‘Come Together, Right Now, Over Me’

Our Public Lands Community Entreats US

Every morning that I’m able I welcome the rays of the sun to embrace me in a raiment of light that energizes my entire being.

Happiest day beloved Joy Train Rider! I love you. Bless you. I affirm you’re doing well.

At least 1,000 of the people I admire most on Earth. the stewards of our National Parks, and another 3,400 caretakers of our Forest System, are in dire straits today as a result of being jettisoned from their jobs last week. Millions upon millions of other citizens are traumatized, lacking food, medicine and the basic elements of their former lives. Millions more are in terror of deportation or have already been aggressively removed from our shores.

So how can I affirm that we’re doing well?

This is the benefit of an unshakeable faith. I KNOW that I AM part of a benevolent life force that animates the whole cosmos. Whatever happens, as long as I can keep my mind fixed on that knowledge and hold the certainty that it will take care of me, I’m keeping the door open for it to improve my situation.

I don’t ask anyone else to believe this. I just know it works for me.

Secondly, there are hundreds of millions of us that remain relatively intact. I suggested on Facebook that conservation advocacy organizations and support groups in every affected area should open a channel where all can contribute money to defray the immediate economic blows. For example, a $500k fund that distributes $5k to each of the 1000 National Park Service employees can help stabilize them temporarily and show that we care.

The idea is gaining traction.

I owe a debt to the National Park System that I can never repay, because it keeps replenishing the excitement, satisfaction and purpose in my life. My husband Frank laughs that if my earnings were calculated by how many hours I invest in advocating for them it’d probably be about $1 per hour.

That’s the caliber of rangers we’ve met in national parks from the US Virgin Islands to Alaska. Many people may not know how challenging it is to get a job with the Park Service, how modestly it pays and how long it takes to navigate to a G-level where you can make a comfortable living. A volunteer/internship period is most often required, putting the job out of reach for someone who must earn a living. A shortage of housing leaves some rangers sleeping in their car. The rangers we’ve met over 30 years are not in it for the money.

Ranger Shelton Johnson, Queen Quet of the Gullah Geechee Nation and me at the launch of Ken Burn’s “National Parks: America’s Best Idea” in which he’s featured.

Prominent on my mind today is the urgency to repair the fractures in our relationships as Americans. So many individuals and groups are pointing fingers and jeering at each other. If a hostile power wants to undermine us, can they do a better job?

The scene unfolding in the Oval Office recently left no doubt about who is manipulating our system domestically and around the world. The sight of a child rubbing his boogers on the Resolute Desk in face of an American President tells us all we need to know about the level of respect there is for our country and longstanding traditions. This is indefensible. I feel compassion for the man that child will become, because what do you aspire to do when you’ve done THAT at age four?

The Beatles song, “Come together, right now, over me,” from the 1960s keeps playing in my mind. We the people urgently need to come together, right now, and I am encouraged to see mass demonstrations planned to affirm our democracy.

Unwaveringly for 30 years we’ve been sharing how the National Park System contains the natural, cultural and historic treasures from antiquity to today, and the practical lessons they provide. They are the antidote to manipulation.

Ranger Soskin and I took to each other like ducks to water at our first meeting, Rosie the Riveter WWII National Historical Park.

With 630 million acres in protection, approximately one-third of our 1.9 billion acres of land and waters, I leave it to your imagination how these places will fare in this time. Mass firings may be only the first salvo.

Last Friday my co-host and I conducted a tour of a dozen units of the System on Zoom, and we’re so grateful for responses such as this:

“You present with such excitement as if you’re reliving those experiences. The pictures made everything more vivid. Thanks to you and your young friend. It was a wealth of information.”

We’ll be traveling to at least another 10 parks this Friday at 7 p.m. EST on Zoom, all being well.

If I had my druthers. I’d take 100-200 people at a time, a mix of every racial, ethnic, and economic group, from the “left” and from the “right.” to visit some of the most spectacular national parks, such as Zion, Bryce and Grand Canyon in one loop. I refuse to believe that anyone can be so hardened that they’re unaffected by all that sublime beauty. With sufficient park rangers as tour guides, many eyes and minds would be opened to the treasury we possess, the archaeology, the cultural history and the evolution of our nation.

Let’s drop by and visit my Top Three Favorite Park Rangers today. Some are retired, but the mark they’ve made will last forever.

Here in Yosemite National Park we check in on Ranger Shelton Johnson. The author, poet, horseman, (Renaissance man) was the first to unearth the record of the Buffalo Soldiers’ service protecting the park at the turn of the century, and his book is a classic.