Winter Solstice 2021
Posted December 20, 2021
on:- In: Commentary | Giving | Gratitude | Nature of Reality | Personal loss | Self-Discovery
- 1 Comment
The Winter Solstice is sometimes called a Tipping Point. The climb from lengthening nights and shortening days flips into a gradual progression of shorter and shorter nights offering longer and longer days as we go forward. I see it as a Transition into the journey that becomes the New Year.
Transitions are inevitable. We grow and change. People come into our lives and also leave us. We change our living spaces. We take on new responsibilities and close the door on others. Transitions happen. Often without our permission. Sometimes bringing wonderful surprises. Sometimes bringing pain.
Transitions can be joyous and exciting. But also, uncertain and frightening. Some will cause us to grow in ways we could not have anticipated. Others will feel as if you are swimming across a river and, having finally reached the center, leave us lost in that place where you can no longer see the bank of the river you left behind and have yet to find the new riverbank you are swimming toward.
It’s OK to tread water for a while.
The Winter Solstice gives us the space to rest in that uncertainty knowing that the way forward, whatever that is, will always continue. It’s OK to tread water for a while.

This moment in time – the Winter Solstice that has been approaching, that, starting tomorrow, will just as smoothly, move away from us – can be your invitation to acknowledge where you are and to make space to welcome what is waiting for you down the path. Your destination will reveal itself in time.
Celebrate the uncertainty and know that this, too, is part of that journey.
The Magical Warmth of Memory With Grateful Thanks to Gillian Bibby and Roger Wilson
Posted November 23, 2021
on:- In: Environment | Family | Music | New Zealand | Travel
- 1 Comment
In 2009 my husband Art and I were invited to attend the wedding of Aaron & Helen Glass in Dunedin, New Zealand. Aaron’s parents, John & Judy Glass, have been extended family since I was 18 years old. So we were honored to be included and made our plans to travel to New Zealand with John and Judy. After the 14 hour flight from Los Angeles, CA we landed in Auckland. Our itinerary was designed around a plan to drive through as many cities as we could, spending 2 or 3 days in each, as we traveled to Dunedin to attend the wedding.
It was a spectacular adventure! Naturally, I took lots of pictures. We saw many sites, met wonderful people, stayed in wonderful places (including a sheep farm – quite a departure for a city girl from Los Angeles) and found, what I still believe to this day, is the best cup of hot chocolate I have ever tasted!
The wedding night was everything you’d want a wedding to be. But one night stands out even more in my memory. Our last night on the Northern Island was spent in Wellington with Gillian Bibby & Roger Wilson, family members of the bride. They welcomed us into their home and shared a meal with us.

Roger, a celebrity of the opera world who has been a soloist with New Zealand’s major opera companies, orchestras and choirs, sang for us and told us of his creation of an album of songs, poems and music composed by his maternal grandfather aboard the ‘Morning’ which sailed to the Antarctic in 1902. Gillian, a renowned musician and award-winning composer, teacher and lecturer, played some of her original music for us and showed a genuine interest in the local folk/rock band I am a member of in Los Angeles. Upon learning that I had just begun, at this very late stage of my life, to learn to play the piano, she grabbed a copy of a book of piano exercises she had written and gave me that gift with the enthusiasm of a passionate, open heart.
After returning to Los Angeles I was organizing the photos of our trip and, of the many splendid sites we encountered, I stopped at the image of the Bibby/Wilson house in Wellington where I had felt so welcome.
The photo, and the memories that it brought back, inspired me, right at that moment, to write a short essay about the home on the cliff in Wellington. My story is nothing to speak of from a literary standpoint, but it is a night and a family that stands out as a cherished memory.
Now, 12 years later, in honor of Gillian and Roger’s Anniversary, I share that essay with you with thanks for a heart-warming memory that has lasted all these years.

They live on the edge of a cliff overlooking Wellington harbor.
Green hills reflect back from the still, blue water. The path up to their house is steep, a fifty foot climb up to a set of cement stairs that take you another thirty feet up the side of the hill.

Inside the dark wood house three pairs of rain boots, “Wellies” they call them, sit by a small, carved wooden bench by the front door. Across the hall Gillian Bibby sits at her grand piano using the songs of native New Zealand birds to compose new music. Roger Wilson, her husband of thirty years putters about in the kitchen preparing lamb stew, kumara and warm, dark rolls for the dinner party that will fill the dining room with warmth and laughter later this evening. His operatic voice sounds clearly as he sings along with the music coming from the CD player – a recording that features his voice telling the tale of family ancestors who crossed the sea by sailing ship a hundred years ago from England looking for the shores of New Zealand.
Gillian is one of New Zealand most well-known composers and Roger one of the country’s most famous opera singers. But their happiest moments are not in the concert hall. Their spirits soar when their son, Charles, comes home from work and tells them stories about his day teaching Spanish to high school students.

