Returning to the 29 day Wellness Challenge!

(Image credit: https://uwaterloo.ca/engineering-wellness-program/)

Better get on this, right? February starts Saturday.

For those not eagerly reading each blog as it emerges from the tips of my busy fingers, as it were - what's that? You have other things to do with your time? :) -
a few days ago I mentioned the-power-of-30-day-challenge has inspired me to created my own 29 day challenge for the month of February. It is an experiment of course. No stress! You notice the kinds of wellness choices are very dependent on the work and activism things on that day. Trying to be realistic.

As I have been mapping the below out and thinking about it, there are other key elements not in the map. Friends and family are really important but I haven't got all those conversations on the phone, lunches, tea breaks, and movie nights planned into my calendar yet. I will! Music is tremendously healing at all times - I listen in the car, while doing admin at home, at night or in the morning when I can't sleep... And walking - trying to walk as much as I can, for exercise, fresh air, and regaining my confidence, strength, and balance.

At least as important is what I will not be doing. Social media took up way too much time in 2019. It expanded to multiple hours per day. I find I feel much better with two or three short bursts of social media a day and otherwise not looking at Facebook and Twitter.

Nicole's 29 Day Wellness Challenge February 2020

February 1: meditate 20 min, do 10 min yoga, blog, nap, practise singing
February 2: meditation 45 min, do 10 min yoga, nap
February 3: nonduality check in with friend, meditate for 20, yoga for 10, nap
February 4: meditate for 20, yoga for 10
February 5: yoga for 10, blog
February 6: meditate for 20 (2x), yoga for 60, nap, blog, practise singing
February 7: meditate for 20, yoga for 10, physio, blog, practise singing
February 8: meditate for 20, yoga for 10, Tai Chi, nap, blog, practise singing
February 9: meditation 45 min, do 10 min yoga, nap, blog, practise singing
February 10:  meditate for 20, yoga for 10, blog
February 11:  meditate for 20, yoga for 10, physio, blog
February 12: meditate for 20, yoga for 10, blog, nap
February 13: meditate for 20, yoga for 60, blog, nap
February 14: meditate for 20, yoga for 10, blog
February 15: meditate for 20, yoga for 10, Tai Chi, nap, blog
February 16: meditation 45 min, do 10 min yoga, nap, blog, practise singing
February 17: meditate for 20, yoga for 10, blog
February 18: meditate for 20, yoga for 10, blog
February 19: meditate for 20, yoga for 60, blog, practise singing
February 20: meditate for 20 (2x), yoga for 10, blog
February 21: meditate for 20, yoga for 10, blog
February 22: meditate for 20, yoga for 10, blog
February 23: meditation 45 min, do 10 min yoga, nap, blog, practise singing
February 24: meditate for 20, yoga for 60, blog, practise singing
February 25: meditate for 20, yoga for 10, blog
February 26: meditate for 20, yoga for 10, blog, practise singing
February 27: meditate for 20 (2x), yoga for 10, blog, practise singing
February 28: meditate for 20, yoga for 10, blog
February 29: meditate for 20, yoga for 10, Tai Chi, nap, blog

Losing a friend

https://terracemuse.tumblr.com/post/136916671019/this-dewdrop-world-is-a-dewdrop-world-and/amp

Losing close friends is a universal experience. As children, I usually lost friends because I moved to a new school (sometimes a new province or country). But as an adult, one loses a close friend as well either by death (two of my closest friends, about 20 years ago now, on the same day coincidentally), or by estrangement (three of my closest friends over the intervening years for very different reasons). I also lost a number of friends when I moved from Montreal nearly 10 years ago of course.

I don't know about you. I always find it hard to lose someone close to me. In my meditation group on Sundays we often talk about impermanence. But knowing even more and more deeply about impermanence does not make loss easier.

I think of Issa who suffered much more severe loss, and wrote his famous haiku about a dew-drop world. He understood, probably far better than I, how basic impermanence is to the fabric of existence. He understood both philosophically and through immense personal loss of his children and spouse. But he still ends the haiku with the words "and yet... and yet".

And yet. When you love someone, when you deeply care about their well-being, when you value not only who they are but enjoy a daily friendship, and then for whatever reason they are gone, and sometimes worse happens and they completely turn their face away or even die...

