Sometimes, when I’m on stage, I’ll ask the audience if there’s anything they want to hear a poem about. Based on the response, I may pull something out of my repertoire or make up something new on the spot.

Several years ago I was doing a poetry gig in Wellington in a sweet art space high above the city streets. Figuring it was ok to get gritty with a progressive urban audience, I performed a series of intense political poems. Then I asked for audience requests, and a voice piped up from the crowd: “Have you got any poems about hope?”

The audience member’s request was friendly, but I felt like I was being called out. Sure I could rhyme righteously about the need for revolution, about standing up and fighting. But could I actually invoke and believe in a hopeful future?

The truth was, at that time, I’d been reimmersing myself in the latest climate science, and I just could not feel good about the future of the world. In the last few years, the predictions around climate change had gotten progressively more immediate and more frightening. Hope? No, that was not on the list of emotions I could channel on stage at that time.

I took it as an important challenge, though. I put writing a hope poem on my creative to-do list. However, it stayed on my to-do list. I just couldn’t get there.

Then, a few years later, I was granted a residency at a writer’s retreat in California – the Mesa Refuge, a magical place that has twice blessed my creative path. The Mesa sits right on the edge of an estuary in Point Reyes, and on the edge of the North American tectonic plate - a "place for writing on the edge," they say. A few writers at a time stay and work on projects relevant to ecological and social change. In the upstairs bedroom, there’s a tradition of writers signing their names on the walls in the walk-in closet, and there are some well-known names scrawled there. My jaw dropped as I discovered that just a few weeks earlier, the tower bedroom where I was staying had been inhabited by Rebecca Solnit, one of my literary sheroes.

Downstairs in the epic Refuge library, I found a copy of Rebecca’s book Hope in the Dark. I totally recommend this book, which explores how change actually happens over time. The book helped me reorient my own concept of hope – and out came my Hope poem, at last. As Solnit writes:

“Hope locates itself in the premises that we don’t know what will happen and that in the spaciousness of uncertainty is room to act. When you recognize uncertainty, you recognize that you may be able to influence the outcomes – you alone or you in concert with a few dozen or several million others. Hope is an embrace of the unknown and knowable, an alternative to the certainty of both optimists and pessimists. Optimists think it will all be fine without our involvement; pessimists take the opposite position; both excuse themselves from acting. It’s the belief that what we do matters even though how and when it may matter, who and what is may impact, are not things we can know beforehand. We may not, in fact, know them afterward either, but they matter all the same, and history is full of people whose influence was most powerful after they were gone.”

Hope doesn’t mean blind optimism, or crossing our fingers. Hope means we choose to believe that the future is unwritten — and therefore that it is worth trying to write it. It is a commitment to love in the face of uncertainty.

I spoke my new Hope poem to my musical coconspirator Daniel Wander across the world on Skype one night, and he composed music for it, which we eventually recorded for my album Sacred Activist:

 
So am I hopeful? I would say my own hope is an ongoing work in progress. That's one reason it's good for me to keep performing this poem — so that I have to hear it myself.

Many folks might say it's just realistic to believe that it’s not gonna turn out okay for most species on Earth. I can't argue with that. But I also reckon that believing we are definitely doomed is not helpful.

Beliefs matter. I’ve been on a massive physical healing journey myself in recent years, finding my way out of a decade-plus of debilitating chronic pain. So I've had to learn a lot about the role of the mind in healing. One of the things that fascinates me is that belief on its own can cure our physical body; that’s what the placebo effect is all about. If someone takes a sugar pill, or even has a fake surgery, the person's faith in the treatment can heal them. Our minds are that powerful. When our cells believe something, they can enact it.

So what about the healing of our world? If we are all one body, then it seems to me someone has got to plant some seeds of faith in the collective consciousness. Not a false faith, but an openness to possibility. An openness to grace and positive transformation. If we all believe we are definitely doomed, we are probably doomed; how could we possibly organize effective movements for change if we don’t actually believe we have the power to change things?

Starting to believe in the impossible makes it a little more possible. I’m not saying faith in itself is enough; we still need to do the work. But belief in possibility opens a doorway. I've seen it in my own healing. And in the collective body, it can start with any of us choosing to hold that candle of vision.

It took me about a year to get around to doing it... but I've just launched my Patreon site!

I'm excited about using this site as a platform to sustain my activism and my voice – because this life is finite and I want to give my energy where it's needed most.

