GROUP GARDENING POSSIBILITIES — WEDNESDAY ZOOM
Hi all! This week we’re continuing our regular weekly Wednesday Zoom get-togethers with a second conversation about gardening as a civic engagement idea that local groups could be doing this spring.
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NOTES —
The idea here is to work together on brainstorming options for encouraging folks to do some gardening in new ways, with new people, in new places, and so on.
It can help us increase our local food access and food security, especially during a time of possible disruptions to the supply chain and to other systems.
We’ll start the session by reviewing what we came up with last week, and then spend most of the time talking through options and ideas. We’ll end with setting up next steps, which may involve another session, or a subgroup of people willing to finish up the work. Hopefully we can come out of this session (or perhaps one more) with a document or other tools that people/groups can use to promote widespread gardening in creative ways this spring, all over the US.
Schedule note — there’s only an early evening session this week, rather than an early eve and late eve session.
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APRIL ZOOM SCHEDULING — ASKING FOR SCHEDULING INPUT
We’re planning to keep the weekly Wednesday night Zooms going through April, but only one per night instead of an early evening and late evening one.
Here’s the weekly Zooms proposal —
Wednesday nights, 9 Eastern / 8 Central / 7 Mountain / 6 Pacific
Monday nights, 11 Eastern
This would give us a chance for later evening calls on Monday nights, and earlier evening calls Wednesdays. Helps us cover a range of times for different coasts and schedules, but not on the same night.
Feedback? Please put it on the comments on this post. Thanks!
Shift the Country will be expanding into other Zoom topic areas at other time as well, plus keep work going on both gardening engagement and on security/risk management. The idea is to help people and groups start to do more community-level civic engagement to help us all navigate this time of disruption, and to drive transformation where we can.
PROBLEM-SOLVING IS A TOOL WE CAN USE MORE IN THIS MOMENT
I’m working on a big project, so I’ve got a movie playing in the background. Helps keep me focused.
The movie I’ve got playing is also inspiring me to think about this moment we’re in more aggressively in terms of problem-solving.
The movie is “The Martian.” It’s such a great movie for vision, for science, and for finding ways through. Also sad as hell of course, as the US is currently aggressively dismantling its cutting-edge world-leading science establishment.
We can grieve that but also appreciate the points and inspiration of the movie. It is, after all, the source of one of the best movie quotes — “In the face of overwhelming odds, I'm left with only one option: I'm gonna have to science the shit out of this.”
If you’re looking for something to help you find ways through and also to keep you busy at home, this might be a good movie to catch. We found it at a thrift store on DVD but it’s sometimes available for free with ads on streaming services.
The movie is about problem-solving, and it’s making me realize we could do with some of that attitude and approach here in this moment of increasing instability. Problems are going to be coming at us. They already are. Some stuff we’ll be able to navigate, and some we just won’t. I get that. It’s also all part of why we need connection and community. We’ll have a better chance at getting through things when we are able to work with other people to find ways through together, and to look after humans together as groups.
Here’s a quote from the end of the movie —
“At some point, everything's gonna go south on you... everything's going to go south and you're going to say, this is it. This is how I end. Now you can either accept that, or you can get to work. That's all it is. You just begin. You do the math. You solve one problem... and you solve the next one... and then the next. And If you solve enough problems, you get to come home.” — Quote from the character Astronaut Mark Watney, in the movie The Martian
COUNTERING FEAR
Along with the problem-solving, I’m convinced we can do more on our own paths to counter fear. This is not to say that we don’t all have good reasons for being in fear. We absolutely do. Some of us to a very great extent.
But my point is that if we are able to pull out of fear from time to time, we might be able to step back and think about things differently.
I get that that’s a hard sell. I don’t write this from a position of naivete. Very huge life-and-death things are at stake for millions of us. Yet I also recognize that decision-making can go better if we can come at it not from a place of deep fear if we can. And we do need to be making a whole lot of really critical decisions for ourselves, for our lives, and for our communities here in this moment and in the foreseeable future.
With that, I share this post below from my personal Facebook wall. Here goes —
👀 Are you having any kind of shortage of fear or terror? Do you feel like you need more?
Like is that a thing when you're in the midst of unfolding instability that you're looking for more of? Fear?
I only ask because everyone seems to want to be spreading it. Like as if there's a shortage. Like as if we need more.
Fear for you! Here's more! And be afraid of this too! And here's something else to worry about!
Should you also worry about THIS???? PROBABLY!! IN CAPITAL LETTERS!
BREAKING NEWS! MORE BAD STUFF!!!! AAAAIIIIIGGGGGGHHH!!!!!