Impermanence is at these moments a great struggle.

And yet!

The Power of the 30 Day Challenge

Image: https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/health/wellness/a26631446/30-day-mental-health-challenge/

Perhaps you are like me and skeptical of popular life fixes.

Why is a 30 day challenge actually often a very effective way to meet goals?

This article explains.

'Whether your goal is to pay down debt or you want to start going to the gym, design your own 30-day challenge. In addition to your brain viewing it as a "now" goal, you're more likely to succeed because:

• You won't have time for excuses. When you have a short-term goal, there isn't time to take days off because you feel tired. And you don't have time to make up missed work later. You have be all in if you want to reach your goals.
• Fast progress builds momentum. Your hard work will begin to pay off fast. And when you begin to see results, it's easier to stay motivated. Building momentum early can help you stay on course and finish your monthlong challenge strong.
• Short-term pain feels tolerable. Working hard to reach a new goal means you'll have to give something up. It's easier to give up time with your family or your daily latte when you know there's an end in sight.'

In September I was motivated by a friend who started it first to do the 30 day Wake Up Challenge with Adyashanti. 

Because I don't normally do this kind of thing, especially when it involves paying for it (not much but enough to take it seriously, I think), I was quite amazed by the progress I saw in my nonduality path that month.

There are so many other challenges out there already:

30-day-relationship-challenge

30-day-declutter-challenge

and of course a ton of fitness and diet ones.

I rather like the idea of designing my own challenge though.

How do I want to challenge myself and what will I aim to do each day to get there? I am intrigued to explore this further in the last days of January. 

A Year Of Saturdays, or Counter-Rallying against Hate

Many of you have some familiarity with Canada's-yellow-vest-movement.
You may know how different it is from the Gilets Jaunes in France.
Perhaps some of you have even rallied on Saturdays in front of Hamilton city hall, hopefully in support of love and diversity, but I am well aware that as one of the leaders of "Peace in the Hammer", I am one of the people that yellow vests watch online and in person, and talk about.

What you may not know is that yellow vests began rallying in front of city hall every Saturday beginning December 4, 2018.

That's right. It was a full year of Saturdays. And shortly after they started rallying, the counter rallies of people in Hamilton who believe in peace, love, acceptance, inclusion, and diversity (some of us have adopted the acronym PLAID - see facebook.com/PLAIDHamilton/ and it is also on Twitter) began.

By June, not many knew yet about these weekly rallies. Then Pride 2019  happened in Hamilton on June 15. This is one of many reports about that awful day. I missed it because that was the day the Save the Wesley Day Centre effort kicked off, but I heard all about it, like the rest of Hamilton. 

Most of us did not know this then but police would later arrest two yellow vests for violence near city hall the week before, June 8.

It was not the first arrest connected to the protests. The earliest report I can find online was from a year ago, January 27, 2019. Apparently it was not possible to ascertain "which side" the arrestee was on. This kind of "both sides" verbiage was to plague us as people simply taking time from our lives to stand up for vulnerable people from other countries who were being intimidated by yellow vests. 

While council began looking at means to stop hate groups from parking themselves outside city hall every Saturday as early as June 2019, the rallies went on. And on. Reported on in local news here in June, here in July, and here in August (the infamous 'bus incident').

By September, it was old news. Counter-protesters were fewer; councillors and the Mayor were not making appearances any more for the most part (with significant exceptions from time to time); and the media seemed tired of reporting on it.

But the counter protests went on and the weather grew colder. And one of the protests was not at city hall but at Mohawk College where Maxime Bernier was speaking. This was a typical media misrepresentation of that day.

Let me tell you what really happened. I was in one of the first groups to arrive for the counter protest. There were already well over a dozen yellow vests, Sons of Odin, and Proud Boys waiting for us. They began taunting and cat-calling us as soon as they saw us. I was with the Love in the Hammer Choir as usual , and so we began to sing our songs about love and acceptance, while the haters jeered and criticized our singing, feeling safe and cocky behind a human shield of police lined up to keep the two groups of ralliers separate.

