Some Things to Keep in Mind While Donating to Charities this Christmas Season…

You know, the truth is that when I lack passion and inspiration, I can not write. Not a single word. I’ve been in a state of suspension for the past three days, waiting for that spark of passion, of inspiration to ignite and set the thoughts in my head and heart ablaze. I was hoping to have finished this segment a few days ago but I dare not try to force words. They come across as fake and lack the weight that I need them to have.

Two things happened today that drove me suddenly into that place of clarity and openness. The first was an incident involving my mother and a local homeless man named Cowboy. Cowboy and my mother met a number of years ago outside of our house in Yuba City. Since that time, my mother has been collecting bags of recycled cans and bottles to give to him every few weeks so that he can turn them in for cash. This has been a consistent relationship and one that really benefits everyone involved. In February, my mother had a yard sale and invited Cowboy in for coffee and conversation. He stayed for a while and even found a few items from the sale that she insisted he take – free of charge. She has learned a good deal about his life, his history in the military and as a hunter, his extensive knowledge of weapons and his family. She became accustomed to seeing him several times a month and then suddenly, he was gone. The garbage bags filled with cans were collecting dust and grime as they lay untouched outside of the front gate. Sometimes she would walk down the driveway, peering down the road, looking for any sign of him. She expressed her concern to me that something had happened. Today, as we were leaving the house, car packed full with cans and bottles, she shouted. “There, there, it’s Cowboy!” She slammed on her brakes and hopped out of the car. “Hey! Where have you been?” It turns out that he’d had a heart attack. The camp next to his tent caught ablaze and he had suffered a lot of stress from trying to fight the fire and save his own home.

“My blood pressure sky rocketed and I was toast.”

Luckily he survived but had been forced to take it easy. My mother helped him load the cans and bottles onto his bike, then gave him a bag stuffed full with meat from the freezer.

“There’s ham, hamburgers, steaks…” She rifled through the bag. “Do you want this? I don’t want to give you anything you don’t want.” That was the aha moment for me. By asking him if he wanted those things instead of assuming that, as a homeless person, he should accept anything given to him, she was not stripping him of his dignity. He had a choice and she was able to recognize that, as a human being, he has preferences and creative expression just like anyone else might. At the end of their interaction, she handed him a Christmas card and gave him a big hug. I think the embrace disarmed him more than anything else and he gladly hugged her back.

The second thing that occurred today was stumbling across an article published by The Guardian. Philip Alston, a professor and the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, just finished a tour of the States, in which he investigated the poorest areas in America and the causes behind them. Much of his searching led him to homeless encampments in California. Tiny Gray-Garcia, a woman living on the streets in San Fransisco, described to Alston the prevailing attitude that she and her peers must deal with everyday. She calls it “the violence of looking away.” The moment I read those words, I was shaken to my core. Never before has someone put it so simply but with such clarity. These attitudes are the very actions that strip people of their humanity and force almost animalistic qualities. If everyone is treating you like an animal then you will, inevitably, begin to take on the traits of one. Most often, society forces it on you.

I know I said I would offer some helpful hints for selecting effective charities this Christmas season, so let me start with a few, key qualities you should be looking for in a charity:

• Relationship. Are the people in the organization taking the time to know those that they are serving? Do they know the names of those people most important to them? Part of being in relationship with someone is offering them a choice, acting out of love and humility, not pride or a “savior complex.” With love comes dignity and assuming that you know best does not accomplish that. Are those that they are serving playing an active role in the decision-making processes? Are communities being analyzed firstly for the assets that they have and secondly for the problems that need to be resolved? It’s all about mutuality and co-powerment.
• Cultural Preservation and Understanding. Is the organization working towards the preservation of cultures? Do they have extensive, in-depth knowledge about the culture they are working in? Organizations that have a strong number of local employees tend to be the most successful. Co-powerment of a community involves equipping that community to support and sustain themselves. It must be community led and to achieve that, local leaders must be trained and given roles of leadership in the organization or in the programs/ projects.
• Exit Date. Effective community development and aid work always has an exit date in mind. If they do not, then sustainability is not a priority or is not viewed as achievable. Aid organizations that remain in a community and offer handouts and immediate solutions do not have the long-term interests of the people in mind. There is a time and place for immediate aid such as in disaster relief but behind every handout program, there must be a plan for longterm community sustainability and development. Band-aid solutions breed dependency and strip communities of their dignity.
• Transparency. Organizations that are willing to make their failures and mistakes public are absolutely a great choice. Those of us who have worked in the realms of aid and development know all too well that behind every success there are a dozen failures. There is nothing wrong with failure, on the contrary, failures produce the best learning experiences. Organizations who, not only offer transparency in these areas but are also open about their funding tend to be the most effective and the most honest.
• Preservation of the Earth. Whether or not you believe in global warming and climate change, the earth is a sacred thing and something we should protect at all costs. I, myself, am a firm believer in climate change and I do believe that the earth’s resources are limited. I am also an avid outdoors woman and I want to see the continued protection of national parks and other heritage sites, especially those belonging to indigenous peoples. Be sure to look into the impact that the organization is leaving on the earth, what sort of carbon footprint are they leaving behind and is the preservation of the earth a priority to them?