A few minutes away from their portion of the city is a narrow peninsula that winds forty minutes out into the cold water. No fence protects drivers from the edges of the road that lies at sea level. It is a wild, dangerous, beautiful place that they live in.
And the best moments are all about family.
Written by Tara Sitser
Los Angeles, CA
2009
GRANDPA, WHAT IS A TREE?
Posted November 6, 2021
on:
The ongoing climate crisis has already impacted our lives in serious ways. Extreme weather events. Earthquakes and tornados in places that have never had them before. Wildfires greater and more frequent than ever that have devasted entire towns. Rising seas levels that threaten coastal communities. And so much more.
Many people all over the world are working to reduce the effects of climate change and save our biosphere. But unless we human beings change the way we perceive our world, and find ways to respect rather than exploit the earth and its many non-human inhabitants we will always be in danger of destroying the very environment that keeps us alive.
This change in our belief system starts with understanding and accepting the concepts behind the Rights of Nature movement. It starts with realizing that everything on this planet, the oceans, the forests, the animals, the land itself, has a right to its own existence. Which means the right to be unencumbered by human notions of “ownership” and “property”. The right to thrive.

On Thursday, November 9, 2021 at 7:00 pm PST the San Fernando Valley chapter of the Climate Reality Project will be hosting a panel of creative artists and activist at the forefront of the Rights of Nature Movement. Our guests will be two of the producers of the documentary film “The Rights of Nature: A Global Movement” and two of the principal activists who appear in the film.
You can view the film on YouTube for free whenever you like and then join us on November 9th for our discussion to learn more about the history of the Rights of Nature movement and find out what is being done to make sure your children grow up in a world where there is air to breathe and a chance that your grandchildren will know, first hand, what a tree looks like.
Below, Judy Glass, Chair of the Environmental Justice and Rights of Nature Committee and a Climate Reality Project Leadership Team Member, offers an introduction to the subject of Rights of Nature as a lead in to what we anticipate will be an eye-opening conversation.
To introduce our discussion of Rights of Nature, I’d like to begin with the highlights of the evolution of the rights of humans—which we know is part of the rights of nature, though too often not thought of that way.
The evolution of human rights has both a political and an economic dimension, both relevant to thinking about Rights of Nature. To provide context for our program tonight, I want to acknowledge the work of Christopher Stone, recently deceased, who more than 50 years ago authored a pioneering work on Rights of Nature called “Do Trees Have Standing? Toward Legal Rights for Natural Objects”.
In his introduction, Stone quotes from a 19th C court decision refusing women the right to practice law in Wisconsin. The court comments that the nature of woman—purity, delicacy, subordination of hard reason to sympathetic feeling—disqualify her for the battle field of forensic strife. Stone editorializes that the movement to confer new rights is “bound to sound odd or frightening or laughable…because until the rightless thing receives its rights, we cannot see it as anything but a thing for the use of “us” –those who are holding rights at the time….”
Here are some significant dates in the history of increasing political rights for human beings:
1215:
English Barons forced the king to renounce certain of his rights, particularly habeas corpus
1688-89:
Parliament shares governing rights with the King. English Bill of Rights-includes end to cruel punishments
1776:
US born into age of Enlightenment; Declaration of Independence—all men are equal; have inalienable rights from God; life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness
1789:
France – Decl. of the Rights of Man
1791:
US Constitution: Freedom of speech, religion, assembly; right not to incriminate oneself
19th Century in America:
No property qualification for voting; Women can enter professions, can divorce; inherit property; Get custody of children
1860s:
Blacks freed from slavery; black men get the vote. But reconstruction denies to blacks the freedoms promised by the 13,14,15 Amendments
1920:
Women get the vote after 75 years of agitation; Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s finally delivers, at least on paper, on many promises of the Constitution
21st Century:
Significant Constitutional protection of economic and social rights for LGBTQIA+ individuals & communities
I separated the human struggle for economic rights because here the analogy with the rights of nature movement is so compelling. The building blocks—the resources– of any economy are land, labor and capital. From the point of view of the economy, labor is a cost, a commodity. But labor is human life, and the struggle for economic rights for workers and consumers is ongoing. The struggle to reduce hours of work or to gain legal rights to organize unions took all of the 19th C and half of the 20th. Reducing child labor, requiring minimum years of schooling, minimum wages, paid vacations, pensions, social security—none of that happened before the mid 20th century; recognizing health care as a right still is not established in the US, nor are economic protections for LGBTQIA+ individuals and communities guaranteed in their implementation.
These are rights of nature, rights of human nature. All hard fought, over many years.
Similarly to labor, land was seen as a cost, as commodities, as resources to be used to create wealth. In the late 20th century, though, another quantum leap occurred when new laws like the Endangered Species Act, and the Environmental Protection Act morphed into a discussion with a Rights of Nature emphasis. Enter Christopher Stone, and nations like Ecuador and New Zealand, and local communities like Santa Monica, and film makers like our guests tonight whose consciousness mirrors that of indigenous peoples around the world, arguing for giving “standing” to trees, rivers, and other natural entities, to sue for protection, for life and their right to thrive, their right to be other than resources.
Judy Glass
Chair, Environmental Justice and Rights of Nature Committee
Climate Reality Project Leadership Team Member
San Fernando Valley Chapter
November 2021

Please join us at our November Chapter meeting by registering at bit.ly/SFVCR
And join in wherever you can in establishing and protecting the Rights of Nature so that you don’t have to worry about what you will say when your grandchildren look up at you and ask, “What is a tree?”
Right in Our Backyard
Posted October 8, 2021
on:Listen, Y’all! For those of you who live anywhere in or near the West side of The San Fernando Valley in the North end of Los Angeles, California, USA, there is big news that will change what you know about your neighborhood.
Plans are about to be launched for a major redesign of one of the busiest areas in that region.
34 acres extending from Topanga Canyon Blvd. on the West to Owensmouth Ave. on the East and from Oxnard St. on the South end to Erwin St. on the North will be completely redesigned with a mix of residential and commercial buildings that will change the look and feel of the area.

