On April 14th this week Senators John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) and Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) introduced the Fix Our Forests Act (FOFA). The bill – which is presented as a measure against wildfire – could open the door to unlimited logging across millions of acres of national forests, erode environmental laws, and make it harder for members of… (read more)
I’m writing about forest protection this month, and I wanted to look at forest advocates, and that led me to Cascadia Wildlands, a grassroots conservation organization based in Eugene, and focused on the Cascadia bioregion, the forest zone extending along the Pacific Coast from northern California to south-central Alaska. Cascadia Wildlands is known for innovative and effective campaigns through advocacy, outreach,… (read more)
I’ve written quite a bit about forests in our EFM blog over the years (October 2023 and August 2024). I’m led to review and update now because our forests (like everything else we hold dear) are under new threat. On March 1, 2025, President Trump issued a pair of Executive Orders aimed at promoting domestic production of… (read more)
A slogan on a 350 Eugene shirt that I have says: The Active Hope process is to first ground yourself in reality, and then get inspired to take action. The reality is that carbon pollution from fossil fuels is warming our planet and throwing natural systems out of balance. The results are severe fires, catastrophic storms, rising seas… (read more)
None of us know what the future holds – what movements might rise up; what a big corporation may suddenly decide to do; what planetary shifts might still occur. But as environmental journalist Arno Kopecky writes in his book “The Environmentalist’s Dilemma”: We are “living on borrowed time. The worst is yet to come.” In a… (read more)
Trusting the Spiral Active Hope is not wishful thinking. Active Hope is not waiting to be rescued by the Lone Ranger or by some savior. Active Hope is waking up to the beauty of life on whose behalf we can act. We belong to this world. The web of life is calling us forth at this time. We’ve come a long way… (read more)
Those “light glib words of hope” that Thomas Kelly refers to – like wish, desire, expectation, and anticipation – are based on wanting things we do not currently have, and trusting that life will give them to us. This kind of hope can help us to cope in the short term, but often leads to the disappointments of unmet expectations,… (read more)
To go in the dark with a light is to know the light. To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight, and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings, and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings. “As the days get shorter and winter sets in, we each experience the darkness of… (read more)
One of the reasons that early Friends tried to abolish the celebration of holidays was because they believed that every day was a holy day: we shouldn’t need a special Thanksgiving Day because we are giving thanks every day. Quaker songwriter Jon Watts wrote a blog post titled, “We Don’t Need A Holiday To Give Thanks!” In it… (read more)
Our North Pacific Yearly Meeting Faith and Practice section on Harmony with Creation begins: “The mystery and beauty of the universe reveal their Source. Spiritually and physically nourished by our home, the Earth, we are filled with gratitude and wonder.” Being filled with gratitude and wonder is a start, but where does that good feeling carry us? In November… (read more)
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