Below are a list of organizations that I wholeheartedly support and give my own donations to. It is my belief that, while these organizations are not perfect by any means, they do a really great job of aligning themselves with the aforementioned points:

• Preemptive Love Coalition (provides life saving heart surgeries to children living in war-torn areas, provide relief and facilitate job creation)
• Heifer International (provides livestock and agricultural training and gifts to help communities become fully sustainable. They have a strong focus on stewardship and preservation of the earth and its resources)
• International Rescue Committee (offers global, humanitarian relief and focuses on refugee resettlement)
• Cultural Survival (preserves indigenous cultures around the globe)
• Mountain Caribou Initiative  (a local, Northwest based initiative aimed at saving the swiftly vanishing mountain caribou as well as Northwest forests and ecosystems)

There are so many great initiatives and organizations out there that are doing really stellar work. I encourage you to conduct your own research, especially into local charities and find the organization that really fits with your goals and passions. Feel free to contact me with further questions!

When Helping Actually Helps

I was standing in line at a department store this afternoon when I overheard a conversation between two women ahead of me. One woman was telling her mother-in-law that she had purchased three stuffed animals from that same store only a few days prior. The mother-in-law asked how much the stuffed animals were and the woman replied, saying they were five dollars. The older woman wrinkled her nose but the first woman hastily cut in, saying “Don’t worry, it all went to charity.” The older woman seemed to visibly relax, assured that at least the money was going to the “less fortunate.” She asked which charity it was going towards and the woman shrugged and replied, “Well, it’s a charity… who cares?”

Let me pause for a moment and admit that there may have been some instinctive eye rolling and the urge to cut in, launching into a less than desired lecture about the effectiveness of aid, toxic charity, etc but I resisted the urge, bit my tongue and resolved to do something more constructive. So, instead, I have resolved to write out some thoughts about giving and charity, particularly seeing as we are in the greatest season of giving. Perhaps I should start by stating my qualifications in this field and answering the questions of who is this person and why should I listen to them? I have been independently studying the effectiveness of aid and development for over five years now. Much of this study came from reading in depth books about the harm in most international aid and the crippling dependency that it breeds. I have traveled to three continents and visited close to ten countries where I have worked with various development and faith based organizations as well as conducted my own, independent research. I have spent time with three separate indigenous groups – two in the States and one in Central America and I fell deeply in love with each of their cultures. In fact, humanitarian work has become such a passion of mine that I decided I wanted to get a Master’s Degree pertaining to it. I am currently enrolled in the ICD program (International Community Development) at Northwest University and we just finished our first semester. To say that I love my classes is an understatement. My cohort mates and I are slowly but surely becoming experts in a field that is all too often neglected. Time after time I have encountered examples of real “do-gooders,” people who really want to help the poor so they dive in head first without an ounce of research or knowledge behind the actions. Some of these people go on to start organizations that then invade a culture and impose their beliefs and their understanding under the pretenses of aid. All too often these are faith based and Christian organizations. I do not believe that these people actually mean to be harmful, truly their intentions are quite noble, but it takes more than a good and willing heart. Effective development is about research, tools and most importantly, partnership – partnership with the very people you are intending to “help.” The purpose of this post is two-fold:

• To highlight a few key points that we have learned this semester in the ICD program that will help us as a community to facilitate lasting change
• To offer advice to those looking to donate to a charity this holiday season. There are a million different aid organizations vying for our attentions each day. I will offer a few, invaluable things to keep in mind when deciding where to give your money and other resources

When you think of humanitarian work, what comes to mind? I’ll tell you what came to mine before I started actually doing it. I pictured myself as a young, independent woman in Sub-Saharan Africa, feeding orphans in conflict zones or administering immunizations to malaria stricken villagers. The sort of “charity” I had been exposed to came in the form of envelopes in the mail with pictures of a wide-eyed African child, flies covering his face and tears rolling down his cheeks. Inside was a little story followed by a few lines of statistics. Also in the envelope was some sort of small gift, a hand-made card, a coin, something that was supposed to incentivize the receiver to give. Even being the young, not yet educated girl that I was, it didn’t make a lot of sense to me. Why were these organizations wasting money on postage, paper, envelopes and little gifts when that money could have been going directly to the people they were trying to serve? And why were the pictures on those envelopes always the same miserable, starving child? The answer lies along with my own disillusioned dreams of aid work. I wanted to be the savior to these people, I wanted to be the one who was praised and celebrated for my life’s work. I had a savior complex, as many people in this field do. In my mind, I was needed, wanted, I could just show up and expect to do all the work, shoulder all the burden and everything would fall into place. I had no idea about the concepts of “co-powerment,” sustainability or cultural understanding. It has taken me over 16 years to understand these things and I am still learning. Development work is a learning process full of failures and triumphs (oftentimes more fails than successes) and it’s messy work, full of human emotions and desires. If there are only two things you gather from this post then let it be these: cultural understanding and building relationships may be the two greatest keys to ending global poverty. Now, of course this is purely theoretical and I am well aware that there is no one formula for ending the world’s poverty and injustice. However, adopting a keen understanding of the culture you are looking to operate within and building a relationship with the people from that culture (that includes asking if your help or presence is even wanted) are absolutely key.

