branches up, roots down

" These are the times that try men's souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. " – Thomas Paine, published 12/23/1776 Two nights ago there was a vigil in downtown San Francisco organized by the Veterans for Peace to mark the U.S. death count in Iraq reaching 4000. Last week was the fifth anniversary of the war. As this war progresses, there will be a growing number of those in the military who turn against it and realize that they can not in good conscience keep fighting. In times where war is waged for unjust reasons, there are always those who do not shrink from speaking out and resisting. During the Vietnam War, once that resistance came from within the military itself, the war drew closer to its end. In a brilliant twist on Thomas Paine's term "summer soldier" those veterans who did not shrin...

I was teaching at witchcamp in England almost two years ago when calling home I learned that. my housemate was going to Crawford , Texas to help publicize that a mother of a son killed in Iraq had started a peace encampment outside the president’s home. By the time I got home, Cindy Sheehan was a name that everyone knew, as well as the name of her son, Casey. On Memorial Day, Cindy Sheehan once again made news, this time by publicly withdrawing and putting up for sale “ Camp Casey ”, a place than several of my friends have traveled to. I’d been thinking some about Cindy Sheehan the week before and about all the other mothers who have lost children in war. In that week, I’d been feeling how difficult it is to let go of children and also about how the direct effects and cost of the war had crept just a tad closer to my life. I have a fifteen year old son who also has the name Casey. Our life here in San Francisco can sometimes be at a far remove from the rest of the...

Saturday night found me at the Grand Slam Finals of the Annual Youth Speaks Teen Poetry Slam . Riding thru a city with people in green spilling out of every vaguely Irish tavern, it struck me as fitting that I was going to a poetry slam. The Irish love the word, and words were what was being celebrated tonight at the Masonic Hall, high atop one of our most prestigious hills, Nob Hill. Perfect too, given my current ruminations on listening, silence, and speaking. The Master of Ceremony of the evening was the incredible Beau Sia , and he started out saying something to the tune of “Make some noise; your silence won’t protect you”. “Make some noise” is the refrain of all the Youth Speaks events I’ve gone to. It means giving the poets a rousing applause, and of course, it means speaking out. In Youth Speaks culture, speaking out and speaking up is a virtue, each sentence crafted to be an arrow of truth aimed at opening hearts and changing minds. The teenagers are courageous, r...