Eugene Friends Meeting

Eugene Friends Meeting

of the Religious Society of Friends ("Quakers")

Posts filed under Uncategorized

Federal Advisory Committee Recommendations to the U.S. Forest Service

Last week I wrote about the Northwest Forest Plan of 1994. While the Plan was innovative at the time, it didn’t consider some important issues we now face, such as global climate change, the role of Tribes and Indigenous knowledge in land management, and the need to protect communities from uncharacteristic wildfires. The Forest Service… (read more)

Buy Local Food – and Get to Know Your Farmer

Local food includes any foods grown, harvested, raised, and processed within our area.  We naturally think of fruits and vegetables, but we can also buy locally grown herbs, dairy products, eggs, grains, and a variety of meats and seafood. Many locavores use a 100-mile rule.  One of the biggest benefit of buying and consuming locally sourced food… (read more)

TRUE RELATIONSHIP WITH BIRDS

Besides their intrinsic value as members of the Natural World, birds play many crucial roles in our ecosystems — including pest control, pollination, and seed dispersal — and are essential to human welfare. With an estimated 1,200 species facing extinction over the next century, and many more suffering from severe habitat loss, we must feel the impulse… (read more)

CLARITY IN THE NEW YEAR

In winter, one can walk into woods that had been opaque with summer growth only a few months earlier and see the trees clearly, singly and together, and see the ground they are rooted in. … Winter clears the landscape, however brutally, giving us a chance to see ourselves and each other more clearly, to… (read more)

WHY LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ARE IMPORTANT

A land acknowledgement is a statement, often at the start of a meeting or other gathering, that recognizes the Indigenous people who are the original caretakers and inhabitants of the land upon which the event is taking place. Acknowledgement means to accept and admit the truth of something, in this case, the complicated and fraught history of people… (read more)