As more people came up, some joined our singing. Most just stood in a supportive group, neither hindering nor speaking to those who chose to go in to hear Maxime speak. There was an altercation that happened too fast for most of us to see and the first arrest of the day happened as Maximiliano Herrera, who had walked to the protest in my group and had been laughing and joking with us only a short time before, was hauled into police custody in great distress and taken away.

It felt surreal. We were standing there singing, the hater 'security' aka bully boys were standing behind the police shouting and jeering, trying to create a reaction from us, and then Maxime Bernier himself came up. Again, everything happened very quickly with pushing and shoving and shouting, Councillor John-Paul Danko was nearly trampled while trying to protect one of his constituents whose sign was destroyed in the fracas, and then Bernier was inside and we were all trying to regain our composure.

At the same time as the great majority were peacefully protesting, a determined group of anti-fascists were trying to impede people from going in and were chanting slogans at them. One of them, of course, became notorious as the person who allegedly tried to stop an elderly lady from going inside. But the narrative that quickly escalated ignored many facts about the situation including those detailed here.

It was no surprise to me that a 'viral video' became the sole narrative of the event. I saw from the moment I arrived that the haters all had cameras and video-cameras.

They were waiting for a chance to catch one of those of us who were standing up against hatred and intolerance on video doing something they could make viral.

And they got their wish. But we also achieved some key goals. I personally witnessed, because I was so close, the doubt on the face of the PPC candidate who afterward withdrew from the race, Chad Hudson..

My friends and I also learned a valuable lesson about how severely distorted media accounts can be, so that they barely resemble what actually happened. Some media accounts were more extensively researched and more compassionate, such as this one by Samantha Craggs.

But when one of our own was viciously attacked, pushed out into Main Street, and repeatedly kicked in the head in December (after a Year of Saturdays!), this was a report.

However, something good came of this horrific incident. One of the yellow vest ringleaders was banned from city hall, and since then, the yellow vests have not been back.

Dare we hope the Year of Saturdays is finally over?

No Time to Spare For Anger

(Image from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/evolution-the-self/200807/what-your-anger-may-be-hiding )

Today I want to explore a Brain Pickings article on one of my favourite writers, Ursula K. Le Guin, writing about anger's dark side.

https://www.brainpickings.org/2017/12/05/ursula-k-le-guin-no-time-to-spare-anger/

'Philosopher Martha Nussbaum has argued that it is often “an alluring substitute for grieving,” granting us the illusion of agency in situations that bereave of us of control.

'Poet and philosopher David Whyte pulled on anger’s weft thread to reclaim it as “the deepest form of compassion.” But anger, like silence, is of many kinds and thunders across a vast landscape of contexts, most of its storms ruinous, and some, just maybe, redemptive.'

I have read Le Guin's thoughtful book No Time to Spare: Thinking About What Matters (public library) and enjoyed it very much. Her essay within it On Anger does begin with the positive and terraforming side of anger, using the concrete example of the feminist movement: 

"In the consciousness-raising days of the second wave of feminism, we made a big deal out of anger, the anger of women. We praised it and cultivated it as a virtue. We learned to boast of being angry, to swagger our rage, to play the Fury.

We were right to do so. We were telling women who believed they should patiently endure insults, injuries, and abuse that they had every reason to be angry. We were rousing people to feel and see injustice, the methodical mistreatment to which women were subjected, the almost universal disrespect of the human rights of women, and to resent and refuse it for themselves and for others. Indignation, forcibly expressed, is an appropriate response to injustice. Indignation draws strength from outrage, and outrage draws strength from rage. There is a time for anger, and that was such a time.

Anger is a useful, perhaps indispensable tool in motivating resistance to injustice. But I think it is a weapon — a tool useful only in combat and self-defense."

It is important to understand the nature of anger as a weapon and tool for combat and self-defense. There are countless battles out there still to be fought, for the planet, if we can still save it, for the right of  people to be housed reasonably and to have clean water to drink, and for many other causes.

And self-defense is necessary both for women and men.

But if it becomes a sort of daily bread, there are negative consequences especially to the one carrying the anger.

