Thursday, January 31, 2019

Six Months or Five Years, 16 or 12 Years and Counting, RIP #LornaDoom #IStandwithRavi #Rebel4Life

     



 


RIP Lorna Doom

George De Castro Day  photo of this blogger at the Jericho
walk for Ravi  Ragbir around the Federal Building at 26 Federal Plaza on January 28, 2019.
Ravi has six months  
 (till  his next trip to Foley Square / ICE).
Ziggy had five years in ’72.
Darby had five in 1975.
Life and art careened together as he overdosed in 1980.
A few hours after John left. 
His bandmate Lorna Doom stayed another 39 years,
Shuffling off last week.
“Lorna” Don wrote on  FB.
“She left this mortal coil today around 1”
 “I can still see the ‘Germs burn’ on my wrist from when I was 14 years old.”
The UN says we have twelve years
Or is 22?
Dodi has 16 years here.
i remember those days sixteen years ago. the us was planning to bomb a country that had little to do with 9/11. lies were everywhere. colin powel was rehearsing his talking points for the infamous un talk when he gave away his credibility. and caroline was spending hours walking and walking nyc with the little one in her belly. a lifetime ago, that little one who was born january 23, 2003 is 16 years old today. she cried when we sang for her on her 1st birthday party. its my party i'll cry if i want to Marla Walker laughed. no different today over a cake and a few presents. but we got a smile out of our cannibal girl. between then and now, we've hiked across spain; up and down mountains in italy, riding waves in costa rica, and grottos in sardinia, learned the bass. she even likes to play jazz. thanks for being there little one. glad you're still around braving this crazy world with us.  
Every day it gets odder so I try to write poems of our lives.
All day the door buzzed on  her  birthday.
Peops dropping by for lunch with presents.
We’re doing nothing, the kids replied.
Going  to get greasy food,
With Reuben and company.
They used to go to the beach.
Everyone growing.
Go Ask Alice  plays the  band.
Sheena is a Punk Rocker,
Dad sing  along, they invite me.
The  little one on drums.
Teenager on the  bass.
1234
Sheena is a punk rocker
Sheena is….
Lorna is leaving.
Belinda remembers:
“yesterday i lost a part of me, my best friend in high school and partner in crime in the early punk scene…”
Time takes a cigarette.
The decline of western civilization vhs plays.
The air in utopia is poisoned.
It’s the final joke.
Depression  is gonna kill me.
you know, it got a little crazy in the pit…
Scared  to get hurt.
Can somebody gimme a beer?
Ravi staying, Lorna going, 
Dodi growing.
All of us reflecting on  the extinction  rebellion.
Confronting Climate Change

What can be done at the necessary speed and scale?
Sunday January 27.  12:00 to 2:00, the Garden Room.

The climate crisis worsens. We are using more fossil fuel than ever even as alternative energies take off.   The fabric of life on earth in all its  complexity and beauty is being destroyed. The prospects for peace and security and global equity and well-being are ever dimmer. It is already too late to  avoid many human tragedies and desecrations of nature.  Hopefully, it is not too late to prevent the utter collapse of human societies and  the natural world and for people to fashion viable and enjoyable lives.   What could be done at the pace and with the needed breadth and depth?  What are you doing others among us might do?  What are others doing you'd like to join?  What needs to be done that isn't being done and how might it be done?
This Sunday, January 27, we have an opportunity to think together about how we, how  Judson, can confront this crisis of our age.   Donna's sermon will address  this, and then from 12:00 to 2:00 PM  all those interested are invited to come to the Garden Room to join a discussion and workshop on  what we, via Judson or not, could be doing.     Our workshop will be facilitated by two Judson members, Stephen Duncombe and Ben Shepard...”

Donna preached
“A beautiful new book, The Writer’s Map: An Atlas of imaginary lands. Its theme: “Every story is a map of the world…and everyone draws themselves at the center.” Oddly, over the holidays I read about Laura Spellman, John D’s wife. She was the daughter of a congregational minister and of course married into a great Northern Baptist family. She supported a thing called the “Green Book,” a map which helped African Americans travel throughout the South with less danger. I oddly think of our sanctuary work as very much like it. I like this map that sacralizes directions and refuses to draw yourself at the center of everything. Sacred is centering in the large world. Desacralizing is centering yourself in a small and lonely world. We could be Piano movers for the New Green Deal.”

