Clearly, we
have a hodge-podge.
Of course, my favorites are the
​ones I made when first married in 1992 and
the re-used ones from my grandmother's house that
I found in her attic when she died and then
hung in our living room a decade
ago - - just to try
​the colors...

This week
I've been thinking
about  the idea of 'window
dressing,' of giving a superficial, but
misleading impression. Most of the 1930's New
Deal murals I studied in college (see last week's blog
​post, My Green New Deal, Part 1) were colorful
celebrations of the American Dream,
a dream that for millions of
people at that time
was a broken
​promise. 

No, I'm not talking
about the impact or reality of an aging
​population or racism
​in our country.

I'm talking about
The Green New Deal and
all the controversy it is inspiring.

It turns out,
that in 1987, at the age of 21,
I traveled around  the United States
on Amtrak, stayed with alumni ​from my college in twelve
​different cities, and researched murals painted
during the Great Depression in Post
Offices ​and other public
​buildings.

Amtrak employees
provided  hats for the kids. I got
out my camera and made friends. These places,
people and works of public art I was so
inspired by thirty-two years ago
are why I care so
​much.

It's hard to believe
that there are imperfections
with these perfect symmetries and designs.
But there are. Energy can not be created nor destroyed,
but it can be transferred between objects,
creating inefficiencies
​along the way.

​
​It is clear
that Adams witnessed
and understood a whole lot more
about the human condition than his reverent
landscapes had ever revealed to
​me on their own. 

And I laughed
when I saw myself in Mitch
Epstein's "Altamont Pass Wind Farm."
So funny how we play games with
each other, with nature and
with ourselves.
​

And,
I loved Luis
Faglio's reflection about beach
restoration, how it celebrates the "hope
and the irony that we are able
​to move sand."
​

2013:
A blog called
"Ataraxia Gardens"?
It sounded exotic. Ataraxy stands
for "serene calmness." I needed that. For
a bunch of ancient Greeks, Ataraxia was a lucid
state of ​robust equanimity. Heaven.
That's me. In the garden.
I wanted to ​share.
​

2014:
Then I found
Rufus and George.
Why not let them speak for me?
Our global problems are all about consumption
and our need for objects of all kinds. What insights could
a ruffled 50-year-old Steif Chimpanzee and a broken
china pug share about our relationship to all
our belongings, big and small?
So I briefly had a blog
called "Rufus &
​George."

2015:
There was
a problem, though.
I had more to  say than Rufus &
George understood, about how stuck we seemed,
caught between 20th century expectations and 21st century
realities. It hit me when I forgot to pull up instead of push down when
I peed. It's so confusing, changing a habit I'd had my entire life.
Flush the toilet. Push down. Until now, when everything
was a hybrid. So I created a blog, a business,
and a book, all called "Our
​Hybrid Lives."
​

2016:
But I was stuck.
Why would anyone care?
Who was I behind the blog, book
and business? What was I trying to prove, and to
whom? So I got help. When my new business coach asked
me those same questions, I knew, in my heart, that I
was a photographer. When she asked me what I
loved, I knew -- compost and being outside
and noticing light and texture and
beauty. So I ignored all I had
been doing, got my
camera and
explored.

2017:
I kept exploring,
while taking small steps
forward. A web site. A business card.
A trip to New York City to photograph compost
& a few months later, have a 'pop-up' show where
I stood by my work and told people I was a
photographer and that I was into
compost, which kept inviting
me to go deeper, beyond
the soil, and into
​myself. 

2018:
I kept diving.
Saboteurs yacked on 
my shoulder, but I kept going.  
A visit to my sister in Idaho gave me time
to process. Compost, it seems, has the answers for me.
Pay attention. Be patient. Honor micro- dramas.
Allow for the mess and complexity
contained in any story, even
my own. Change "by
degrees."

​

I don't know about you, but I love the clarity and
focus of a puzzle. I start with the edges and
move on to specific colors or scenes.

 Sometimes I have to change my
perspective or walk away and come back later.
It's amazing how even then, it can be hard
to see what is sitting right
​in front of you. 

When I think
about climate action,
I realize it's all about sharing - 
not just the financial resources we may have,
but also our time, ideas and points of view. It turns out that
collaboration is critical, but so is having a plan, like
strategies for a jig-saw puzzle, or methods for
paying carbon debts we didn't even
realize we had.

I may be an artist,
but I am also a planner and, 
rumor has it, a motivating teacher. So I've
created an online 'class' that inspires people to dive
deep, take control, and find joy as they
participate in guided action
throughout 2019.
​Stay tuned...
If you are looking for a climate action plan, I've got one for you.

It's been three years since the Paris Climate
Accord. Apparently one of the reasons the Unites States has
withdrawn ​is that we do not want to pay our fare share of climate expenses.

It really is a puzzle. There are all these messy pieces, but the parameters are clear.
We have to transition away from carbon-based fuels as quickly as possible.
And as the recent National Climate Assessment Report suggests,
we don't have much time. The warnings have been loud and
clear this year, with enormous fires and storms.
But our leaders ignore the signs...