For the last two and a half years, I've been deep in the fight to legalise medicinal cannabis in New Zealand. Some of my efforts have made headlines, while others have been behind the scenes.

However, it's been really tough at times for me to balance change-making with still earning an income and sustaining my own health journey – which is a bit more than ironic, since I'm fighting for everyone's health.

I'm ready to change the way I'm doing things... because I know that people actually love to support activists who are carrying big loads for the collective, and I know that I can deliver better when I'm healthy and well-supported. So I've accepted that it is actually an act of service to get off my butt and ask for some support! Every tree needs a forest...

Unless you've been obsessively Facebook-stalking me over the last few years, you may not realise how much time I've put into this cause. So here's a list of some sample projects I've done. These are the types of projects that my Patreon supporters will be supporting:

• Doing the groundwork to become the first person to legally possess raw cannabis in New Zealand since the Misuse of Drugs Act was passed
• Doing a ridiculous amount of media interviews relating to the above feat.
• Coordinating the first collaborative message to the government from current medicinal cannabis patients and caregivers. The Assoc Minister of Health was afraid to face me on national radio.
• I work as a journalist professionally, but I've occasionally broken my own rules to do unpaid or barely-paid journalism on cannabis in order to get an important story out.
•  I coordinated a public message to the incoming government on behalf of medicinal cannabis patients to let the government know our demands.
• I've been working hard to give the Labour government feedback on their terrible Medicinal Cannabis Amendment Bill, including doing heaps of media, writing a submission guide for patients; and co-writing and co-presenting the NORML submission at Parliament.

And then there is the ongoing background activity: speaking at events, from protest to workshop; liaising with allies and politicians; arranging media coverage for other patients to get more stories into the public eye; getting up too early in the morning to be on the radio; contributing to press releases; advising people I've never met on their health issues, because the medical system is failing them...

Whee! No wonder I've been a bit tired at times!

Don't get me wrong, I've also been massively fulfilled by this advocacy adventure. It's gratifying to have a public platform. The media adore talking about medicinal cannabis and portraying us favorably, which is probably spoiling me as an activist for all future causes. And it's particularly meaningful to me to be able to use the hardest thing in my life – my health struggles – as a platform to benefit others. There is a beautiful solidarity joining those of us in this movement, as most of us are turning our own hard moments into fuel for collective liberation.

I'm on a beautiful upswing in my health journey, thanks to intensive brain retraining practices. However, at this stage I still need to be careful about where I put my energy.

You feeling me? Then I hope you'll consider joining my community of support on Patreon.
You also will get some pretty awesome poetic rewards for joining in. We're all about reciprocity in this Redwood forest.

With eternal gratitude,
Redwood

to my progressive friends in america:

if you’d like to experience spiritual attainment,
here's my recipe:
lie awake all night,
brain conjuring fresh horrors
of what could be, of the things they can take from us
greet the thin necks of every environmental protection law,  every law that was ever meant to protect anyone
glistening in the sun
while the executioner paces the yard, sharpening,
wondering where to make the first cut

this exercise may take a long time
if you know too much

if you like sleeping
then i’m not sure i can recommend this practice
except that the tibetans say to meditate,
every day of your life,
on all the ways you could die.
it clarifies your purpose.
so that you may truly live

feel it all now
for numbness is non-specific;
if you build a dam against the river of grief,
it will also block you
from the joy for what you love
and there is still a lot of loving
we need to do

that's one thing they can never take.

connect with what feeds you
connect with your purpose
which has not changed

ask to be shown how you will serve
ask where the skills are that you need to embody
ask what you would put your tender magnificence
on the line for

for we are going to need to be
a lot stronger than we thought,
a lot sooner than we thought.

This pile (shown as we initially heaped it last winter) yielded the most luscious compost I've ever made. The result is fluffy, black, like crumbling chocolate cake. It looks and smells so deliciously, richly earthy that I almost could have eaten the compost itself.

The main ingredients were seagrass that washed up on a local beach, pony poo collected from a friend's paddock, and leaves/forest duff that washed up on another beach after a big storm. The sea, forest and animal realms joining together and transforming into a supreme source of food.

Compost is the most magic alchemy I know: huge piles of the stuff no one wants, transmuting into divine elixir that nourishes life. It feels like a hopeful metaphor for all the shit that happens to us, and ecological renewal, and social change. Sometimes, destruction gives birth to new life. Sometimes, massive change comes about through many humble, tiny beings (microbes... or humans) working in sync.