We planned  for  a new world,
A smaller greener  world,
Without borders.
And the city grew around  us.

The  next day, we met at  Foley Square.

I  ran into  many from  the meeting the day before. 
Donna and everyone.

Ravi walked inside afraid he wouldn’t see the light of day.
Hopefully the cruelty ends and this person walks free and not into a detention center!
I tweeted.
We are a country of immigrants.
We stand with Ravi! Abolish ICE!
Erik was there.
So was George.
And Ken,
Who snapped a few photos and wrote:

“On the second anniversary of the Muslim Ban (and the protest at JFK) on January 28th, we hit the streets again to call out against ICE intimidation and a particular possible deportation. Ravi Ragbir, the Executive Director of New Sanctuary Coalition , an immigrant rights and support organization, was threatened with deportation as he was a year ago. During his check in with ICE at Federal Plaza in NYC, hundred of supporters solemnly circled the building in silence and in the frigid cold. After the fifth pass of the so called “Jericho Walk,” the crowd screamed in unison to bring the walls of injustice down. Moments later word spread that upstairs Ravi had gotten a six month reprieve. A shaken Ravi Ragbir came out soon after, accompanied by his wife, U.S. Rep. Yvette D. Clarke , Melissa Mark-Viverito , Jumaane D. Williams and NYC Council member Ydanis Rodriguez among other elected representatives.
During his "interview" …ICE officers refused to let the elected officials to accompany Ravi and closed the visitor’s area. Officers were aggressive and repeatedly refused to identify themselves as they forced official out of the area. Representative Clarke promised to bring Department of Homeland Security and Ice.gov to an upcoming House hearing on immigration to account. Ydanis Rodriguez was forceful and angry, calling his treatment in particular and the wave of attacks against immigrants in general are nothing less than a glaring example of the administration’s naked white supremacist policies..
Few immigrants like Ravi have such powerful political support behind them, but immigrant rights workers are frequently targeted by ICE for intimidation and are at an increased risk of deportation.”

Others went to the council hearing on green rooftops.
We can save the city and the world one tree at a time.
But
"A tree can be only as strong as the forest that surrounds it,” writes Peter Wohlleben

If only we could learn to hear them.

“[T]he most astonishing thing about trees is how social they are. The trees in a forest care for each other, sometimes even going so far as to nourish the stump of a felled tree for centuries after it was cut down by feeding it sugars and other nutrients, and so keeping it alive. Only some stumps are thus nourished. Perhaps they are the parents of the trees that make up the forest of today. A tree’s most important means of staying connected to other trees is a “wood wide web” of soil fungi that connects vegetation in an intimate network that allows the sharing of an enormous amount of information and goods. Scientific research aimed at understanding the astonishing abilities of this partnership between fungi and plant has only just begun. The reason trees share food and communicate is that they need each other. It takes a forest to create a microclimate suitable for tree growth and sustenance. So it’s not surprising that isolated trees have far shorter lives than those living connected together in forests. "  ― Peter Wohlleben, The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate—Discoveries from A Secret World
"I don't want to protect the environment. I want to create a world where the environment doesn't need protecting." ~ unknown
"Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished." ~ Lao Tzu
Ravi  is staying for a while.
The kids getting older.
Green roof tops on  the top of the agenda.
An interconnected  city expanding all around us.
And we’re  not at the  center  of it.
No one really knows how much time we have.

The  germ of an idea is growing.
RIP Lorna.

You were always a mystery,
Looking at your photo on the album.

RIP Lorna Doom.
The germs burn on my wrist originated from you
Tweeted Katie.

































































Image may contain: 8 people, including Benjamin Heim Shepard, hat and outdoor


Photo and caption by Eric McGregor: "The New Sanctuary Coalition called for a mobilization of community members and allies to gather for a Jericho Walk around the Federal Building at 26 Federal Plaza on January 28, 2019 in solidarity with Ravi Ragbir, Executive Director of New Sanctuary Coalition, as he was forced to check in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). (Photo by Erik McGregor) — with Benjamin Heim Shepard and Ravi Ragbir at Inmigration 26 Federal Plaza."


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