Taking a Deeper Breath

Winter is here. Hanukkah and Christmas have ended, and Kwanzaa has just begun. The longest night has passed. Little by little, almost imperceptibly for now, the light is returning, both to the skies and, I hope, to our lives. As we look forward to the end of 2020, I see places for great hope in the year to come. Whatever the future holds, we know that there is much hard work to be done. Our racist systems and structures did not spring up overnight, and it will take time, energy, and effort to dismantle them all. We must be focused and act with intention. We must be strategic, single-minded, and persistent. We must persevere when we are weary.  Still, we need to have strength to do the work; we must rest and regain our energy. So as this seemingly endless year finally comes to a close, I offer some music videos to lift our spirits... I start with my favorite new discovery, Portland's  Resonance Ensemble.    If you aren't yet familiar with this group, be sure to check the website

My husband and I own a home that stands on sacred and stolen land, land once home to indigenous wildlife and to indigenous peoples. The deer and coyotes we sometimes see in our neighborhood are descended from creatures who roamed here freely before the developers descended.  On our street, October 2020 I have not yet been able to determine exactly which First Peoples lived on the land where my home sits, but the Atfilati band of the Kalapuya (Tualatins) seasonally migrated to a nearby area to fish, hunt, and forage, and the Clowella Chinooks also made their home near mine. The Portland Metro area rests on traditional village sites of the Multnomah, Wasco, Cowlitz, Kathlamet, Tumwater, and Watlala Bands of Chinook, the Tualatin Kalapuya, the Molalla, and other tribes who made their homes along the Columbia River.  Beginning with the first "settlers" in our area, the Native peoples here were nearly wiped out by disease. Territorial and, after 1859, federal policies such as boar