"Anger continued on past its usefulness becomes unjust, then dangerous. Nursed for its own sake, valued as an end in itself, it loses its goal. It fuels not positive activism but regression, obsession, vengeance, self-righteousness. Corrosive, it feeds off itself, destroying its host in the process."

Again, giving a concrete example which has become all-too painfully clear since the rise of 45:

"The racism, misogyny, and counter-rationality of the reactionary right in American politics for the last several years is a frightening exhibition of the destructive force of anger deliberately nourished by hate, encouraged to rule thought, invited to control behavior. I hope our republic survives this orgy of self-indulgent rage."

Canada is not a republic of course, or even something presenting as such, but I hope we survive as well.

"Considered a virtue, given free expression at all times, as we wanted women’s anger against injustice to be, what would it do? Certainly an outburst of anger can cleanse the soul and clear the air. But anger nursed and nourished begins to act like anger suppressed: it begins to poison the air with vengefulness, spitefulness, distrust, breeding grudge and resentment, brooding endlessly over the causes of the grudge, the righteousness of the resentment. A brief, open expression of anger in the right moment, aimed at its true target, is effective — anger is a good weapon. But a weapon is appropriate to, justified only by, a situation of danger."

As much as anger can poison the heart and mind of an individual when carried on a continuous basis, it seems that it does the same for a community, a city, or larger group. Hamiltonians have had many legitimate reasons to be extremely angry over the past years and decades. But the cumulative weight and effect of all that collective anger is fierce.

Historical beginnings of the Wesley Day Centre

As we continue to prepare to lose the Day Centre in a few short weeks, let's look back at its history. The story begins about 60 years ago when Wesley United Church, then a thriving congregation on the corner of Rebecca and John, saw the need for service of the homeless and others in deep poverty and began the outreach that would in time become Wesley Urban Ministries.

See full details here at Wesley's site.

The Day Centre opened its doors about 24 years ago, in 1996 and 20 years ago added to their housing services and other outreach arms an incredible 24 hour a day, 7 day a week unconditional shelter for people who needed a place to sleep, regardless of why.

Sadly, over the years, support for the Wesley Day Centre gradually dwindled and they were forced to cut back on services and hours again and again until they were down to being a 'Day Centre', open first during the days then mostly mornings, but still offering a significant suite of essential services for the homeless and those in dire need.

Fast forward to early 2018 when it was decided that the time had come to address the opioid crisis by incorporating an overdose prevention site (now renamed by the Conservative government as CTS, consumption treatment site) within its offering.

Sadly the by then estranged other branch of Wesley, Wesley Community Homes, was horrified at the idea, and informed the Day Centre that it as the landlord would not be renewing the lease of the Day Centre in April 2020.

For over a year the Day Centre struggled in extensive correspondence with city staff to get support to continue its mandate. By June 2019, the ED, Daljit Garry, felt that all that could be done had been done, and announced that the Wesley would be closing its doors.

This is where I came in. (To be continued...)

Yes, getting good sleep regularly is actually important

There are terrific things about having a really strong immune system. One of them is working in an environment with many children, a number of whom at any given time who will be coughing, sneezing, and blowing their noses, and rarely becoming ill. Even being married to an RN who is exposed every week to some of the worst germs Hamilton has on offer and still not going under.

However, from time to time, even such a superpower shows  its kryptonite. One must get enough sleep and rest daily and weekly or eventually it will catch up with one.

My life is full. Too full, some would say.

Full-time work at my Kumon centre
Grand Philharmonic Choir
Extinction Rebellion Hamilton
Health Advocacy
Anti-Hate activism
Running a NA franchise association
Facilitating two meditation groups
Dedication to regular time socially
Political activism

Among other things of course. People often ask me how I do it all. It is frequently at the expense of proper sleep and rest, continuously going from one task to another from early in the morning to sometime in the evening, sleeping early and waking up around 1 or so to put in a few more hours of emailing, editing documents, and planning.

So at the moment humbly admitting I will need more down time than usual today and on the weekend, possibly also next week, either to stave off being fully ill, or submitting to the inevitable at last.

The Death of #SaveTheWesleyDayCentre

On an as-yet-unannounced day next month, i.e. in February 2020, the Wesley Day Centre will close its doors for the final time.

