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An invitation for you
I’m convinced that our natural and built environments can inspire hope and a way forward in the current climate crisis. If you’re interested in resilience (climate and otherwise), architecture, community, and the mysteries of our relationship with the natural world, I invite you to join me over on Substack. Come and see the world through my eyes—with a sense of wonder, awe, and appreciation.
My…
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Can a progressive agenda help us face our racist past?
Dr. King said, “This country has socialism for the rich, rugged individualism for the poor.” A Progressive agenda based in dignity and fairness for ALL can help us face and heal our racist past.
Watercolor of a glacier, by Julie Gabrielli, 2015, after a photograph by James Balog
One sense of the verb, “progress,” is “to advance toward perfection or to a higher or better state; to improve.” That’s what comes to mind with the term “progressive,” as in, the Progressive Agenda: “favoring, working for, or characterized by progress or improvement.” It’s safe to say, our country needs to…
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Capitalism is a crap system
Capitalism is a crap system
Drawing by Julie Gabrielli, 2015
I never took Econ in college, which qualifies me to think freely. Haha! This is like when climate deniers start with, “I’m no scientist, but . . .” (Ignorance is no excuse, but it’s also bliss.) That’s not to say I haven’t read widely since: Ecology of Commerce, Natural Capitalism, Sacred Economics, Small is Beautiful, Deep Economy, Plan B, The Real Wealth of…
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We are in a cytokine storm
We are in a cytokine storm
Peaceful protest in Baltimore, 1 June 2020, photo by Julie Gabrielli
Americans are inflamed by conversations on social media, by divisive rhetoric from our so-called leaders. We are inflamed by the chaos and violence on our streets. We are inflamed by the injustice of systemic racism.
In the body, inflammation is a signal of imbalance in the immune system. When the inflammatory response…
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Build a new one
Build a new one
New York Times source
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new reality that makes the existing reality obsolete.”
Bucky Fuller
It’s heartening that the protests are so widespread and mostly peaceful. The New York Times map indicates that nearly all 50 states have some sort of direct action. I like to think that the past few months have…
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Creativity and connection in a time of quarantine
Watercolor by Julie Gabrielli, 10.10.15
The word, “quarantine,” comes from the Italian word, quarantine, derives from a Latin root word meaning “a space of forty days.”
Forty days is a long time! As each day brings some new shock or hard reality, I have been turning more and more to the slogan, “one day at a time.” Will we be on lockdown until June? July? August? Who knows?
Some are…
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Emotional alchemy
The sun is out. The snow that fell yesterday is melting, starting with the highest branches. There’s a metamorphosis of light, a scattering of stars in place of the white tracery of snow. Fat drops fall from the sky. High branches above the picture framed by my window.
All is right with the world in this moment. Brave folks speak out against injustice, drag predators into the light, unearth…
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Pathos or palace?
Yesterday, in my Ecological Design Thinking class, I showed a couple of images of the iconic Sand Palace, the reinforced concrete house that is still standing in Mexico Beach, FL after Hurricane Michael slammed ashore with 155-mph winds that flattened the rest of town.
I asked my students to consider what questions this raises about building in a place like that, the lengths this owner and his…
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In search of trim tabs
In search of trim tabs
Any parent of a teenager knows the frustration of becoming ensnared in their black-and-white thinking. Teens are so clear and unequivocal in their opinions. Mine is certain that I am frequently wrong, naïve, or just plain dumb. Well, the teenagers who have stepped up and spoken outfollowing the latest school massacre are giving us a healthy dose of black-and-white thinking. And it’s just the…
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After regulation, reconnection
It is easy for me to slip into despair when I read about the latest environmental protections that are being removed by EPA usurper-in-chief, Scott Pruitt. These are so egregious as to be almost laughable, like a plot outline for an overly absurd dystopian novel. One of the latestis that mining companies no longer need to set aside money to cover potential damages from their activities. They…
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Science informed by feeling: Hope Jahren's "Lab Girl"
Science informed by feeling: Hope Jahren’s “Lab Girl”
I ran across an old email from a friend, who is in a scientific field, ranting about the admonition to “trust in science,” as if it were an actual thing with power, rather than a rational method for taking data into consideration and making new discoveries. She references C.S. Lewis, who said that the “scientific habit of mind” is a truncated one that developed “during the same period men of…
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Rx for a rotting foundation
Rx for a rotting foundation
“A house divided against itself cannot stand.” ~ Abraham Lincoln, June 18, 1858
In a speech at the Illinois Republican convention in Springfield, IL, Lincoln kicked off his bid for U.S. Senate. He paraphrased the New Testament to comment on the recent Dred Scott decision of the Supreme Court that he believed would effectively legalize slavery in all states. I assume he meant “house”…
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Dystopia reconsidered: from post-apocalyse to pre-apocalypse
Dystopia reconsidered: from post-apocalyse to pre-apocalypse
Twitter feeds and mainstream media home pages have started to read like teasers for the latest post-apocalyptic Netflix series. No wonder there is a glut of fiction with themes of disruption, chaos and war brought on by unruly, destructive weather, fires and flooding; epidemics; economic collapse; civil wars; displaced populations; oppression; or [fill in the blank]. To explain this trend, as…
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Between the devil and the Deepwater Horizon
Between the devil and the Deepwater Horizon
“Jose Arcadio Buendia dreamed that night that right there a noisy city with houses having mirror walls rose up. He asked what city it was and they answered him with a name that he had never heard, that had no meaning at all, but that had a supernatural echo in his dream: Macondo.” ~ Gabriel Barcia Marquez, “One Hundred Years of Solitude”
Today is the 7th anniversary of the inferno that destroyed…
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Get into the red convertible; you know you want to
Get into the red convertible; you know you want to
There’s been so much written and said about the “inner child” in the last couple of decades that any mention of it is likely to bring on an eye roll. This morning, though, I was visited by a memory that gave me a whole new view of it (or, in my case, her). I’ve had a lifelong love-hate relationship with the creative, childlike part of me. Okay, mostly hate. And shame. Today, I have a new…
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In praise of the power of love and human intention to solve problems
In praise of the power of love and human intention to solve problems
Modern civilization faces many intractable and seemingly unsolvable problems. We can be beguiled by simplistic, flashy, one-off moves like building walls or issuing Executive Orders to keep so-called “undesirables” out. But humans have proven again and again that clear thinking, creativity, and cooperation can work wonders. How else could we have landed a man on the moon? Or invented the iPhone?…
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#whyimarch in celebration and support of the whole community of Life
#whyimarch in celebration and support of the whole community of Life
I was glad to see that the organizers of the Women’s March have issued a position paper. It’s good to have a better sense of the energy bubbling up within and around this event. If the bus parking applicationsare any indication, this is going to be big. It’s fair to assume that people are coming for many, many personal reasons. The position paper helps us to recognize a shared purpose. And from…
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