Culture

When navigating foreign cultures, it is best to keep an open mind and not set expectations for yourself or for others. For anyone who has traveled abroad and experienced a foreign culture, this is all too familiar. In my Master’s program, we read a book by Geert Hofstede called “Cultures and Organizations.” Within this book, Hofstede and his son go into great depth about a series of tools they developed for measuring culture within a society. These tools are called indices and they measure the various dimensions of culture in relation to:

1. Masculinity
2. Power Distance
3. Individualism
4. Long Term Orientation
5. Uncertainty Avoidance

I will use individualism as an example as it is my favorite dimension. According to Hofstede’s indices, the United States falls very high on the individualism index meaning that in the States we are highly individualistic. Individualist societies prefer a loose knit social framework in which individuals are expected to care only for themselves and their immediate families. Individualists are driven by desire for praise and accomplishment, are competitive and tend to be very expressive and opinionated. In contrast, a collectivist society prefers a more tightly-knit social framework in which individuals can expect their relatives or members of a particular “in-group” to look after them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty. Individuals in a collectivist society place family honor and loyalty above almost everything else, perhaps save for religion. They are more apt to live with the extended family (aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents) and are expected to provide for them as well. In the workplace, they are not driven so much by accomplishment or competition but by the desire to accomplish something well for the good of the whole or in many cases, the community. Collectivists tend to be less expressive and less opinionated about certain things. There is also a much larger gap between children and elders. Children are expected to submit to elders in a household and community until they themselves become elders. Syria, for example, falls very low on the scale of individualism. It is important to note that neither of these traits (individualist or collectivist) are bad. They are simply different. Each one has its pros as well as cons and it depends on a person’s background and upbringing (which is culture) as to whether they see them as pros or cons. I have friends from Africa who seem to go through a whole channel of people when asking for permission about a life change that doesn’t seem all too big to me. When I decide to move or attend school, I generally inform my family after the decision has been made; I don’t make it a point to ask permission. Again, neither way is wrong, they are just different. All too often I have seen Christian organizations set up shop in a foreign country and immediately start the “converting” and evangelizing process without taking the time to understand cultural norms and values. I don’t know how you would react if someone walked into your house and started telling you all the ways in which you are wrong and how you should act and be more like them, but I would be pissed. In fact, I would force them to leave or lash out. Many people groups are not in the position to do either of those so instead they ignore or use the organization simply for their resources and thus become more and more dependent and poverty levels deepen. It is the most outrageously ignorant and toxic thing a person can do and to me, these organizations are no better than the likes of Christopher Columbus or the conquistadors. Their toxicity and blatant disregard for humanity eradicated entire cultures and enslaved many others. History will repeat itself, so why do we give it the chance?

Relationships

Christmas is a time when we begin hunting for that perfect gift for a loved one. For me, I spend hours combing thrift stores and antique malls in a desperate search for the things that I know my family members or friends will love. I know they will love them because I know them. I know their likes, dislikes, their needs, their strengths, their dreams. I am in relationship with them. Why do we spend so much time buying gifts for people and so little time donating resources, lifesaving ones, to people that we don’t know? Why do aid organizations go into a community and automatically expect to know all of the needs of that community and all of their assets when they don’t even take the time to ask? When I am uncertain about what to buy for someone, I ask them what they want. It’s not a revolutionary practice, we’ve been doing it for centuries. If you think someone is hungry you usually ask, not throw bread at them. If you think someone is sick, you ask, not force feed them soup or drugs or stick a needle in their veins. We would never do these sorts of things to people we know, so why do we continue to do them to people we don’t? Are they less human because we are not in relationship? And that is according to whom? You cannot know a community’s needs or their strengths until you ask. I think many people would be shocked by the number of times aid organizations have gone into areas and not asked what they could do for a people group but instead immediately started the process of doing these things. I recall asking a local in Swaziland about his opinion on a certain project and his response was one of surprise. “No one has asked me before.” Excuse my language, but what the hell are we thinking? Who goes into a place and forces their own ideals and understanding of life on another human being? We tack that sort of behavior on terrorists when in reality, the Christian church does it every day in dozens and dozens of international communities around the world. And it’s not just the church. The western mindset is that we hold all the answers and those living in the global South desperately need what we have. That is false. Africa, for instance, is a mine of resources, resources that have been exploited for centuries, starting with greedy, foreign invaders. What the global South needs is for us to leave them alone or at least give decision making power and resources back into the hands of the local communities. The West does not have all the answers and until we stop pretending that we do, conditions will continue to deteriorate, both for ourselves and for others. Now, having said all of that, there is still hope for effective aid work. It involves possessing more than a base level knowledge of culture – you have to really delve into it in order to understand all the vast and complex levels of history and context. It also involves building meaningful relationships founded on trust and mutual sharing. In the ICD program, we use the term “co-power” instead of “empower.” Empower suggests that one side holds all the power and is bestowing some level of that onto a lesser party. Co-powerment suggests that both sides have something valuable to offer and that is brought to a true fruition when they work in partnership with one another. I could honestly go on about this forever but it’s late, this is already way too long and I am supposed to be on Christmas break. I will try to write a follow-up article tomorrow that offers tips for picking effective charities to donate to during the holiday season and beyond.