"But, but!" you exclaim. "Didn't this chch.com/ article assert the Wesley Day Centre has found a new home? Indeed it did. 

"And back in July, did not Council approve funding to keep the Wesley Day Centre open until another site could be found, so that the wealth of services it offers could be housed in the same building as the new second CTS for Hamilton?" That is what we were told then.

Without any fanfare, this article quietly stated the Day Centre was not going to stay open until March 31, as we were originally told was its lease expiry date. Instead, 'the centre will close earlier than that to clean up the space and allow clients to transition to other services'. 

"We are working with the city on a contingency plan and we hope to announce details in December." (Andrea Buttars, manager of resource development for Wesley Urban Ministries)

That said, while 'Wesley Urban Ministries' plan has been to move the social-service agency's meal program to Vanier Towers, a CityHousing highrise complex at Hess and Jackson streets' (more about Vanier Towers in a separate blog to come), 'Michelle Baird, a director in the city's public health department, says the hope is the remaining services can still be offered elsewhere. "Ideally, from the point of view of the client, we would want those operating together. It makes sense." '

So, we're all good, right? 

Wrong.

On January 8, having heard nothing since the December ECS meeting wherein we were assured by Paul Johnson, GM of Healthy and Safe Communities for the City, that a site had been secured for the CTS and the Wesley Day Centre services, I wrote a long letter to the Emergency and Community Services Committee councillors and Paul Johnson asking for an update.

Paul wrote back very quickly with a lot of detail. While he could not yet tell me the location of the CTS site, he assured me we were only days aware from the City submitting its application to the province for the new CTS and making public the location of the site.

However, he added this: 'One point of clarification (although it could be the way I read your email)…we are not looking for a new site for Wesley Centre AND a CTS site. As our report last year indicated we funded the continuation of Wesley Centre through the winter until the end of their lease. We are also working with Wesley to determine which of the services currently at Wesley Centre would integrate well with our CTS. As we noted we do not see all of the services of Wesley Centre operating out of the CTS but some of the critical services related to housing, income security, additional health services through public health and the shelter health network will be integrated wherever possible.'

In other words, eating is not important. If you've never really been hungry, it doesn't seem that critical, does it? An afterthought after an afterthought. "I don't need to go to the grocery store. I have plenty of food at home."

Showers, especially for homeless and insecurely housed women? I can assure you they are not easily found in Hamilton. 

Free laundry services? Also very difficult to find.

Podiatrist? Believe me, proper foot care is essential for those who spend countless hours in the cold. This is not an optional extra.

What we advocates for the Day Centre have said over and over again is this:

The reason the Wesley Day Centre is a unique and necessary resource centre within Hamilton is that all of the services are hosted under one roof.

When you start cherry-picking and saying you are going to keep this service but not that, housing services but not a cafeteria, health clinic but not showers, addiction services but not laundry services, you are telling us that the Wesley Day Centre will die in February.

I will continue to blog daily in honour of the Wesley Day Centre, as there is much history to commemorate before its upcoming demise.

Watch this space. In the meantime please enjoy this song about another beloved place which closed elsewhere. Different place, different context, same feeling.

The Deep Dark Woods: Charlie's (Is Comin' Down)

Not Knowing

Have you ever not known what is happening in your life?

I mean, really not known?

I am someone who has always prided myself on knowing. Partly it's an ENFJ thing but partly a Nicole thing. I have been a recovering knower since I was in my teens and twenties and thought I knew everything.

Something funny is happening this week. My mind is just stopping. My mind doesn't stop. It just keeps talking all the time. Yep, even when I am supposed to be meditating, often, too, though of course there are blissful chunks of time it takes a rest and then the time seems to blur by quickly.

But I don't know right now. And usually that would fill me with panic because as a dear friend told me today that means the creature is in free fall. But it is exhilarating instead.

https://open.spotify.com/track/5tVA6TkbaAH9QMITTQRrNv?si=9Ns_e0LpThC5YFpEarpmew

(Song: Free Fallin' by Tom Petty
"Now I'm free, free fallin'..."

Just ignore the verses - it is that wide open space of the chorus that I love about this song.)

What is Non Duality and Why Does It Matter?