Included in the multi-phase plan, projected to be completed in 2033, are:
- 5.6 acres of public open space
- A 15,000-seat entertainment center
- 1400 new rental units
- 5610 parking spaces
- 572 hotel rooms
- 629,000 square feet of office space
- 244,000 square feet of restaurants and shops
Buildings on the site will range between one and 28 stories tall.
On Tuesday, October 12, 2021 the San Fernando Valley Chapter of the Climate Reality Project will host Councilmember Bob Blumenfield (3rd Council District, which spans the northwest portion of Los Angeles in the San Fernando Valley, including the communities of Canoga Park, Reseda, Tarzana, Winnetka and Woodland Hills).
Along with learning more about his position on climate initiatives in Los Angeles, Councilmember Blumenfield will share with us his thoughts about the Warner Center redevelopment plan.
Projected completion by 2033 is 12 years away, folks. That means 12 years of construction. Those of you who live or work near the building site may want to be prepared for the impacts this will cause.
Projected completion by 2033 is 12 years away, folks. That means 12 years of construction. Those of you who live or work near the building site may want to be prepared for the impacts this will cause.
Join us on Zoom, Tuesday night, October 12, 2021, 7:00 pm PST to hear what Councilmember Blumenfield has to say and to add your thoughts and questions.
References
Westfield Mall article May 2019
https://la.curbed.com/2019/5/1/18524405/warner-center-promenade-westfield-mall-redevelopment
Westfield Mall Article Feb 2020
https://la.curbed.com/2020/2/24/21150888/warner-center-promenade-mall-affordable-housing-appeal
HOW TO SPARK A CLIMATE REVOLUTION – A Conversation with Climate Scientist Dr. Peter Kalmus
Posted May 24, 2021
on:The San Fernando Valley chapter of the Climate Reality Project is very pleased to host, as our June 2021 Featured Speaker, Dr. Peter Kalmus.
Dr. Peter Kalmus is a climate scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab. He uses satellite data and models to study the rapidly changing Earth, focusing on biodiversity forecasting, clouds, and severe weather. He has also spent many years becoming an advocate for a fossil-fuel free society.
Dr. Kalmus’s award-winning book “Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution” offers real-life solutions to help you move away from a consumerist lifestyle.
“Changing our lives shifts the culture and creates space for collective action.
Together, let’s explore a more meaningful life–without all the fossil fuel!” — Peter Kalmus
In his book Dr. Kalmus outlines a series of doable steps that anyone can adopt to bring us all closer to a sustainable society. Join us on Tuesday, June 8, 2021, 7PM PDT, for a free Zoom gathering where you can ask Dr. Kalmus your questions about sustainable living.
“I know I can change the world, indeed, I am changing the world. What I can’t do is save it. That I have limits is a fact, and I accept it. I don’t expect my changes to have a big impact. … If what I do has impact, I know this impact arises only from an existing resonance, a resonance that grows through interacting with many other people in turn. We are like water molecules in a wave: we simultaneously transmit the wave and are moved by it. No one molecule causes the wave, but together an enormous number of water molecules carry the wave. It’s all of us together, carried by a resonance, that will affect great change.” -Peter Kalmus
The scientific community tells us we have already passed the Climate Change tipping point. It is critical for each of us to travel our own path to that place where, together, we can carry our dream of a healthy society into the wave of the future.
SFV Climate Reality Project Chapter Meeting
Tuesday, June 8, 2021; 7:00 pm PDT
The International Indigenous Youth Council Offers Their Thoughts on Sustainability
Posted April 5, 2021
on:Mark your calendar for the next meeting of
Tuesday April 13, 7-8:30 pm
We are honored to create space to hear voices of local International Indigenous Youth Council members. The International Indigenous Youth Council seeks to organize youth through education, spiritual practices and civic engagement to create positive change in our communities.
“Through action and ceremony, the IIYC commits to building a sustainable future for the next seven generations. We look forward to sowing seeds of mutual aid and solidarity.”
Register now at bit.ly/SFVCR

Book Bans in the US? Literary Hub offers tools to stop them
Posted by: Tara Sitser on: February 9, 2022
This post from Literary Hub should be of interest to any author, for that matter any artist of any kind, who wants to fight back against the current attempts to ban books in the US. The Author’s Guild has created a toolkit to simplify the process of speaking out against this attempt to quash self-expression and rewrite history.
We have to be on the alert because, if the attempt is successful, they won’t stop with books.
Read the post here: Want to stop Book Bans?
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