Until then, merry Christmas!

To Climb or Not…?

There has been a question, tugging at the recesses of my mind lately. It’s one that I ask myself a few times during the course of a year and apparently it’s leading into that time yet again. It’s certainly not a question that everyone asks, indeed only a mad few would submit themselves to such a thing but that mad few are the dear ones. My question:

Why, on earth, do I climb?  

Five years ago this question would have remained unanswered. I was young, just new into the sport of rock climbing and had barely mastered the idea of staying on one color in the gym. The idea of climbing outside had not yet fully crossed my mind and, if it had, I think I might have laughed.

My family has a cabin in the tiny town of Strawberry, California. I spent my childhood in the mountains, snowmobiling in the winter and riding horses, hiking and fishing in the summer. Strawberry is home to a well sought out outcropping of granite, known as Lover’s Leap. Home to over 150 routes, many of them trad climbs, Lover’s Leap is a first class, climbing destination. Thusly, I also spent much of my childhood watching climbers make their ascents. You could always find my grandfather standing on the second floor balcony, binoculars in hand, watching those “crazy guys” on the mountain. I vowed to myself that one day, I too, would be one of those crazies.

Fast forward two years and I found myself, once again, staring at the sheer, granite walls, this time fully equipped with the gear and knowledge needed to get up them. I still haven’t done a multi pitch up Lover’s Leap (though I know that will come soon) but I have done many fun, single pitch, sport climbs. Climbing found me at a time in my life when I was struggling with a plethora of things, namely confidence. My first time ever climbing outdoors was on a trip to Utah. We were in Saint George and I was absolutely terrified to top rope the 5.9 that my friends had put up. I remember shaking and barely being able to keep hold of the rock I was gripping. Later on that same trip, we would climb Castleton Tower, my first ever taste of outdoor trad climbing, especially off width. I will admit that tears fell a few times during and after that climb but the satisfaction after we were standing atop the tower made it wholly worth it. Before I started spending my time climbing, I was vastly self conscious, consumed with the burning notion that if I was not a certain size or weight then I was not worthy as a person. There were times during that first Utah trip that I cried, telling myself that I was not good enough, that I did not matter if I couldn’t even climb the things my friends were climbing. I hated myself.

The top of Castleton Tower

The summer after graduating college, I spent 9 hours a day in the climbing gym. Before too long, I was climbing V6’s and beginning to dabble in the world of 5.12 climbing. One of the managers told me that, since I was in so often, I might as well start working there. A few weeks later I worked my first shift. Something had changed in those months after school, a shift in my pattern of thinking, in how I viewed myself. Suddenly I was not so concerned with how my body looked as much as I was with what it could do. Beauty became fleeting, replaced with the desire for strength and stamina. I began to see that the true beauty in myself, in others, was deeper than surface level. I began to spend as much time as possible in the mountains. In truth, they healed me, climbing healed me. Walking amongst those ancient behemoths, I became incredibly aware of how small I was and how great they were and how their beauty far surpassed all else. I became consumed with the desire to explore them, to traverse the hidden crevices, to walk where others didn’t care to go.

I am still learning, still growing. I don’t climb 5.12’s anymore, though I can see that goal is not so far off. I don’t spend 9 hours a day climbing, I have other passions, other things that move me, but there is something in a mountain that will forever beckon, a siren, if you will. I have found magic in mountains, I have found God in the mountains and I have certainly found myself there.

“There is no such sense of solitude as that which we experience upon the silent and vast elevations of great mountains. Lifted high above the level of human sounds and habitations, among the wild expanses and colossal features of Nature, we are thrilled in our loneliness with a strange fear and elation – an ascent above the reach of life’s expectations or companionship, and the tremblings of a wild and undefined misgivings.”
― J. Sheridan Le Fanu 

Here Again: Ethiopia

It’s not even 6 am in Bishoftu, Ethiopia yet but already the sound of Orthodox  chanting mixed with Islamic calls to prayer have been resounding through the dusty streets and villages for hours. There is something truly awe inspiring about watching the sun rise here, against a backdrop of distant mountains and the bustle of morning life. The ethereal chanting and the constant blaring of horns has aroused me from my sleep. We are staying at a hotel in the center of Bishoftu, commonly called Debre Zeyit. My room happens to have a balcony that offers a view of rolling hills and distant crags and it has become my favorite spot.