Image source: https://www.freedom.clinic/non-duality-not-two/

Often when I mention to friends or family members about my abiding interest in non duality, they ask, "What is it, anyway?"

Not an easy question to answer. This is certainly one where you don't want the Wikipedia version. For example, you might want to read Rupert Spira's introduction_to_non-duality Or it may be too opaque, and this interview within buddhist inquiry with David Loy could be helpful as a starting point - that it is about "not two".

Training in dualism begins for us very early. One can imagine a fetus in the womb has no sense of not two, and in the first weeks and months of life may not be perceiving divisions as much as later on. But soon the parents and other caregiver introduce the idea that the baby is a separate self from those around him or her, separate from things, entirely separate. And so the gradual development of what nondualists believe is the fiction of the separate self grows until the adult may be extremely skeptical that there is another valid way of perceiving the world.

Why it matters is that the vast majority of suffering we experience is as a result of living withing a framework of duality. Who doesn't long to end suffering? But as long as one believes one is a separate self, it is inevitable. If you look at the myth of the Garden and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, it could be interpreted as describing moving from an experience of non duality into duality, with all the suffering that accompanied that ejection from the Garden - separation from God, work involving toil and pain, childbirth being an experience of suffering, and suspicion and division between male and female, brother and brother, and so on.

What if our relationships were characterized by an absence of judgment, or attempting to "get" something out it the other? As Seal says in his song: Help me find someone peaceful and non-judgmental." Would that be "life without the pain"?

This week, my daughter shared with me a tweet that blew my mind. Funnily enough it was by someone I already follow on Twitter: 

The Hungover Pundit

@hungover_the

A friend once shared what she called the Parable of the Choir: A choir can sing a beautiful note impossibly long because singers can individually drop out to breathe as necessary and the note goes on. Social justice activism should be like that, she said. That's stuck with me.

Singing in choirs is a huge part of my life, so stagger breathing (which is what we call this technique) is very familiar. Also, since buying I-Hope-We-Choose-Love, trying to understand what it means for life is instinctive. And being an activist, struggling frequently with the demands of activism and the inevitable friction between activists at times takes up a lot of emotional space. 

This is what I want, so badly I can taste it. A world where not only in our activism but in all the spheres of life we know that we can drop out to breathe whenever we need to and come back in and the music just goes on and on regardless.

Where it is not a competition or a fight. Where within each couple, or family, or group, or country, or world, we take turns. No one has inexhaustible capacity. But it doesn't have to mean the defeat of our efforts when the energy is gone for one individual for a time.

So non duality matters because if I truly know, if you truly know separateness is the illusion, then conflict no longer makes any sense, and working together on everything including the #ClimateEmergency becomes the natural way forward.

Manipulating Opinion or the Outrage Machine: Can it be Tamed?

I saw this theatlantic.com/magazine/ article  and put it aside because I was busy that day. Today I read it and highlighted it on my timeline for possible discussion because it is a hugely important issue.

The authors ask, " (W)hat would happen to American democracy if, one day in the early 21st century, a technology appeared that—over the course of a decade—changed several fundamental parameters of social and political life? What if this technology greatly increased the amount of “mutual animosity” and the speed at which outrage spread? Might we witness the political equivalent of buildings collapsing, birds falling from the sky, and the Earth moving closer to the sun?"

There is no question social media have changed the world, especially the part of it that is constantly connected to Facebook, Twitter, and the other big social media drivers of public opinion in the 21st century.

The authors Jonathan Haidt and Tobias Rose-Stockwell reference the sociometer theory in this article by Leary which"reviews research evidence that supports three central predictions of the theory—that acceptance and rejection influence state self-esteem, state self-esteem relates to perceived social acceptance, and trait self-esteem reflects people's perceptions of their general acceptability or relational value."
They point out that "(s)ocial media, with its displays of likes, friends, followers, and retweets, has pulled our sociometers out of our private thoughts and posted them for all to see.'

We know from many disturbing studies this is particularly problematic for teens in terms of social media depression, vulnerability to cyberbullying, and a host of other issues young people have online.

However, a shocking "2017 study by William J. Brady and other researchers at NYU measured the reach of half a million tweets and found that each moral or emotional word used in a tweet increased its virality by 20 percent, on average."

