There is a line in a poem that a teacher of mine has shared that sticks with me… “it starts when you say We
and know who you mean, and each day you mean one more.”

Resilience, real resilience, arises out of the widest we can enfold into your ways of being and thinking.

I’ve struggled with “emergency preparedness” for so long… do I have the right things for the kit, when can I set an hour or two aside to get it together, what am I even preparing for, how do I prevent from spiralling into a catastrophic daydream… but epiphany! I’ve been thinking of this all wrong… I’ve been thinking of this as something I need to do, to protect me and mine… instead of thinking, what am i trying to strengthen. I’m trying to strengthen the resilience of my community. So, really, it just starts with showing up.

Save the date, yeah?

Wildire and Emergency Preparedness Day, with your people. Saturday, May 6, 11am – 3pm. At the Downtown Community Barn,

The Low Road

by Marge Piercy

What can they do
to you? Whatever they want.
They can set you up, they can
bust you, they can break
your fingers, they can
burn your brain with electricity,
blur you with drugs till you
can’t walk, can’t remember, they can
take your child, wall up
your lover. They can do anything
you can’t stop them
from doing. How can you stop
them? Alone, you can fight,
you can refuse, you can
take what revenge you can
but they roll over you.

But two people fighting
back to back can cut through
a mob, a snake-dancing file
can break a cordon, an army
can meet an army.

Two people can keep each other
sane, can give support, conviction,
love, massage, hope, sex.
Three people are a delegation,
a committee, a wedge. With four
you can play bridge and start
an organization. With six
you can rent a whole house,
eat pie for dinner with no
seconds, and hold a fund raising party.
A dozen make a demonstration.
A hundred fill a hall.
A thousand have solidarity and your own newsletter;
ten thousand, power and your own paper;
a hundred thousand, your own media;
ten million, your own country.

It goes on one at a time,
it starts when you care
to act, it starts when you do
it again and they said no,
it starts when you say We
and know who you mean,
and each day you mean one more.