Yesterday was a blur, as is custom here. In some ways, African life is so simple and very much a place of living fully in the moment but it is also a mad bustle of honking cars, amiable but loud shouting and, in the case of Addis Ababa, a constant state of traffic jams. It’s always comical to me just how unbound by any semblance of road rules, Ethiopians are. In fact, I love it and every time I step foot into a car here, I know I am about to embark on a thrill ride. It would be absurdly out of character if you did not face death a dozen times on your way to work, in the form of near collisions. Everyone honks at everyone (even as I typed that I counted three honks) and it seems to be more of a system of gentle communication than anything else. If you are passing by another vehicle, you honk to let them know you are doing so. If you see a car that may try to shoulder its way through the mayhem to cut you off, you honk to let them know that you will allow no such action. And if there is a man in front of you, pushing a wheelbarrow heavy laden with some matter of construction material and hemmed in on all sides, unable to move an inch, you honk at him, presumably just because you can. To the Western eye it seems like sheer chaos but the fact of the matter is that there seem to be far less collisions here than in the states.

We spent yesterday morning sipping coffee on a wide veranda, overlooking the city of Addis. I never crave coffee so strongly as when I am traveling in another country and seeing as Ethiopia is the birthplace of coffee, my craving is never quite sated. I was also given the opportunity to photograph a Saturday morning class put on by a local church geared at helping at risk children and youth. Following the class, we took shelter from the heat in the lobby of a small hotel, where we drank papaya juice and spoke of politics and religion with Dawit, a young Ethiopian man in charge of the children’s class. Around 1:30 we finally piled into a car and made the hour drive South of Addis Ababa to Bishoftu. I greatly enjoyed escaping the city and seeing more of the rural, pastoral life. Ethiopia has lovely, rolling hills and deserts. The Great Rift Valley also runs through it as well as Simien Mountains National Park in the North. These are two places that I long to see.

As I sit typing this, whole groups of doves are flocking to my balcony, peering in curiously to see what sort of new inhabitant has taken up residence in room 308. I’ve been talking to them and at times I swear they understand my questions. I must sign off now to meet my comrades for breakfast and prepare for the long week of work ahead. A breeze is blowing softly, off setting the heat, the doves are cooing and great bunches of orange and purple flowers are offering the most divine of perfumes. I feel certain that great things lie just ahead.

 

 

Life Updates: Ethiopia 2017

Greetings, friends. It’s been a while since I wrote anything on my blog and as I am about to embark on another adventure, I thought it the perfect time to do so.

One week. 

In one week I will be in Ethiopia again, back on beloved, African soil. I am working with a Christian organization called “Acts 8” as a humanitarian photographer and writer. It’s been two years since I was last in Africa and I am so incredibly excited to return.

If you would like to make a donation towards my trip please follow the link below:

Acts 8

Some other exciting life updates:

• I am starting graduate school in August. I will be striving towards achieving a Masters Degree in International Community Development at Northwest University
• I am entering my second season as manager of the Duvall Farmer’s Market. This role has proved the perfect platform for serving my community as well as getting to know my fellow Duvallians even better
•  I am going to begin serious work on publishing some of my novels and poetry collections. This has been a dream of mine since the age of 12 and I feel like this season is presenting an appropriate time to do so. I appreciate the support of everyone who has walked beside me in my writing all these many years

Much love to you all. I am reminded of the depth and breadth of true kinship and I am so eternally grateful for the people who have chosen to share this life with me.

“Even when I’m alone I have real good company — dreams and imaginations and pretendings. I like to be alone now and then, just to think over things and taste them. But I love friendships — and nice, jolly little times with people.”

-L.M. Montgomery

Reflections On Human Progress

“It was not until the mid-nineteenth century that the idea of compassion began to include the moral idea that suffering was both wrong and should be prevented or ended, if possible.”

-Bryant L. Myers, Walking With the Poor

    It’s fascinating to think about the changes brought about by the Industrial Revolution including the way in which human beings understood the world and their ability to change it. Up until this point, it seemed as though the majority of people had accepted their fates would follow the traditions and long history of their families’. Impoverished farmers would continue to serve the wealthy, young boys would grow up to follow in the footsteps of their fathers and engage in backbreaking work until their premature deaths, girls would learn from their mothers that it was best to remain silent in the presence of men and that their worth would amount to the number of children they could bear…

