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    A Meditation on Patience

    ByElizabeth

    When I decided to make strawberry towers part of the new sleeping porch garden extension, Niraj Ray of Cultivate the City told me to remove all of the flowers until mid-May to allow the plants to develop leaves large enough to support sizable and sweet berries. He also suggested feeding them every time I water.

    It has been a pleasure nurturing the plants and finally watching plump, juicy berries redden in the sun outside my study window.

    Might this delicious lesson in the benefits of being patient be a lesson applicable to how and when and why to re-emerge post vaccination, but before the end of the pandemic?

    Strawberry shown with old NYC subway token for scale
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    Good News for Solar In DC

    ByElizabeth

    I received this email last night that I wanted to share.  If you own a house in the District and haven’t gone solar, think about it.  If you rent, write your landlord.  If you live in another jurisdiction, work with like-minded citizens and work for alternative sources of energy.  FYI, since my solar panels were active, my highest electricity bill was $20 (and for the past two months, the meter has run backwards).

    Here’s the full text of the email (with a link on how to get involved at the bottom):

    Today, thanks to your hard work the Distributed Generation Act of 2011 (19-10) passed the DC Council.   The vote was unanimous!!!  We only await the Mayor’s signature for the bill to become law.  Although, there may be a lag of up to a year for SREC prices on the spot market to recover–we expect the bill to create a strong vibrant solar market in DC for the next DECADE!! In response to the expected improvement in market conditions SOLSYSTEMS announced today the availability of an upfront SREC payment through its installer partners of $1,200/kw installed.  This means for example, that you could get $4,800 up front for a 4kw system!

    Many many people worked on the bill! Many of you showed up to testify! More than a thousand of you signed the petition in support of the legislation. http://signon.org/sign/build-dc-solar-dont-let?source=s.em.cr&r_by=118605    Many of you sent emails or made phone calls. Many of you showed up to deliver our petition to each of the Council Member’s offices. Many of you turned out to create a field of sunflowers–in the Council Chamber during the first reading of the bill! A special shout out to MDVSEIA that worked hand and hand with us throughout the process!

    It is important that the DC Council understand that this bill has very strong, and broad support from across the city. We want them to feel good about passing this bill and feel good about passing similar legislation in the future.  This bill will create the market mechanism to allow homeowners, churches, community organizations, businesses and government buildings to go solar! While there is much left to do to make solar affordable and accessible to every DC resident—this bill is a very important step.

    PLEASE write to the DC council today and THANK them for their support!    dccouncil@dccouncil.us    A quick email, a quick thanks! Thank them for leading DC toward a solar future.

    Anya Schoolman
    President
    DC Solar United Neighborhoods

    Thinking of Going Solar? Want to Get More Involved ? Become a DC Sun Member– Join the Discussion at

    http://sites.google.com/site/dcsolarunitedneighborhoods/

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    The Man Who Would Not Be Pope (Habemus Papam)

    ByElizabeth

    I used to go to the movies several times a month.  As independent cinemas closed and viewing opportunities moved in-home (where I don’t have a television), my desire to go to the movies ebbed.  In the past year or two, I am lucky if I see a movie once every several weeks, preferring to spend my time in practice and study or conversation.  I still keep my eye out for a film that looks like an invitation to beauty or engaged thinking.  I was called earlier this week to see Habemus Papam by this:

    “The unanswerable question at [Habemus Papam’s] heart is this: How does a leader hold onto his sense of self when the job he is about to take both demands and denies his own humanity?”  Michael O’Sullivan for the Washington Post.

    Habemus Papum is at one level a small story; it is just a few days in the life of a select group of individuals.  It is rendered with charm and love, but it asks some very big questions and ones highly relevant to any who contemplate (in this country that makes a cult of celebrity and celebrities in politics and spirituality and not just on stage and screen) what it means for an individual or a ruling body to have or to seek leadership, power, or worship, or to be given it in greater quantity than the one(s) on whom they are conferred can handle.

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    Outside the Federal Courthouse at Lunchtime

    ByElizabeth

    “Sometimes,” said the woman in red sitting outside the courthouse.

    “Sometimes you gotta,” she said to her co-workers, the red jersey

    Of her dress clinging to her ample curves while she kicked

    The granite ledge where she sat amidst a din of everyone talking

    At every one else, not listening, some smoking, but not eating, on a break

    Of some kind.  Maybe they were jurors not court staff or perhaps visitors.

    Funny that they didn’t have some kind of badge, all of them talking.

    All of them talking and looking like they did the same type of work or had something

    In common, talking all at once to a group that was familiar, but didn’t care to listen.

    Amidst the talking, too many at once, and the clacking of her heels, like a kid, against

    The granite ledge, “sometimes you just gotta be quiet,” she said to nobody listening.

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