Remembering Wangari
Remembering Wangari
Only a few days before the 1990 International Open Space Conference in Palo Alto, I got word that Wangari Maathai would be attending.
Months earlier, I had invited the Kenyan professor to be the keynote speaker at the conference, but my calls and letters to the Greenbelt Movement in Kenya went unanswered.
 Wangari Maathai, Huey Johnson and me Now, I was anxiously waiting by the gate at San Francisco Airport for her plane to arrive. I was worried. Would she be there?
I first learned about Wangari from a story in the New York Times. She led a group of women to occupy Uhuru Park, a treasured public open space in downtown Nairobi, to protest the government’s plan to build a skyscraper there—a pet project of then-President Daniel arap Moi.
The article said Wangari was considered a “subversive.” So naturally, those of us planning the conference knew we wanted Wangari to come.
In an effort to reach her, at one point, I called the Nairobi equivalent of 411—a 15-digit phone number— and explained to the operator I was trying to get in touch with Wangari Maathai. She put me on hold. When she came back on the line several minutes later, she conspiratorially offered three phone numbers I might try.
None worked.
Wangari later told me she had been in hiding during that time.
Passengers were filing down the jet way. Wangari was the last to emerge, schlepping overstuffed canvas book bags slung over both shoulders. Her tardiness, and those well-worn bags were her trademarks.
Even at formal occasions, and there were to be many, Wangari would dig into those canvas bags and pull out a flyer or petition pressing for economic justice, democracy, women’s rights, and of course, trees.
When the news came that Wangari had won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004, I sent her an embroidered silk book bag because I knew she would be carrying those flyers to the elegant state dinners held in her honor.
Although we had never met before, Wangari greeted me at the airport as if I were her long lost sister. (She would pronounce it “seestah”), beaming her thousand-watt smile, and enfolding me in a deep, warm hug.
I felt what many of you here probably did when you first saw Wangari. In her brightly patterned Kanga, her round face framed by a corona of braids, it was like coming face to face with the sun.
Wangari’s speech at the Open Space conference was a revelation. She connected the dots: Development loans that enrich corrupt government officials and push African countries deep into debt. Poverty. Hunger. Deforestation. Lost hope.
Of the 60-story skyscraper in Uhuru Park that would be funded by such loans, she said: “If I didn’t react to their interfering with this central park, I may as well not plant another tree. I cannot condone that kind of activity and call myself an environmentalist.”
On that day Wangari converted local open space advocates to international human rights advocates. Subversive indeed!
In 1992 Kenyan police arrested Wangari and held her incommunicado. Emboldened by Wangari’s teachings that even the small and seemingly powerless can make a difference, I, under the auspices of The Greenbelt Movement International, a fledging nonprofit fostered by Huey Johnson—wrote to President Moi, and demanded Wangari’s safe release.
Later, when things became even more dangerous for Wangari in Kenya, she spent some time here in the states, teaching and lecturing. I have lifelong memories of some joyful times we spent together.
I recall when we went to Muir Woods. Darkness was falling and we had the park mostly to ourselves. The woods were fragrant and silent. We slipped off the trail and sat down surrounded by ring of giant trees.
Now, I don’t know about you, but I sometimes talk to trees. Just not out loud. Wangari would hold a conversation with them.
She began whispering to the ancient redwoods. When I remember it now, her voice was like that of a small, shy girl, not of the heroic Earth Mother.
I don’t remember her words, but what she whispered was filled with awe, admiration, and humility–like a prayer.
Joseph Campbell said: “God is the experience of looking at a tree, and saying AHHHH.”
I need to visit that grove now, hug an old redwood, as Wangari would have done, and imagine my seestah’s bright, Cheshire cat smile shining down from the big forest beyond.
Like the trees she loved, Wangari’s memory sustains and nourishes us.
The Living New Deal
Still Working for America (http://www.livingnewdeal.org)
The 1930s were the hardest of hard times. With millions unemployed, America made an unprecedented investment in its people. The New Deal, a constellation of federal programs, put people to work rebuilding America. The built schools, post offices, hospitals, roads, bridges, water and sewer systems, parks, theaters, airports, and more–much of which America still relies on today. But thousands of public spaces that were the hallmark of the New Deal are disappearing—sold or demolished, along with murals, mosaics, and sculptures that belong to all Americans.
The Living New Deal is making visible that endangered legacy.
The Living New Deal is compiling the first-ever open source database of what the New Deal built, including stories and photographs of people who worked for the New Deal. The website, http://www.livingnewdeal.org, shows the impact of the New Deal across America, and what can be achieved when government rallies to serve the needs of ordinary people in troubled times.
UC Berkeley’s sale of a million-dollar artwork by renowned African-American WPA artist Sargent Johnson is an especially troubling, but hardly unusual example of what’s happening as the public domain is dismantled. The GSA, the federal agency responsible for protecting New Deal art, permitted the sale. The university sold Johnson’s 22-foot redwood carving for $150.
Berkeley’s Artwork Loss is A Museum’s Gain, The New York Times
Believing out loud–The Op Ed Project
I have a standard excuse for postponing something I want for myself but don’t think I can have. “When I win the lottery…” Maybe you use it, too?
In fact, my chances of ever winning the lottery would be at least slightly improved were I to buy a lottery ticket. The same logic applies to getting my opinions published. My chances would be better if I were to submit articles for publication.
Enter Katie Ornstein, author, teacher, commentator, and founder of the Op-Ed Project. Katie has published op-eds in the New York Times, Washington Post and other leading media. She figured out that the reason relatively few women get our opinions published is because so few of us ever try. The Op Ed Project is about why we don’t and why it matters.
Katie calls the Op-Ed Project a “strategy for change.” Its goal is to expand the range of voices we hear through the media.
Women need to think bigger about ourselves Katie argues. Whether making our case to the media, potential funders, or in the halls of Congress, it’s not just what we write about or what we believe, it’s about believing in ourselves and that our opinions matter.
Find out more: http://www.theopedproject.org/
Soul of the Counterculture
Ted Roszak was 60 when we met in 1995. He was best known for writing “The Making of the Counterculture,” (1969), which recounts the social sea change sparked by the baby boomer generation. But it was his book “Ecopsychology,” that led me to interview him.
Ecopsychology draws the link between our relationship with nature and our mental health.
 If being outdoors surrounded by nature reduces stress and improves emotional stability, why not prescribe it?
“Finding our way back to nature may be much more helpful than Prozac or nitpicking through old sibling rivalries,” Roszak told me.
Roszak thought principles of ecopsychology should also be applied to environmental communications: ” I think we’ve probably exhausted the audience who can be recruited by being scared or scolded.”
“I believe that human beings have an innate love and loyalty for the natural world. They need to be treated as if they do. There is real joy to be found in nature, and there is heroism in honoring and preserving it.”
Last year at a San Francisco bookstore, Roszak read aloud from the last of his 20 books, “The Making of an Elder Culture,”(2009). He called upon the baby boomers–particularly women–to wage an elder revolution founded in the vision of the counterculture–a just, peaceful, and more equal society.
Ted Roszak died last week at age 77. His friends and family said he was hopeful about the future.
Save Bohemian Grove
For now, at least, the chain saws are off-limits at the Bohemian Grove, the woody Northern California retreat of America’s rich and powerful. The Bohemian Club, an all-male bastion synonymous with wealth and influence, had big plans for its private enclave on the Russian River, 75 miles north of San Francisco. Too big, as it turns out.
Elite club blocked from logging giant redwoods
High Country News
A Guide to the Bohemian Grove
Vanity Fair
Bohemian Tragedy
Vanity Fair
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