The article goes on to provide a brief history of how Facebook and Twitter developed its functions, including, shares, retweets, and likes, which collectively has had the unintended (I hope) effect of substantially increasing the toxicity of the social media environment, causing "fake news" to flourish, and making outrage flourish,

The good news is there may be a way back. The authors point to three helpful approaches in particular:

"(1) Reduce the frequency and intensity of public performance. If social media creates incentives for moral grandstanding rather than authentic communication, then we should look for ways to reduce those incentives. One such approach already being evaluated by some platforms is “demetrication,” the process of obscuring like and share counts so that individual pieces of content can be evaluated on their own merit, and so that social-media users are not subject to continual, public popularity contests.

(I pointed out in my Facebook post this has already been done on Instagram for example.)

(2) Reduce the reach of unverified accounts. Bad actors—trolls, foreign agents, and domestic provocateurs—benefit the most from the current system, where anyone can create hundreds of fake accounts and use them to manipulate millions of people. Social media would immediately become far less toxic, and democracies less hackable, if the major platforms required basic identity verification before anyone could open an account—or at least an account type that allowed the owner to reach large audiences. (Posting itself could remain anonymous, and registration would need to be done in a way that protected the information of users who live in countries where the government might punish dissent. For example, verification could be done in collaboration with an independent nonprofit organization.)

(3) Reduce the contagiousness of low-quality information. Social media has become more toxic as friction has been removed. Adding some friction back in has been shown to improve the quality of content. For example, just after a user submits a comment, AI can identify text that’s similar to comments previously flagged as toxic and ask, “Are you sure you want to post this?”

I applaud all of these, but also wonder what our role as consumers of social media could be. Some of the things I have done and seen others suggest include:

1) Dieting - consuming far less social media if your tendency is to spend hours a day. Personally I find popping on briefly in the morning, popping back briefly in the afternoon, and maybe (or perhaps not, depending on the day) taking a quick look in the evening is far better than spending much of the day looking at my feeds, going into that daze of scrolling, scrolling, scrolling

2) Watch carefully - notice the source. If credibility seems off, check a fact-checker site to see if it is legitimate. Employ the maximum critical skills at one's disposal first rather than leaping to like or share.

3) Have more and better face time with family and friends - turning off the phone/computer/tablet when people are around as much as possible. 

"I Hope We Choose Love"

One thing you learn quickly as an activist, or really in any capacity politically, is that conflict between humans is unavoidable. Whenever you have two or more people, you will have different opinions. When you have large groups of people passionate about saving the world, many different opinions clash wildly.

This summer, I bought and read a new book by Kai Cheng Thom, recommended to me by my eldest daughter who is acquainted with Kai. It is called I Hope We Choose Love: A Trans Girl's Notes From the End of the World.
I highly recommend it, and you may purchase it here.

The context Kai writes within is the trans community, but many of the struggles and conflicts are familiar to those of us who are politically and socially active. She speaks of her early days in social/queer activism, how she wanted to be accepted and loved, but over time she and other activists have realized that there are issues that need to be addressed about the way we are with each other within activism. The very first chapter (or essay, as the book is really a collection of essays interspersed with poems around an over-arching set of themes) references a number of other books and articles within the social left that critique what has been happening with us.

She has a lot to say from personal experience and what she has lived in relationship with others about what she calls "increasing fragmentation and oversimplification of identity politics via the Oppression Olympics" (p. 21). Also false binaries and the politics of safety (p. 22), exhausting performance of virtue and exclusion (p. 23), bullying, call outs, mob mentality (p. 24)... Her analysis is fearless, thorough, and initially it feels overwhelming.

How could we possibly make our way out of this morass?

The central essay, called unsurprisingly "I hope we choose love", outlines a new and hopeful paradigm for those who would do the work of justice. First, she redefines justice through "an ethic of love" instead of the lens of punishment, and suggests we begin by creating "flexible, working, practical definitions of justice so that we understand what we are doing and what values we share". She reminds us survivors of harm can perpetrate harm and urges us to "invest deeply and fervently in the dignity of human life. (All in this paragraph from page 89.)

