So tonight, or at least a few hours ago, was our Super Pink Moon, named not because the moon itself appears pink, but for the pink spring flowers that typically appear around the same time, known in English speaking nations as creeping phlox.
And, even though I've wanted to plant phlox since before we moved to our current place, I have yet to do so, which begs another question . . . why do so MANY of us, particularly but not only women, put off the very things that we KNOW will bring us pleasure, and soothe our souls?
In any case, not only because it brings me great pleasure, but because I suspect that it may bring pleasure to many of you as well, I introduce (or reintroduce) one of Nick Drake's songs, the title song from his third studio album, which was the final complete album released during his lifetime, "Pink Moon," which some of you may recall from its inclusion in a Volkswagen commercial shot in the Bodega Bay area of the Northern California Coast, a number of years ago.
The sad irony here is that, with one television commercial, Nick Drake's iconic song gained greater interest and popularity, by far, than it had in his own all too short lifetime. Damn. But enjoy.
And, even though I know better, I had my emotions yanked to the highest highs and the lows today, though thankfully not in that order.
One of the first stories that crossed my feed this morning was the horrifyingly wrongheaded news that lawmakers in the state of Idaho, in spite of contradictory scientific facts and all logic and reason, passed a bill to PAY TO HAVE KILLED NINETY PERCENT OF THE GREY WOLVES IN THE STATE.
Never mind that environmentalists have been working FOR DECADES to bring wolves back from the brink of extinction.
Never mind that, since wolves have been brought back to Yellowstone National Park, entire ecosystems are now thriving in ways that they haven't for nearly one hundred years, which can be largely attributed to the returning presence of the wolves.
Never mind that scientists and foresters agree that wolves ARE BENEFICIAL to the ecosystems in which they occur, that they are still at a TINY FRACTION of their original populations, and the vast majority of "wolf kills" of livestock in fact turn out to be depredations by other predators, NOT by wolves.
Never mind that, if there are wolves in the area that are NOT preying on your livestock, that they are in fact PROTECTING your livestock by their very presence, and that by removing them, you are inviting other wolves to move into the area, who may NOT spare your livestock, which at this point become your own doing.
And never mind that, by all actual scientifically valid reasoning and logic, grey wolves should STILL be listed as an endangered species; and when our previous criminal administration delisted them, AGAINST the recommendations of the vast majority of scientists who actually knew anything about the subject, they did so as a MASSIVE giveaway to hunters, among whom were some of their largest donors.
Not to mention our former Grifter-in-Chief's own sons.
And, to make matters even more egregious, in several states, including Idaho, it is now legal once again to kill wolf and bear cubs in their dens, as infants, which makes it abundantly clear that morals and ethics have NEVER played even the tiniest of roles in these decisions.
I personally hope that it comes back to haunt them all. Forever.
But then, later in the day, I ran across a story that made me feel really good, and as though the tide is starting to turn, and good and decent people are beginning to find their voices - and courage - once more.
In Manhattan Beach, California, a small beach community just south of Los Angeles, a black couple purchased oceanfront land in 1912, and provided a lovely beach open to black people of the community, as the majority of beaches in 1912 Orange County were white only.
But then, in 1924, through an improper and egregious use of eminent domain, the leaders of the community stole the land belonging to the Bruce family, forced them to leave, with the promise that a park would be built there, which it finally was . . . MANY decades later.
Thanks to my parents, I had always considered my hometown of L.A. to be more progressive than that, which it sometimes was, and that was mostly because of my fathers close friends who were black, who played a large role in my childhood, and in my parents' worldview.
But I remember being shocked, years later, upon seeing "Whites Only" bathrooms depicted, because they were in Bakersfield . . . only a short distance from L.A., but clearly a world away in attitude.
People forget, if in fact they ever knew, that although Los Angeles and San Francisco are largely liberal, the state as a whole has usually tended to be more conservative, hence why we were saddled with both Reagan and Schwarzenegger as governors.
Although, given the choice, I'd take Schwarzenegger over Reagan EVERY time, as Reagan was all about removing power, wealth, and influence from We the People. Look it up.
