I am fortunate that my work commute is about 15 minutes each way, made in the comfort of my car.
As I drive, I see people walking, some carrying bags of groceries or baskets of laundry, sometimes pushing a child in a stroller, sometimes carrying bags and pushing a stroller, and possibly with a furred friend on a leash as well.
I see people working in yards, or putting a new roof on a house, or doing work on the road I’m driving on. I see the large trucks driven by the trash collection service employees, the utility company truck with someone in the basket lift repairing a power or phone line, delivery trucks and moving vans taking things from Point A to Point B.
It may be a pleasantly cool day, or ridiculously hot, or cold and raining.
Whatever is going on, I am seated comfortably in my car, in a nicely temperature-controlled, rainproof, and shaded moving bubble, listening to music, on my way to my job where I will be seated comfortably in a nicely temperature-controlled, rainproof, and shaded office where I can listen to music.
I am aware of the exceptional ease of my circumstances, and while I can’t change the world overnight to make life as easy for everyone, I have a practice I call “scattering blessings”.
For someone walking, I wish them a pleasant walk to their destination, and a joyful day. If they’re pushing a stroller, or walking with a small child or a pet, I wish blessings upon them and their child, or them and their furred friend, that all of them are happy and healthy.
For someone doing physical work, I offer blessings and thanks to them for their work in making the world better, and blessings on their work. I wish them protection from the sun/heat/cold, and a warm welcome when they return home in the evening.
I see delivery drivers, and do something similar: I offer blessings and thanks to them for their work in making sure people have what they need, and blessings on their work. I wish them safe travels and protection from the weather, and a warm welcome when they return home in the evening.
For the moving vans, I offer thanks and blessings to the workers for safely transporting the clients’ possessions, and offer blessings to the ones being moved to find joy, peace, and comfort in their new homes.
Perhaps it makes a positive difference to the people I pass, or perhaps it doesn’t. My hope is that it does, and it’s certainly a useful practice for me to keep perspective on what is happening in my day.
There are many ways to do this practice throughout the day, anywhere. Try it yourself and see what works for you!
I was feeling sufficiently better on Sunday to pull out my art supplies and light board, and draft some new bindrunes for people in my kindred and the local community. My Seidhjallr group came up with the runes, and I created the bindrunes.
The first rune is a bindrune for peace, with the runes chosen by Diana Paxson—Algiz, Inguz, Ansuz.
The other bindrunes are for specific individuals and their particular circumstances, so I’m going to keep the details private.
“Anastasia”, I hear you say, “you haven’t posted since early May!”
Yes, that’s correct, my friends. I haven’t posted since early May. Usually I manage to queue some posts prior to my work travel, but that didn’t quite work out.
I had more travel than I expected. I hadn’t planned such an absence—I ended up being h0me only 11 days between May 18 and June 26. And then I came home from the most recent trip (a weekend getaway with my spouse for our anniversary as a reward for making it through all the business travel) with the souvenir no one wants – Covid.
I’m finally back on my feet, and home for a couple of weeks (next trip: July 17), so I am excavating my desk and trying to catch up on a million things. This includes resuming a semi-regular posting schedule, which is good, because I have so much to blog about! Travel adventures, book reviews, and happenings in my community and kindred and the world at large.
Journalist Lisa Loving wants you to know how you–with a cell phone, and a full understanding of the techniques, tools and ethics of journalism–can report on the stories around you and inform the world.
The intensity of individual, mob and institutional attacks on working journalists and their media outlets is unmistakable in our current age. World Press Freedom Day pushes back. So, too, does the work of many thousands of individuals locally and worldwide who take the tools of journalism in hand to accurately report the news they encounter in their day-to-day lives in order to responsibly and effectively inform their communities on issues of immense immediate importance.
After the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police in 2020, the city of Portland, Oregon – one of the whitest towns in America – erupted in 200 days and nights of protest in support of the Black Lives Matter movement against racism and police violence. In the same moment, activists and observers – including everyday people who started out simply pointing their phones at the rapidly escalating police violence – launched a new movement in grassroots media. Their work landed in MSNBC, CNN, the New York Times and news outlets around the world.
What can we learn about the future of news from these grassroots pioneers of breaking news reporting? Can we build on their experience – and their work that continues today – in creating a smart, informative news media now?
And what about you?
What if you or someone you know had the tools to bring real information to the table and actually inform people – in your local community and beyond?
Join Lisa Loving, author of “Street Journalist: Understand and Report the News in Your Community,” for an intimate chat on tools YOU can use to create a media platform and bring your local story to the world.
Lisa Loving wrote the book on citizen journalism from lived experience in creating community media in Portland a decade ago. With the 2019 publication of Street Journalist, she made it her mission to make you realize that “the power of journalism is in your hands.” She writes “While many people believe there is some sort of special degree or license that makes a journalist ‘legitimate,’ the truth is that anyone with the interest, brains and organization can make a crucial difference with their voice.” She’s trained hundreds of ordinary people in the tools of independent journalism, making it clear, as has been demonstrated on far too many tragic occasions in recent years, that anyone with a smartphone has the basic equipment to report what’s going on in their neighborhood. This evening she’ll make those points tangible, and engage in dialog to clarify the issues.
DON’T HATE THE MEDIA, BECOME THE MEDIA
–Jello Biafra
