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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traumas and diseases like depression, anxiety, and addiction. Hulls had been left strewn upon the earth. I felt it was my job to gather the hulls, to remember and honor the sacrifices of so many hulls. It took this pandemic, the death of my eldest brother, the death of four elders who helped form me, an urgent care visit, and my body to break out in painful shingles to realize holding tight onto the hulls was crushing me and them. I am seed and hull. “Grief never ends, but it changes. It is a passage, not a place to stay. Grief is not a sign of weakness or a lack of faith. It is the price of love.” This is a quote shared with me when my brother died. The Gospel reading from the last Sunday of Ordinary Time as industrial land and waterway, and before the Lenten season begins reminds where the air is so polluted our children us what winter is about: A time to allow can’t breathe without assistance from an the hull to burst open, so germination inhaler. The cumulative effect of living in can begin. Time also to perceive the big these neighborhoods was a shorter life— wooden beam in our own eye. Time to eight years shorter than other residents on cultivate the determination to remove it. average in Seattle and King County, and Time also to grieve the loss of the wooden thirteen years shorter than the well-off beam in our eye. It served a purpose. It 3 neighborhood of Laurelhurst. provided a shield and created distance Thanks to all this work, “environmenfrom having to look into the eyes reflected tal justice” is now defined in state statute: in the mirror and see so much sorrow “Environmental justice means the fair and suffering. Time to honor the wooden treatment and meaningful involvement beam and give it a new purpose. A beam of all people regardless of race, color, for a new building to house happiness national origin, or income with respect or kindling for a fire to bring light and to the development, implementation, warmth to these long winter nights. and enforcement of environmental laws, This winter and Lenten season, I will rules, and policies. Environmental justice use this time to continue my daily prac(TENTATIVE TRANSLATION includes addressing disproportionate tices of reflecting on daily scriptures, O F D A I S A K U I K E D A) environmental health impacts in all laws, chanting nam-myoho-renge-kyo, and rules, and policies with environmental exercising my body. I will continue to see impacts by prioritizing vulnerable populaa therapist. I will continue to attend Nartions and overburdened communities, the equitable distribution Anon meetings. I will pray for determination to stand aside and of resources and benefits, and eliminating harm.” Seven agen- let God’s will be done so that I can free myself from personal cies are covered by the law and must incorporate environmental anxiety and a mistaken sense of responsibility. Nar-Anon teaches justice into their strategic plans, policies, and practices. An envi- that I am powerless, but not helpless. I can do my work. I can ronmental justice task force is now formed to provide oversight. weep. I can laugh. I can dance. I can cup my hands like a nest But at what cost? As the prime sponsor of HEAL Act legisla- gently holding the hulls. I can take a breath, and with my exhale tion, I know I made compromises. I made decisions and deals gently send them free. directly against the will of the environmental justice leaders I grew up with and worked alongside. There is law, but also loss and hurt. Who grieves for the hull of the seed that had to burst open for the roots to reach soil? Who mourns for the microbes that might be displaced as the green sprout pushes up through Sen. Rebecca Saldaña is the Washington State Senate Deputy the soil towards the sun? Majority Leader and represents the 37th Legislative District. Rebecca I am seed. I come from a line of seeds that have had to find is vice-chair of the Senate Transportation Committee and sits on the root in lands and waters polluted by xenophobia, colonialism, Labor, Commerce & Tribal Affairs Committee and the Human Services, environmental degradation, racism. Roots tangled up with Reentry & Rehabilitation Committee. Additionally, she is co-chair of
“Faith is an unremitting struggle against resignation and feelings of powerlessness. The force that will open the future exists in your own heart! Strengthen and deepen your conviction.”
the Senate Members of Color Caucus. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in 3
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https://www.epa.gov › sites › production › files › 2014-10 › documents › bk1_wed_2_gould.pdf S P R I N G 2 0 2 2 • N O. 13 4
Theology and Humanities from Seattle University and lives in Rainier Beach/Skyway with her husband and two youngest children.