(Fellow garden nerds: here's an interview I did with Kay Baxter of the Koanga Institute, which includes her interesting tips for making nutrient-dense compost.)

I did not expect the following to become one of my most-requested poems. It was just supposed to be for a dear friend & gardening teacher while we were each going through our own rough times of inner composting. But apparently some other people besides me really, really love compost. I often hesitate to share my poems written down because they were made for speaking and breathing, so maybe you can read it aloud. To your compost pile. (This poem is also on my album Poetree, recorded with suitably earthy music.)

Well that was sort of completely amazing.

I recently completed a crowdfunding campaign for my next album, Sacred Activist. I was delightfully humbled and pleasantly blown away by the support. Dear community of listeners and friends. You really exceeded my expectations, not just with your collective dollars but with your loving enthusiasm. To sit in my little home amidst the trees at the tip of this island, and feel folks from all around the country and the globe urging me, ‘create, create, create,' was one of the most awesome artistic encouragements I've ever received.

Truth be told, I wasn't sure if I was up for running this campaign, with some unspecified nebulous nervousness associated with putting myself on the line and asking. Then I read somewhere on the Internet that women are less likely than men to ask for a raise, and thought, ‘just in case this is patriarchy inside my brain trying to get me to play small, I have to do it!' And the moon, when I asked her, agreed. I asked my council of wise women how to ask for support without fear and shame. They didn't have a specific answer for me. So I said, “okay, I just WILL ask without fear and shame." And I did. 

Who made you believe you can't dance?
as though you were not made 
of water 
and sky
Who told you the moon reflected in your own eyes
is anything other than the universe 
knowing its own vastness through you
Who told you the question “What do you do?"
means “How do you earn money?"
Like what fills my bank account
is more real than what fills my heart
which is like comparing a solar panel to the sun...

We're all messengers
in our pockets carrying each other's jigsaw pieces
You might be hiding the shard of light
that shows me my own completeness

The above verses will be on the album, of course. Although the formal crowdfunding campaign is over and I'm happily turning from self-promotion mode to collaborative-creation mode, contributions are still trickling in and are most welcome! I'm still putting together my dream team for this album, and each bit of funding means more studio time to make it shine. You can still read about the possible rewards on the PledgeMe site for the album, and pledge for your selected reward by clicking this handy button and entering the details:

Now whatever healing gift you're dreaming of creating for this world – even if it scares you – I dare you to put yourself out there and do it! I'll show you mine if you'll show us all yours...

                                                                                                                                                                               ~ Redwood

I've got a garden again! Growing my own food. Ahh, happiness. One of my favourite measures of wealth is how many species are in my salad and how freshly I harvested them. And it's inspiring some very DIRTY new poetry...
                                                            ~  ~  ~

I've been co-editing the New Zealand biodynamic farming and gardening magazine, Harvests, for the last few years. Though I'm relatively new to biodynamics, I'm enjoying this gig, in large part because the people who read the magazine are possibly as nuts as me. (Um, if any of the readers stumble across this post, you can take that as a compliment.) This freedom of speaking to kindred souls allows my poetic sense to find its way into prose.

Here's an excerpt from a recent editorial I really loved writing, inspired by my deepening relationship with the garden outside my front door...
                                                                                             ~  ~  ~

Okay, confession time. For the last few years, I’ve been spending a lot of time at work promoting organic (and now biodynamic) production all over New Zealand – while having almost no garden of my very own. A few lettuces here, a few garlics there, one lonely cucumber plant last summer behind my town apartment. Not out of lack of desire, just a result of my particular living circumstances.

The amazing thing, though, is what it’s therefore meant to finally come back into nourishing and being nourished by the land. 

I’ve moved to a patch of abundantly fertile and well cared for earth, and coming into my first warm growing season now, I find myself bursting with glee at the miracles of gardening. I don’t mean the finer points of biodynamics; I’m just blown away that seeds want to rise up out of this rich earth, to the spring symphony of rain and sun, and burst into flowers and food. It’s not like how food grows is new news to me! Ah but it is new. Every moment is new. Every new two leaves poking out of the soil where I put a seed last week arrive into my consciousness as a messenger singing about the miracles of the universe. Rain is not an inconvenience but a blessing from the heavens. My consciousness of this world, and my place in it, changes when I am intimately engaged with the source of my sustenance.

Over the last few years I’ve been introduced, by some wise teachers, into practices for contacting the spirits of plants. Suddenly things I’d do in my last garden years ago feel untenable. To rip off celery stalks without asking and thanking the plant and soil feels quite rude. To uproot a lettuce feels like something I should at least do with kindness.

