Day after Memorial Day in Montana

The past few days have, for me, been filled again with Montana.  Specifically the valleys just northeast of the Beartooth/Absaroka range of the Rockies.  Yesterday our country gave an entire day to a remembrance many of us make far more often during the year in honor of the people who have given their lives in service to this country.  On that day I stood in the Lamar Valley of Yellowstone, the country’s… Read More

What are the Barriers to Social Justice?

  On Friday I had the opportunity to speak briefly with a small group of friends and colleagues about social justice.  It was a time that qualifies for sure as a moment in the story of my life.  And the particular narrative of that time is transition – big transition – so big that I’m not yet prepared to write about it here.  Odd, since this is the place I write and… Read More

Paying Attention to What’s Working

  The other day, I was at the Quest Integrative Health Center in Portland.  I was co-facilitating a discussion on the neurobiology of happiness based on the work of researcher and clinician, Rick Hanson.   I’ve written about Quest Center before in this blog (EX:C blogs November 26, 2012; December 10, 2012) and have to say it’s great to be volunteering my time as part of this monthly neuroscience series. The group gathered… Read More

Earth Day – a Week after Boston

Earth Day.  Two days after 4/20.  A week since the Boston Marathon Explosion.  Ten days since the Senate voted against background checks for gun purchases. Pedantic as it may sound, if it weren’t for the Earth, none of these other things would have a place to happen. When it comes down to it, it doesn’t matter how it sounds – it’s simply so.  Without Earth, marijuana would not grow, humans would not… Read More

Don’t Rape.

This photo and related article just showed up on Facebook.  The article was about all the ways women should, according to rapist themselves, avoid assault by doing their hair, forgoing attention to cell phones, choosing clothes that are not easily ripped, etc.  Absent in this advice is any mention of high heels. I’ve been unhappy about high heels for as long as I’ve been aware of fashion fluctuations for female feet.  From… Read More

Succession – We’re in Great Hands

This week’s blog is a montage.  My qualification to put these images together here with my ideas about what I’ve seen and experienced of the Student Alliance Project arises only from the generosity with which the young adults of this thriving community organization have informed and befriended me as an ally. Last night I attended a celebration.  There were hundreds of people in a room that barely held them, sitting at circular… Read More

Montana’s Red Lodge

Yep. On the road again.  This time listening to the wide stretch of country called Montana. Right now I’m sitting with the morning sun where it falls across this tooled leather couch and onto pine floors reclaimed from beneath years of inhabitants, each leaving behind their layers of linoleum, carpet and, in the bedroom where I’m sleeping — astroturf.  It took plenty of my friends Joe and Roxanna’s work to call these wooden boards… Read More

Awareness is Tattooed and Riding a Harley

In a week of exceptions — a meteorite crashing through an otherwise ordinary Russian sky, a Pope resigning for the first time in 600 years – an unlikely story of a racist street fighter turned modest-but-powerful spiritual teacher beloved by people of all walks of life seems right in line. For context, I’ll tell you about this picture.  This is the sunrise earlier this month over a mountain in southern India.  Surrounding… Read More

Liberating Leadership with In-State Tuition for Children of Immigrants

  Note – Last week a young woman from the Student Alliance Project contacted me to request I write testimony in support of legislation to be proposed this week making available in-state tuition for young adults who live in Oregon and are children of immigrants.  This is what I wrote. My name is Mary Clare.  My ancestors of record came to this continent as early as the 1600’s.  They came from Europe… Read More

On Coming Full Circle

On a walk through Laurelhurst Park, I run into … well, first the bouncy affectionate force field of a German Shepherd named Roman and then the woman at the other end of his substantial chain leash, my friend Raquel. “Hi!” we both call out at the same time, finally able to identify one another across the giddy animation of 75 pounds of smiling, jumping, licking canine.  “Roman!”  Raquel’s voice is stern as… Read More