W I N T E R “Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature—the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.” — RACHEL CARSON
Winter can often feel like the bleakest and darkest of seasons. In colder climates, the snowfall can last until after Easter. During the frosty, cold winter days, trees and plants are often mistaken as dead when they are only dormant. Animals slip into hibernation and the earth seems quiet and still. In a world of overproduction and commodification, it is easy to dismiss the importance of rest. When animals and plants rest, they come back from dormancy and hibernation in spring to blossom and flourish. What about us? Not every season, even in justice work, is an active season. We are often, especially in the face of injustice hasty to act, which frequently leads to sloppy encounters and missed marks. Where is nature calling us to embrace a season of rest to prepare ourselves for a season of growth and action?
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Creating Change in Moments of Rest
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BY SEN. REBECCA SALDAÑA
am writing this in winter, which is the “busiest” time for the Washington State Legislature. In sixty days, over a thousand bills will be drafted and introduced, hundreds will receive a public hearing in both chambers, six budgets will be developed, debated, and turned into three budgets, and dozens of bills sent to the governor’s desk for his signature. Among all of these will hopefully be a new type of transportation investment package that incorporates environmental justice, equity, and strategic investments to decarbonize our transportation sector. If this transportation investment package gets realized, it will 1 be because the Healthy Environment for All (HEAL) Act became law on May 17, 2021, along with the Climate Commitment Act and 1
https://doh.wa.gov/community-and-environment/health-equity/ environmental-justice 2 https://medium.com/wagovernor/inslee-signs-climate-changelegislative-package-9ebcef3015e
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the Clean Fuels policy. The HEAL Act was a result of three legislative sessions; two years of a task force of community, business, state agency representatives holding meetings in every corner of our state; one robust report; and a year with an unprecedented global pandemic, wildfires, flooding, and heatwave. A summer’s worth of convening labor, public transit, ports, disability, and environmental justice organizations, and legislators learning together about each other and the intersection of environmental justice, climate, and transportation policies. The HEAL Act began as a dream from a seed planted more than twenty-five years ago when Senator Rosa Franklin commissioned the first environmental justice study in Washington state. A seed of hope germinated among a group of community leaders—children of immigrants from all corners of the globe and the descendants of the Duwamish, who together call the lands home where the Duwamish River meets the Salish Sea. Where seed took root in a place made sacred despite its designation A M AT T E R O F S P I R IT
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