I’m not seriously losing sleep over whether I hurt my celery’s feelings; it’s more that my garden is re-minding me how connected my being is to all other beings. As I engage with the sentience around me, I notice how rushed utilitarian ways of doing things can lead me to treat the world as a collection of inert objects. This same mindset is wrecking much of our planet’s ecosystems right now. I’m not a perfect eco-saint, but I’m at least striking up a dialogue with my pumpkin plants. Making peace where I stand. This feels like a foundation for a life of greater integrity.

I’ve been wondering what consciousness of interconnectedness is lost when people stop growing their own food. In my super-sized birthland across the Pacific, there are more people playing Farmville on the computer than there are farmers. When we are cut off from the source of our sustenance, what happens to our understanding of our place on Earth, and how does this affect the other actions in our lives? To those of you helping people learn to grow their food naturally: this is noble work – and it is, inherently, political, in that it has the power to change our orientation to the world around us. 

You’ve never been to this mountain before
laughs the cold wind
but here,
home

                        

Last spring eleven artists went up to the mountains. We slept in two old houses in Kahurangi National Park, dwarfed by snowpeaks,  in the Cobb valley. 

              we come bearing chocolate
              we fossick the wreckage
              we burn old logs all night laughing
              telling stories of the mountain men
              wondering what to paint in the sunlight
              to say we breathed
              on this island

As a child, my first poems came from nature. Sitting by the lake while my uncle fished, or walking through a canyon meadow on a summer camp trip, I arranged words in my head to pass time.

The journey to the Cobb for me was a return. My body was in pain, so I lay it on the valley floor by the river. Expanding my walls to merge into this high place: lying upon earth, watching and plunging in the freezing clear waters, letting words spill onto the page. 

            Before we are born
            it is so quiet and still
            the air is thinner and
            clear as the
            river

            Friends sitting on rocky banks
            laughing one plunges in naked
            others kiss, the river sings
            & here all is forgiven
            the icy wind
            whoever said what they said
            when they said it whatever that
            was

          
I am often so serious. Plenty of things in the world that one could worry about. I am very prone to considering those things my personal responsibility.

The weekend that we went to the Cobb came just after deadly 1080 poison got dumped out of helicopters over 18,000 hectares of the forests of my community, Golden Bay. Poison in the rivers, poison on the ground for anything to eat. I had worked very hard as an activist, alongside committed friends, to keep that poison operation from happening, banging heads on bureaucratic brick walls.

It’s quite something to feel you are responsible for an ecosystem and devote yourself to protecting it. It’s quite something to lose such a battle. A forced surrender, a wordlessness, a vigil for the waters, a humble bowing to all that is. It was good then to return to the arms of the mountains.

mountain sun on peaks at the end of the day:
this life is
clear water cupped in
the basket of our own fingers
dripping onto 
mudstones
to flow back into
earth again

Months later, we artists coalesced our many inspirations into a collaborative exhibition. 

I handmade little books, brown paper and glue and poems and pictures. A meditation, like the construction paper projects I loved to do as a kid.

I love this quote from an Andrea Gibson poem, I've rubbed it soft like a stone in my mind's hands:
        We have got to create
        It is the only thing more powerful than destruction

Somehow, these hands tying these knots, fixing words in place for the power of the mountains to touch someone else's mind in quiet moments, is healing me. In this broken world, in this broken body, my refusal to let go of beauty is an act of resistance.

            Leave your story 
            by this riverbank
            The snowpeak remembers
            the shape of your song from before you got it all
            tangled in branches

Other artists in the exhibition also wrapped my words into their creations. 
Nicola wove them into her baskets:

Ngarie, while I was writing on the valley floor, was on top of the peaks in a tutu, because of course she was. She merged the poems into her prints, joining our solo journeys:    

At the opening of our exhibition, Aralyn, sculptor and painter, sang from somewhere deep. She became the wordless voice of the river as I read my words aloud, with a big colourful crowd of our community before us, surrounded by all our friends' magnificent artworks illuminated. Singing in a forest of art. One of those holy moments that is a poem in itself. A reminder of how we all weave pieces of each other’s puzzles… 

            the trees say
            keep standing, keep loving,
            keep breathing

            the river says:
            it’s the stones
            that make me sing


(All the words in this entry are from my poetry/art book Bits of Cobb, pictured above – if you would like one contact me, NZ$30 covers the materials and assembly.)