    I think our tendency is to look at the world with all its problems and turn a relatively blind eye to the progress we’ve made as a human race. It’s easy to point fingers at people and institutions and to mourn the state of things but for fear of raising up a future generation of “woe is me-ers” it would do us good to look on how far we have come in a relatively short amount of time. Over the last two hundred years the world’s wealth has increased over fifty times and life expectancy in Europe almost doubled over the same time period. Those young boys suddenly realized they had a say in choosing their futures, that instead of following in the steps of their fathers and grandfathers before them, they could learn a new trade, one that allowed for better health and a longer life. Sadly, those young girls still had a long, hard road before them but look where they (we) are today! Sure, there is still a vast plain of inequality but women can vote, they can hold jobs of high power, they can have a say in how the world functions. They’ve gone beyond living for the sake of men and have determined that they are the captains of their own souls. I say all of this, not to discourage reform or progress, for we do have a long ways to go to make this world what it was meant to be. As long as there are people who are oppressed and marginalized, who live in fear and poverty our work is far from done. But, we cannot lose sight of hope and part of that hope entails looking back at how far we have come as a reminder that the future is not so unattainable as it often seems. I am guilty of allowing hopelessness to wash over me at times, to look at the struggles of indigenous people groups or the oppression of women in the Middle East and feel how enormous of a battle it is. In these times I am reminded that we are not alone, that God hears the cries of His people [all people] and His heart breaks for them. He is raising up leaders in every field and from every walk of life to lead the charge against injustice.

    So, the next time you hear about an environmental disaster or an act of awful injustice, allow yourself that indignation, these are things worthy of righteous anger, but don’t drown in them. Glance behind at the progression in rights throughout our long history and then use them to move forward, knowing full well that in another 200 years we will have come so far from where we are now. It will take patience, passion, hard work and compassion to see the eradication of oppression but I believe that with God nothing is impossible.    

I am A Feminist Because…

I am a feminist because…

I can already see the eye rolls and hear the exasperated sighs from some of you. “Feminist” has become a negative word, it conjures up images of man haters and devious femme fatales. Very much like the names of political parties, it has become steeped in stereotypes and bias and dredges up a plethora of less than friendly debate and name calling. To me, this is very unfortunate. Feminism is the radical notion that women are equal to men and therefore entitled to all the same human rights. There are various branches of feminism and I will admit that there are people who use the word “feminist” to push their own agenda or try to garner support for the idea that women are superior to men. This is not the feminism that I associate with. I do, however, believe that women are just as entitled as men in every way, whether that means through social, political, economical or other means.

So, allow me to start again. I am a feminist because I believe in the futures of the next generation.

I distinctly remember the women in my life who have influenced me the most, among those being my mother, grandmother, camp counselors, mentors and teachers. The lessons my mother has taught me are innumerable. She is strong, fiercely independent and a badass, to be quite frank. She was the first one to teach me that I didn’t need anyone to complete me and that I could determine my own future without the dictation of others. My dad tells me stories of her beating all the guys when they went out to race dirt bikes or the times she would drive a tractor for hours on end. Now she is a dedicated horse woman with the never-ending need to fly down dirt roads on her steeds. She also taught me about style and class, how to balance a life of grace and adventure. And how to look good doing it.

I had this camp counselor in sixth grade who made a huge impact on me. I can’t quite remember her name now but I thought she was the coolest person ever and I desperately wanted to become like her. We exchanged addresses and I wrote to her immediately after I returned home. I never did hear back, but her genuineness and sweet nature continued to inspire for years after. In the same way, I have had middle school and high school teachers, vocal coaches and other instructors in my life who have shown me the strength and passion women in educational and professional fields possess.

I don’t remember the exact day when I realized that I had become a figure for young women to look up to, a source of inspiration, if you will, but it dawned on me again today. While working my horse in the round pen, I heard my boss’s six-year-old daughter and her friend talking about what I was doing. I looked up to see them watching me from her bedroom window. They were talking about “how cool” it was that I had my own horse and was training him. They watched for a long time and I began to feel the weight of what I was doing, beyond lunging my sweet, little mustang. I was showing these girls what a strong woman looks like, perhaps paving the way for their own dreams of horsemanship. I was showing them how to work with horses “like a girl.”

It occurred again this evening as I was teaching a climbing class to a group of kids. One of the mothers of my students came up to me and asked for my Fall teaching schedule. “My daughter is so inspired by you, she just goes on and on about how much she loves having a female instructor. I’ve been telling all her friends’ parents to sign up their kids for your classes.” It was one of those moments where I was struck speechless (a truly rare occurrence). Somewhere along the line, I had become the woman I’d always admired.

Women of the world, we have an opportunity to influence the lives of the next generation. This is an enormous responsibility and one I pray you don’t take lightly. There are girls all over the world who need to be taught that their possibilities for the future are limitless and that they can aspire to be anything they want to be. Likewise, boys need to understand that they also can be anything and that girls are every bit as deserving of that promise as they are. The younger that we can begin to teach these concepts, the better. I have high hopes for the future of, not only women, but of human kind as a whole.