There is a tremendous amount to good advice in the rest of this essay so please read it if you can. I just want to close sharing about it with one more quote from the end of this essay: "We must love ourselves... Love for the community that has failed us all. We live in poison. The planet is dying. We can choose to consume each other, or we can choose love. Even in the midst of despair, there is always a choice. I hope we choose love."

I don't know about you, but I am very deeply moved by this. I am blessed to exist in a little activist bubble of beautiful, warm, and amazing people in Extinction Rebellion Hamilton, But over more than 2 decades of activism, I have experienced and seen an awful lot of conflict, calling out, exclusion, and human suffering.

I hope we choose love!

We Stand With Wet'suwet'en

Today we rally and march as Extinction Rebellion Hamilton in support of Wet'suwet'en.

For those of you who have not yet heard: Unist'ot'en Camp put out a call to everyone, including us settlers, to protest in solidarity: https://unistoten.camp/alleyesonwetsuweten/

This is a summary of the standoff between Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs and the government which is trying to drive a pipeline through unceded, that is unsurrendered, lands, over which they have no jurisdiction.

' if Indigenous activists and their allies succeed in thwarting the $6.6-billion Coastal GasLink pipeline, it could give momentum to those trying to stop the even more costly $9.3-billion Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.'

Amazing, right? But the pressure is enormous, and though there have been demonstrations all over Canada, protesters have reason to fear police action.

Please support them if you can: http://unistoten.camp/support-us/

We have another problem with a pipeline right here in Hamilton.

Enbridge wants to build a fracked gas pipeline through the Beverley Swamp among other fragile ecosystems.

Get this: it is not even to benefit Ontario. They want to destroy our wetlands and raise our rates (let's face it, this won't be free, and guess who pays?) so they can sell more gas to the US.

Outraged? Sign this petition: http://chng.it/Y8j2VPtSny and talk to your MPP and your MP as well as your councillor about the fact that you want their help stopping it.

Hamilton 350 has been leading the charge against Enbridge. Check out their latest blog here: http://hamilton350.weebly.com/blog/demand-that-enbridges-proposal-face-a-full-hearing

Climate Grief

This week, I attended a Climate Circle for the first time. Every 2nd Wednesdday of the month Hamilton 350 hosts one, and this past week it was held in the comfy room at the YWCA that SACHA has for meetings like this. A Climate Circle is a safe space for people struggling with the enormity of the #ClimateEmergency and there are even spaces online - see wehealforall.com/climate-circles for example.

It wasn't clear what to expect. It turned out to be a warm, welcoming experience whereby everyone was invited to share first about their day in dyads (you share without interruption for a couple of minutes while the other listens and then the other person shares while you listen), and then we took turns sharing for up to 5 minutes each. It is a very startling and healing experience to be listened to without judgment or commenting, if you are not used to it, and I could see that some were new to it. I always enjoy this dynamic but as I have been experiencing it every Sunday for an hour at a time for the past two years at Hamilton Meditation , it has become a more normal and comfortable space for me.

A little to my surprise, I spent the whole time I shared crying.

There is a lot to cry about. Over a billion animals have died in Australian wildfires in a shocking short time. Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs must now plead with RCMP and politicians for fair treatment of their people who are resisting destruction of unceded land for the purposes of building a natural gas pipeline by Coastal GasLink. Though we are not sure exactly, we think 10,000 species go extinct each year.

If you're a climate activist with an organization like Extinction Rebellion Hamilton though, at the same time that you experience moments of sheer panic because of the #ClimateEmergency , every day you have hope as well, because you have people to plan concrete actions with who are as passionate about the climate as you are, and you feel like you can do your best in a difficult situation where we routinely ask if it is wrong to be hopeful about climate change.

So this is where I am this week. Feeling hopeful and passionate about what we are working on together, but also deeply sad. Both at the same time.

Holding space for each other whether we are up or down. Whether friends are arrested, freed, or receive rulings that all charges have been dropped. On good, bad, and indifferent days, walking each other home.

It has got me thinking about tears. More about that in another blog, but today I read this article about The Crying Book, and found it intriguing: the-crying-book-reveals-how-tears-can-help-us-and-how-they-cant.