Horse shoe crab season
Each May between the full and new moons, these ancient appearing creatures crawl out of the bay to mate in the sand at the water’s edge. The crabs carve circuitous trails in the sand . . .
Navajo world view and more
I won’t pretend to be fluent in the Diné world, but I’ve dipped into the perspective in a book group offered through the Undergraduate STEM Development division at Brown. The book is Native Presence and Sovereignty in College by Amanda Tachine.
Leaping into. . .
Grief and sorrow are my topics for this leap year day. I have much to be sad about these days. I doubt that I am alone.
Meditation on the Middle East
I acknowledge the suffering in other regions in the world, such as the Ukraine and Sudan. Caring about friends, colleagues, and students I know in Palestine forces me to focus there.
Faced with the tragedy, now well over 100 days in length, which may rapidly be expanding to a much larger conflict, I ask myself what more I can do?
Putting a face on what is happening in PALESTINE — Gaza and the West Bank
When I was glum or sad, and feeling forgotten because I wasn’t in some clique at school, my parents reminded me to count my blessings. Doing gratitude sometimes necessitates understanding the challenges others face. A childhood (and often adult) exercise to recognize how good I have it.
Mutually Assisted Destruction
It is painful and nerve-wracking to watch what is happening in Gaza, Israel, and the West Bank. I feel a moral obligation to do more than sign petitions for a ceasefire, write my representatives and senators in Congress and keep up with my colleagues in Palestine. My colleagues on the West Bank, where I worked just a year ago, are living under tight constraints. Their cities shut down for days at a time after local attacks. Unable to leave their homes, they cannot go to work and their children are not in school. Going outside to play is impossible.