. Some geniuses are protecting Giant Sequoias (a name given to sequoias that are hundreds, sometimes thousands of years old) in Sequoia National Park and it's working. Trees along the Windy Fire path, which is traveling 1,000 acres per day in Sequoia National Forest and the Tule River Reservation, are being wrapped in foil blankets to help their massively thick bark withstand the flames. It's awesome. Keep up with the fire here. 

General Sherman wrapped in foil

4. I happened upon a great podcast called This Is Uncomfortable. The podcast is "about life and how money messes with it." Check it out on Spootify. I highly recommend the April 1st episode, "A lifelong scam," because it's wild and awesome.

less preaching more aggression 

Okay so I went to church with my grandmama yesterday. And if I can ignore the blatant heteronormativity and transphobia involved in yesterday's readings about marriage, man, and woman, for a few minutes (this is very hard to do), that darn holy man sometimes preaches interesting things. 

His whole sermon can be summed up like this: nobody owes you anything, do not assume a right what could be accepted as a favor. Now, there are a lot of ways this could go wrong and wonky. For example, the governor of Texas is not doing you a favor when he makes bleach cheaper and more available than safe, effective abortions. This is not meant to be funny. This is really fucking real. Just like land and water rights for indigenous people are not "favors," mutual aid is not a "favor," and anti-racist curriculums are not "favors." But, then again, are they necessarily "rights," either? I would argue these things are needs (i.e. non-negotiable, like food and clean drinking water, the things churches LOVE to involve themselves with everywhere except here). 

So if I give 'em the benefit of the doubt and assume we have the same morals, the whole "nobody owes you anything" might come in handy. As in, nobody is keeping track of your good deeds. And when a lot of shit happens, it's not because it was or wasn't owed to you. All of this brings me to the following: what is the difference between a right and a need? I'd be curious to see what the Father has to say about that. I will inquire at my next existential crisis.

Oof, I really need to leave Texas. 

no more of that, where's Mary O.? 

Too casual? I mean Mary Oliver. In fact, I'll let her do the talking. 
What I Said at Her Service

When we pray to love God perfectly,
surely we do not mean only.

(Lord, see how well I have done.)

This poem comes from her 2006 collection, Thirst, about God and the loss of her wife. "What I Said..." is so smart because it creates this amazing line between afterlife, God, and the dead. It is for this reason that I have started considering religion more and more myself. The idea that someone can be eternal is far more comforting than disappearance, abandonment, or loss. 

Molly Malone Cook & Mary Oliver

In my own journal a few months ago, I fixated on the absence of language, something I do often it seems. And in attempting to define the death of a loved one I came to something far less specific: "I have not lost you, I know exactly where you are. 'Dead' isn't right either, and neither is 'gone.' If you are dead then you stop knowing me, and if you are gone, then I should be able to find you." And then, of course, with this line of thought came God. So when I read this poem, and read it again, and again, Oliver brought me here. That is to say, when one prays to love God, they pray to love the dead, among others, too. And if you pray to love the dead, must you pray to love everything else, too? 

I don't know. I don't know if I want to know. Mary Oliver has an idea: 

And I say to my body: grow thinner still.
And I say to my fingers, type me a pretty song.
And I say to my heart: rave on.

And she has this, too: 

Forgive me, Lord of honeysuckle, of trees,
of notebooks, of typewriters, of music,
that there are also these:

the lover, the singer, the poet
asleep in the shadows.

More questions than answers, I suppose. At any rate, thanks for taking a bite out of this sandwich with me. Take care of yourself; take care of each other. 

xoxo BLT

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