And Caitlyn Jenner? Please. She's already proven, multipple times, that she has ZERO clue how government is run, doesn't care, and isn't concerned with anyones' welfare but her own.
We've already done the over privileged reality star as government "CEO," it DIDN'T WORK, was a terrible idea to begin with, and she - like our former Grifter-in-Chief, seems to have no interest in learning of value.
As the LGBTQ community has already said, I'll take a hard pass.
But for Manhattan Beach to actually make right a wrong done nearly a century ago, and to finally restore Bruce's Beach to the descendants of the Bruce family - YES!!! I am 100% behind that, and support it all the way.
And yes, I realize and WELCOME that this may open other cases, likely A LOT of other cases, as well it should.
California, and the united States as a whole, have been outright abusing eminent domain for decades, if not longer, and it needs to stop. NOW.
So who is going to stop these abuses?
If not me . . . WHO???
The bottom line in all of this, is that, regardless of who benefits the most in the long run, doing the right thing ALWAYS brings benefits, and always will.
So whether it is the return of wrongly stolen land, or allowing endangered wolves to survive and thrive, or enjoying a song by a British singer/songwriter who died far too young, ALL of these things can enhance and improve the quality of life for us all.
And, as we have seen over and over again, sometimes even the tiniest changes for the good make drastic improvements in the long run. For everyone.
Life is wonderful, and is getting better, better, and better.
Even when it seems that things are going straight in the toilet, the reality, should we choose to notice it, is that the darkness is coming into the light in order to be healed, and we can ALL be a part of the solution, should we so choose.
Thank you, everyone, for being a part of the solution, and for being you.
I love you.
#earthtribe #tribevibes #naturalmedicine #tribegloballove #poetsunited #isleofwrite #tarc #yah #ecotrain #smg #ghsc #spunkeemonkee #thirtydayhaikuchallenge #teamgood #steemsugars #teamgirlpowa #womenofsteemit #steemusa #qurator #music #rock #steemitbasicincome #bethechange #chooselove #photography #beauty #love #culture #peacemaking #peacemaker #friendship, #warmth #self-respect #respect #allowing #animals #community #unity #love #loss #mourning
CommunityIIDiscord
That happened years ago, also with a car commercial, but with a very different result. Cat Powers did a cover of Major Tom (the David Bowie song) for a Lincoln car commercial:
...and I went, wow, that sounds awesome, and looked it up. So did half the internet. There was no song to be found. Because apparently, Lincoln owns the rights since she did it specifically for their commercial, and so there was no release of the entire song by Cat Powers. F**king tragic.
RAWR!!! I am so sick of these short-sighted, wrongheaded, willfully ignorant people getting to literally destroy the ecosystem at their whim. Just. RAWR.
Yeah, Caitlyn can stuff it. I've thankfully so far not seen anyone doing the "but representation" with her. No, my trans arse doesn't care that she's trans. I care about her policies and ethics and I'm sick of people who seem to think that all that matters for social justice is to have POC/women/queers being the lapdogs of the exploitative class instead of old straight white guys doing their bidding. Honey, I don't care who is wearing the boot, I care about the fact that there is a boot holding us down in the first place!
That has been very hard for me to see of late. I am fresh out of hope. I hope you are right. :)
I love Cat Power. I saw her play once many years ago. Moon Pix is one of my favourite albums of all time. She went out with Bill Callahan from Smog, also one of my favourite artists of all time - Knock Knock my fave album.
I'm sorry you are out of hope. I feel that way too, though I don't feel sad in my own life, just for the world. It's a credit to your empathy, and people like you GIVE me hope.
Awwww. Thank you. <3
What a damned shame that the song was never released. I've been only peripherally aware of Cat Power, but clearly I need to check out more of her work, as I love this snippet as well. Space Oddity is probably my favorite Bowie song ever, which I dearly loved as soon as it was released.
Of course, as a kid, I was all about NASA, and the space program, so it's not surprising that it really spoke to me.