 

    “Equality is not a concept. It’s not something we should be striving for. It’s a necessity. Equality is like gravity. We need it to stand on this earth as men and women, and the misogyny that is in every culture is not a true part of the human condition. It is life out of balance, and that imbalance is sucking something out of the soul of every man and woman who’s confronted with it. We need equality. Kinda now.”
―Joss Whedon

A Long Time Gone

Goodbyes are bitterly difficult for me. In fact, there is nothing I like less in this world than the knowledge that I am about to see a person or place for the last time. Sometimes something as simple as bidding farewell to a season can move me to tears, prick at the corners of my soul and milk the joy from my core. I fall in love with people every day and those who I am lucky enough to develop a friendship with will, eventually and without a doubt, break my heart sooner or later.

A long story short, I lost some friends to distance recently. I find myself staring off into space, humming some half forgotten tune about love and loss, dreaming of a day when goodbyes become as faint as that song. The way the sunshine glints off of rain puddles or the manner in which a bird alights on my porch brings to mind folks long gone and I feel that heaving, aching emptiness inside. I want to cry but the tears are trapped, perhaps they left with my heart, clinging desperately to moth eaten luggage and half smiles. And then I become overwhelmingly thankful for the ones left behind, those whose paths have not yet diverged from my own, whose bright eyes and entangled minds remain just within reach and reason. They haven’t broken my heart, not yet.

“I hope no one who reads this book has been quite as miserable as Susan and Lucy were that night; but if you have been – if you’ve been up all night and cried till you have no more tears left in you – you will know that there comes in the end a sort of quietness. You feel as if nothing is ever going to happen again.”

 

I recently took a trip into the Cascades with a new friend. We backpacked through a sprawling forest until we reached a snow pack and thusly lost the trail. We made the most of our adventure, setting up an early camp and communing with the barred owls and trilium plants. The following day we made a pilgrimage to the river in Index, Washington, baptizing away the dust and grime of the trails. I am posting some photos from our travels below.

***Disclaimer*** some of the photos contain human nudity and the raw, unabashed nudity of nature. If such things make you uncomfortable, turn back now.

“She was free in her wildness. She was a wanderess, a drop of free water. She belonged to no man and to no city.”

 

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For the Love of It

I have the makings of a painful bruise on my left shoulder and on my left knee is a huge, rose-colored bruise from hours of ground work- throwing people off of me and being thrown off of others. My knuckles are also bruised, some scabbed over from repeatedly punching and striking “Bob” our life-size practice dummy, with a perfectly chiseled six pack and a thick, beefy neck. One of my elbows is raw and bloody from a bout of wild wrestling and Judo work with my best friend and my legs feel like lead, from repeated kicking practice, kettle bell workouts and hilly runs.

Yesterday, Eric and I worked for two and a half hours, covering everything from how to get someone off of you in a rape scenario to proper techniques in knife fighting. Eric or “Little Bear” lives with us at Wolf Den Hollow and is a certified self-defense instructor, with a wide and varied background in fighting and tracking. Our training started a few months ago; he would send Lynnea and I into the woods to practice “disappearing” and the art of tracking animals, with the hope of eventually tracking humans. Escape and evasion is much more difficult than it may seem, even in the thick, brush covered Washington forests. We began to practice walking without making noise (a skill I have yet to master) and relying on the birds to tell us where “danger” was. Of course we also began learning basic striking and blocking and how to effectively and un-apologetically tell someone to get out of our space.

We’ve been doing a series of intense workouts aimed at building up the muscles needed in combat situations. It’s amazing what you can do with a strong core. Yesterday was the first time we got into weapons though and it was a whole new world. We started out with a basic introduction into some of the Filipino martial arts that utilize fighting sticks. I quickly learned that much of Eric’s methodology involves actually striking his student if they can’t block a blow in time-hardening my resolve to not miss. In truth, I love this way of teaching.

I’ve also enrolled myself into an online course through Tel Aviv University, called “The Emergence of the Modern Middle East” and I’m reading just about everything I can get my hands on about the Middle East in an often seemingly futile attempt to make sense of it all. There was a possibility of my going to the Middle East within the next year-so far that has proved in vain, but opportunity often follows great perseverance. I look forward to seeing where this training takes me and into what sort of desperate, epic circumstances I find myself in.

Keep on adventuring, folks. Heaven knows I will.

On Our Way to Somewhere

Visiting the Grand Canyon

 

This was the fourth, annual, mid-West, climbing trip that Lynnea and I have embarked on. Admittedly, we were feeling a bit half-hearted about starting out, at least I was, but the moment my tires hit that black pavement, the doubts, fears and worries dissipated. The first leg of our trip took us to Joe’s Valley, Utah, for three days of bouldering. We were hell bent on chasing the sun, weary of Washington’s constant torrential downpours and desiring to be rid of that pasty, white complexion that every Seattlelite is all too well acquainted with. Sad to say, we didn’t find much warmth in Joe’s. The valley was relatively dry, but snow glistened on the peaks above us, gleaming like splinters of bone in the noon day sun. We had been consumed with an audio book on the sinking of the whaling ship, the “Essex,” much of which dealt with the horrors of cannibalism, so “bones” were on our minds constantly, even now. Lynnea and I ventured back to our long time nemesis, “Kill By Numbers,” a classic, overhanging V5. One side of the starting hold had broken off since last we were on it and I found myself unable to do the starting move. Lynnea had better luck than I did and was able to come very near to finishing it clean.

