Winds of Change, Pt. 2

Tonight it is time to relax my poor dogs and sip some red wine. I’ve had a full week of running, in preparation for the Great Climate Race on November 8. I did over 5K in the beautiful Mundy Park, but was so hyped up after that, so I ran another 2.5K down the “Chilko Descent,” a fun run down Chilko Ave., which is close to a 500 foot decline across about one and a half miles. This makes up for the last two hiking/running ascents this month where I had to do some climbing. It’s so much fun to run downhill fast, though it is harder on the knees and works out different muscles. Today’s running happened after staying up late last night finishing the new cover for the anthology Winds of Change, due out October 16th; it’s a collection of short stories about climate change.

Last night I had this dream that I was running effortlessly, and Cold Play’s “Sky Full of Stars” was playing. I am not sure I ever dreamed with sound on before, but the dream foreshadowed a reality today where I was running along, and the song came on my playlist. It’s such a beautiful song that is humbling in a way. Most likely about love, I can’t help but hear it literally and imagine a sky full of stars and know that whatever I do in life is meaningless compared to nature’s magnificence–and that sky full of stars translates into love for me and I will give it my heart. I was so into this song I decided to make it our “team song” for the upcoming race in November. Connecting with nature seems to be about the most meaningful part of my life these days, outside relationships with those I love and calling for action to help protect our planet Earth. For a while today I ran down a sunny trail in the park that then disappeared into the most feathery and magical rainforest, and though there were no stars out then that I could see, I was hyper-aware of the beauty around me. The video is a lot of fun too. I’ll paste it at the end of this post.

I was also working on the introduction to Winds of Change last night and today, and I had some new ideas about it that the run and the music inspired. Not only have those things propelled me but so have so many people, who are doing good work in the world around me. My husband and I have been watching The Late Show with Stephen Colbert each night before bed. We used to watch the Colbert Report, and then actually went to see him live at a free concert downtown when he came up for the 2010 Winter Olympics (it was very warm then, and there was really no snow for the actual games). I have really admired his gusto about life, his faith, his care for our environment, and his promotion of peace around the world. This past week also Pope Francis has been in the United States, spreading messages of peace, social justice, and dealing with climate change. It’s so damn refreshing to see a pope with this message that I don’t even know what to think, other than I believe…it’s a sign of some positive changes coming to our world. And though there are plenty of skeptics, greedy corporations, and deniers about our excessive lifestyles, I see so much good being done right now that I am starting to have faith that humans have done the worst we can to our Earth and now we are turning the tide. It’s like static in the air, the energy I see. So I want to write more about that in the introduction to the anthology. After all, many of the stories are filled with either good intention or redemption. Redemption and change is what fiction should bring to us, and I see it in these stories.

Speaking of fiction, today is 100,000 Poets For Change’s BIG celebrations across the world–artists, authors, dancers, musicians, and poets calling for peace and sustainability in their areas of the world. Our particular event is happening on November 17th, but check out today’s happenings!

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