My former spouse was a fellow space cadet, who had watched the Apollo 11 launch with his brother from their surfboards in St. Petersburg, and had wound up on the cover of some French newsmagazine as a result, complete with a headline to the effect of how blase Americans had gotten about the space program. Ironically, in later years, one of their relatives worked for NASA for many years. ;-)
He and I went to multiple shuttle launches from the Cape, which were always wonderful, as there were literally hundreds if not thousands of people all willing success for the astronauts and their mission, with such an incredibly warm and loving vibe all around. And the delay between watching the rockets fire up, and when the roaring sound and vibration reached us across the river, was always thrilling.
Year later, after the 102nd Avenue bridge was built over Lake Seminole, in Seminole, Florida, we could watch them from the bridge without leaving home, as the bridge was two very short blocks from our condo. Pretty cool, even though there wasn't that sense of shared camaraderie as when viewed from the Cape.
The bottom line is that we still live in an awesome country, even if the Grifter-in-Chief gave permission for the worst among us to give voice to their basest impulses, and we're seeing it play itself out nightly on the evening news (which I don't watch).
I've had a saying for years, which keeps bearing itself out in my own experience, as well as that of many friends and loved ones -
Most people are mostly good most of the time.
Yeah, you can catch anyone on a bad day, and God knows I've had moments when I didn't treat others the way I would want to be treated, and I own that. I was raised to be kind and polite, and do my best to default to that, but I have had people push my buttons past the point where I was willing to just take it silently.
That's on me. My job is to keep myself balanced, to keep myself calm and practice kindness, but also to be kind to myself when I fail to live up to my own admittedly high standards. We're all human.
Thanks for the wonderful comment.
I have a FB friend who lives in that area and goes out to see all the launches. I'm of the generation where we watched the Challenger explode live on TV in school. What actually gives me that feeling of oneness and excitement is actually the original Cosmos series with Carl Sagan. I watched the updated remake with Neil DeGrasse Tyson and it was pretty good, but just nobody has Sagan's vibe and love of teaching. Also the animations in the new one annoyed the bejeezus out of me. 😂
Yeah, I was at work when Challenger exploded, and didn't even hear about it until that evening, when a waitress at the restaurant where my dad played piano asked if I'd heard about it, and I said yes, because I did know about the launch.
But then she added about what a tragedy it was, and I said "Wait, what? What tragedy?," upon which she told me about the explosion, and I was dumbfounded, and profoundly saddened.
I also remember the explosion of Apollo I, which caught fire during a pre-flight test, and in the pure oxygen atmosphere inside the capsule, the fire killed all three astronauts aboard within minutes. And, many years later, I remember touring the NASA facility at Cape Canaveral, after the name was changed back from Cape Kennedy, and seeing the remains of the capsule, which brought it all back again anew.
I was eight when Apollo I caught fire, and I remember being devastated at the time, as it felt as though we had lost members of our family, the astronauts were all so familiar to us all at the time. And the following days in school, and at home, we were all in mourning, and even more concerned about the remaining astronauts.
RIP to all of the astronauts, Cosmonauts, and others, lost in the pursuit of the dream of manned space flight, all over the world.
I loved this. I do love Nick Drake. It reminds me of when I lived in England and got all British folky. Sends me back to the first years of our marriage and that idyll of a place we lived in in the south west, wrapped in the velvet of each other's love.
Point taken about natural medicine - I'll allow that 100 percent, but kittens, pfft - but that's only as I'm not a cat lover, haha.
Damn that about the wolves - will people stop meddling with nature? Do take care of yourself my love, I know that you care a lot and that's why you pay attention to the news so much, but watch that it doesn't impact your mental health as it can do. xxx Love you xx
Right there with you.
I remember being completely shocked when I learned about the black town of Rosewood, Florida, being entirely destroyed, and its residents either killed or driven away, which happened in 1923, just a couple of years after Black Wall Street was destroyed.
But then, just this past week, my husband told me about a similar case in North Carolina, where an entire African American community was destroyed, and that happened in 1975!!!
And, even though I grew up in and around the L.A. area, I previously had no knowledge about the Bruce family having their land and businesses stolen by the City of Manhattan Beach, even though I've long been interested in the history of the area.
A lot of people, who were either responsible, or were protecting those who were, made damned certain that these histories stayed buried for as long as possible.
I'm ever grateful for the internet, and for journalists and lay researchers digging deep and bringing these stories to light, as otherwise we would still have no idea.