The following day, we ventured out to another set of boulders, where we encountered Hazel Findlay, one of the best female trad climbers in the world. The boulder we tried first was a high ball (not my preferred climbing by any means) so I contented to watch. Not long after, we moved to another boulder, the “Pyramid,” and found ourselves enjoying some crimpy V2’s and V4’s.

Photo of Lynnea taken by Sam Cody in Joe’s Valley

We set out for Arizona the following day, after giving one last attempt on “Kill By Numbers.” It was night by the time we made it to Bryce Canyon and we camped deep in the Dixie National Forest, off an obscure, little, forest road that looked like the perfect setting for a midnight murder. By the time we found a pullout, the wind was blowing fiercely and it had started to snow. We opted for sleeping inside the car and periodically would jolt awake to check the trees around us or stuff blankets and sweaters into the windows when snow started to swirl in. The following morning, we woke to seven inches of snow blanketing the ground, trees and car.

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Thankfully my car was graced with 4WD, so we made it out with no injury to person, animal or vehicle. Thoroughly chilled, we drove until we came upon a town with a tiny, little diner. We stopped and drank mug upon mug of steaming, black coffee.

After the coffee break, it was on towards the Grand Canyon, a sight I have always longed to see. We drove through some truly breathtaking desert scenes along the way.

 

That night, having made it just short of the Grand Canyon, we slept in the desert, beneath a blanket of shining stars.

The following day, we finally made it to the Grand Canyon, early enough that we were able to beat most of the crowds and enjoy the still cool rays of the morning.

I have never felt so small in a place as I did, standing on the South rim of the canyon. The sun was shining and we were finally able to shed our wool and down jackets. The next leg of our journey took us to Flagstaff, where we were once again greeted by snow. Taking the advice of some climbers at the local outdoor store, we headed out to a crag known simply as “The Pit.” A short hike through some switchbacks in rattlesnake country led us straight to a dozen limestone climbs, all marked with distinct pockets.

We spent the remainder of that first day and then the second one as well at “The Pit.” Lynnea and I encountered a trio of climbers, roughly our age, who invited us to their family dinner night. By “family” they meant a bunch of other friends around our age who gathered regularly for stir frys. We sipped gluten free beer and munched on fresh strawberries in their living room, swapping stories, laughing and talking about our hopes for the future. Flagstaff is an incredible town, vibrant and decidedly progressive-a young Seattle. Everywhere we went, we encountered young, enthusiastic people who possessed a deep love and appreciation for the outdoors. Our third day in Flagstaff we spent bouldering in an area known as “Priest’s Draw” then toured the town.

We spent far too much time {and money} in a little gypsy/ bohemian store called “The Earthbound Trading Co.,” then headed over to a local coffeehouse where we sipped iced mochas and lattes and ate some truly delicious gluten and dairy free pastries. We gathered up our dogs and belongings then and headed off to Sedona. The drive was breathtaking, much of the landscape looked like something out of the movie, “Avatar.” Sedona itself was pure chaos, catering mainly to tourists. We stared wistfully at enormous desert towers and pristine trad lines, wishing that we possessed a rack. After a half hour in the town, we decided to backtrack to Flagstaff and from there, embark to California.

 

My grandfather’s 80th birthday party was to occur that Saturday and I had a plan to surprise my family by showing up the day before. We drove through the night, finally stopping to sleep outside of a busy gas station in Southern California. We did manage to surprise my family, and after showers and much needed naps, my mother put us to work helping her with decorating and flower arrangements.

The party itself was a success. My grandfather never suspected a thing and was shocked to be greeted by 100+ people cheering and wishing him well. I think everyone else was shocked by my attire. Donned in a backless, black dress that showed off every one of my tattoos, I received more than a few raised eyebrows and gestures of disapproval from my elders. But it was all in good jest! Maybe.

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After the big bash, we spent two days on the farm, riding horses, flying and fourwheelin. Also, eating a ton of food (mostly cake)

Riding horses at the ranch. California.

Some sibling flight time

Fourwheelin’

We ended the excursion at Smith Rock in Oregon, an incredible climbing paradise situated beside the Crooked River. In all, it was a really fun trip, leaning more towards a roadtrip than exclusively climbing. We each received a healthy dose of desert and adventure, and after all… what more could a girl want??

Flying over the world’s smallest mountain range

Snow in Red Canyon

Digging for water in the desert

All dolled up for my grandfather’s 80th birthday celebration

On the road in Utah

Sutter Buttes