Okay but breathing is also good.
So is stepping back and using some critical thinking.
So is getting some perspective.
So is very realistically managing your own personal risk right in front of you right now and even in the short term.
Lord have mercy but we cannot carry all of this tragedy and trauma. We just can't. It's not realistic.
The human body is not meant to be in pure fear and terror all the time. It does bad things for your health. That's a serious understatement. It's not meant to spread more fear!
It's meant to point out that fear hurts our bodies and our mental health. We would be wise to take some of the fear load off if we can.
We have got to find ways to pull out of the fear.
Are you old enough to remember what it was like after 9/11? What it felt like? The terror?
Geez it came from so far away then yet the threat of more attacks felt so close. It felt so impending.
This threat is coming from right here. It's inside. It's our own government being attacked by the people who are running it.
It's unimaginable and it's not okay and we need to grieve it and it's going to cause lots of problems and it's going to hurt a lot of people.
Accepting that all of that is happening might help us deal with some of the fear. Because it's going to be bad.
Accepting that tragedy is unfolding doesn't mean that we are obeying in advance or that we are accepting that it's somehow okay.
But it can mean we can be better positioned to face reality and deal with consequences.
🏢 9/11 happened for lots of reasons but one of the goals of it was to absolutely terrify the world's biggest superpower into some kinds of compliance.
It was also meant to terrify us into overspending on security.
It was meant to paralyze us with shock and fear.
🚫 Do you remember how lots of us decided after 9/11 that we were just not doing that?
Nope. Not today. Not this year.
And we got ourselves on airplanes and back into our lives and offices and public spaces and we pushed against all of that terror and fear.
No this is not the same. Not even a little. I get that.
🧰 But I think we are underestimating the incredible power of fear as a lever and a tool.
What if we spent some time taking its power away? 🧱 Or just *not* spreading more of it, where we can?
What if we spent time poking holes in the fear and letting in the light and humor and fun and joy and love?
What if we dissipated the fear into the ether and the beautiful sky and the spring plants and the sound of kids laughing?
Look I'm not naive. You aren't either. 🌷 We can't look at the pretty flowers and have all of the bad things magically disappear.
But we can let ourselves breathe.
We can let some things *in* that take away the power of fear. That weaken it. That dissipate it. That dissolve it. That disarm it.
We need those things. We need to empower the things that weaken fear.
We need to empower them big time.
And the thing is that we can.
What's happening with all of the aggressive instability in the new adm1n1strat1on is about meanness and control and greed and selfishness and money and power.
What breaks that up is empathy and love and care and kindness and looking after humans and laughter and joy and deep fierce fights for our humanity.
So take a breath. Take a lot. Take a time out. Take a 5-minute break. Take a 5-hour break. Take a 5-day break.
☁️ Do what you need to do - realistically - to be able to function at least for some extended moments of time without the cloud of constant fear.
We don't make good decisions when we are terrified, panicked, and in trauma response modes.
✔️ If we have any kind of capacity to step back and get some space and counter the fear, we may find ourselves in better positions all around and making better decisions.
✔️Add to that building connections including just reaching out to other humans and loving people. Looking out for each other. Finding ways through, with others.
✔️ Add to that building community. Finding teams. Working with other humans who share your values. On navigating the really hard stuff & also on the love & joy & caring pieces.
✔️ Add to that some resilience. Some ability to bounce back and to recover and rebalance after a crisis.
✔️ Add to all of this some risk management, which we can all use to help us figure out (together when we can) how to deal with reducing or mitigating threats, vulnerabilities, & potential consequences where we can.
Those things can help us get through.
^^ That is for real. There is no delusion here that many of the people here are unable perhaps to escape or get away from the risks that are causing the fear. Really almost none of us can, and the risks are increasing steadily or exponentially.
But we have to figure this stuff out — together when we can.
Being able to pull away from the fear a little bit to think differently can genuinely help.
But also not spreading the fear can help as well. Not that I will be able to stop it but I do want to get better at holding space for conversations about this stuff because it is essential to what we're all dealing with.
We can counter fear.
We are more powerful when we do. We need that. We need us.
Let's go.
Onward and forward -
⛩️⚡❤️
Vanessa Burnett is the Founder of Shift the Country, an unusual nonprofit promoting creative, widespread civic engagement to navigate instability, to build resilience, to drive public pressure, and to coordinate in bigger ways. Vanessa is a former homeland security professional with 25+ years experience in resilience, big disasters, wildland fire, critical infrastructure, emergency management, land management, continuity of operations, public communication, and disaster information sharing. Email to team@shiftthecountry.com. Links are here on Linktree.