July 2017        Smaller footprint. Stronger community.       TransitionASAP.org        District 12, St. Paul, Minnesota
In this issue:

At the Northern Spark arts festival June 10, the installation created by the artists of 
Transition Twin Cities drew visitors all night. Story below.  Photo: Raven Miller
 

All ages! March with our "drill team" in the July 4 parade
             
 
     
Tuesday, July 4, 10:30 am sharp 

Gather on Luther Place, off  Como Ave near Speedy Market (enter from Grantham; ask for Transition Town unit.) 

Percuss with us!  We're teaming with the St. Paul Tool Library to form a marching band, using tools as percussion instruments. Join us! Help carry signs or play simple rhythms. Kids welcome! We'll practice at 10:30 for the 11:00 parade start time. Tools provided, or bring your own.... like a cordless drill (fully charged) or two wrenches to beat time with. Or just bring that rarely-used tool to carry. Like the Tool Library, we're promoting the idea "Share Tools, Make Friends."  

  Transition Tap at the Urban Growler
Wednesday, July 5, 
7- 9:00 pm
2325 Endicott.   Float sustaina-bility ideas over a cold drink with new friends. Look for the T sign. 


Free lunch-hour webinar!
Deep Resilience: From Me to We
Friday, July 7, 1:00-2:15 Central time. 
Online. 
Rebecca Blanco offers a preview of her July 28 workshop at the National Gathering. How can we find the inner resources to take trailblazing roles... sustain our energy... and foster community well-being? Via computer or phone, hear Rebecca's overview and see visuals, along with a nationwide audience. Info/Register. 

Transportation Committee 
(St. Anthony Park Community Council) 
Monday, July 10, 6:30-8:30 pm 
SAPCC offices, 2395 University Ave., Suite 300E.
All are welcome to join in creating our neighborhood's transportation future.  
 

Open House at Cornercopia,
the U of M's organic farm
Tuesday, July 11
5:00-7:00 pm
(group tour at 5:15) 
Corner of Dudley and Lindig, St. Paul campus. Learn about innovative growing practices from researchers and students. Tours, tastings. Free. Take the 87 bus, or use ramp at 1395 Gortner Ave. 

Free outdoor movie: Queen of Katwe
Saturday, July 15 at dusk (9:00 pm) 
Hampden Park, at Hampden & Raymond, opposite the Co-op (which stays open late). 
This family-friendly film tells the story of young Ugandan chess champion Phiona Mutesi .  Trailer . 
Stay in touch!
Join our email list: send your address to Communications@TransitionASAP.org. 
Visit our Facebook page .  "Request to join" our  Facebook group.  Follow us on
Twitter:   @transitionasap1 .  Submit news and views:  email  the editor  (and  see back   issues) .  Logo  by Pat Thompson. Transition "t" and  Bee  by Regula Russelle. 
Now through July 4!  20% off weekend workshop passes
Transition National Gathering: July 27-30
From around the nation, community resilience advocates-- practical visionaries-- will gather at Macalester College in late July for several inspiring days: the first-ever Transition National Gathering. Now through July 4, save 20% when registering for Saturday and Sunday workshops. Use these promo codes:
  • for all day Saturday: SAT20
  • for all day Sunday: SUN20
  • for the full weekend (both days): FULL20
Workshop topics cover resilience and sustainable change on all levels. For example: 
  • Sacred Activism: What's the Spiritual Component to Transition?
  • Growing a Food Forest at Home

  • Start Your Own "Repair Cafe"

  • The Psychology of Sustainability: Motivating Voluntary Behavior Change

  • Building Vital Zero Carbon Cities
  • Community Rights: We the People Are More Powerful Than We Believe
  • Global Perspectives: Transition Around the World
Learn more and buy tickets.   (A la carte tickets are available for the Thursday evening screening of the award-winning, solutions-focused film Tomorrow and for Friday's keynote by Richard Heinberg of the Post Carbon Institute.) 

Want to go even deeper?  Learn from national Transition leaders as the conference  kicks off: take a one- or two-day intensive Thursday/Friday workshop. (Priced separately.)   Info & tickets .

Transition Now! sparks magic at arts festival 
by Marilyn Benson

The night of Northern Spark, June 10, a friend and I rode the Green Line with our eleven-year-old granddaughters to St. Paul's Lowertown. Our destination was the Transition Twin Cites artists' site. And our larger purpose was to experience a bit of the energy and excitement of the theme, Climate Chaos / People Rising. We made our way through the crowds near Golden's Deli to a narrow alley that had been transformed: it was lined with trees strung with white lights, with two musicians fiddling away.
At the entrance, we were invited to add a leaf to one of the trees in this Grove of Life -- to write on that leaf an action showing our response to climate change. Several of us wrote more than one. On placards we read the words of wise ones, like Lin Manuel Miranda, "What is a legacy? It is planting seeds in a garden you never get to see." Visitors carried away this reminder from Wendell Berry: "The real work of planet-saving will be small, humble, and humbling, (and insofar as it involves love) pleasing and rewarding." We hope everyone who visited the site is sparked to create a world worthy of all grandchildren. 

Marilyn Benson  has worked with Transition Town ASAP from its origins in 2008. Active in our Reflective Circle, she has a part-time practice of spiritual direction.
Neighbors rise to Clothesline Poetry Challange
On Earth Day, we gave out free clotheslines to Hampden Park Co-op customers and asked them to think poetic as they hung their wash outdoors. They delivered!  We pinned their poems on our own line at the St. Anthony Park Arts Festival in June. A few samples: 


Confessions of a Clothesline User

It's not just the chance to once again handle wooden pegs my grandmother and my mother held

Nor just to stand in a brisk, bright April morning
and remember my Auntie Lula,
barefoot,
holding a wicker basket
brimming with sheets
as white as the Duluth snow she stood on

But it might be. 
The breeze and the birdsong know the answer. 

--Annamary Herther



*   *   *



Three haiku

Mrs. Anderson said:
No laundry on the front balcony!
We were discreet tenants.

Even on sunny days,
in the Minnesota winter
laundry dries slowly.

The bird seemed at home
perched above the dry pillowcase.
Wish it flew first, then pooped.

-- Michael Russelle


Washday in Tiny Town

Mother, like Jack and Jill,
climbed up the hill,
pumping water to carry,
still down to dank cellar.
Fed dragon-green wringer washer
pungent Fels-Naptha shavings,
the tint of molasses.
A big witches broom handle
stirred up her brew.

From the kitchen flew
smell of Wash Day Dinner,
earthy root vegetables,
stew simmering,
on back of black wood range behemoth.

Mother, outside, white 
sheets to pin,
their snappy salute, 
whipping the face
red in the wind. I, "helping,"
with my child's' wooden pins,
fragile as my fingers,
or twigs in sparrow's nests.

She folds the clothes, sleeve to sleeve---
frees long stockings
twitching like mustang's tails;
tugs at a scarecrow chorus line 
of dancing overalls,
stiff corn husks.
At night, tucked in a metal bed,
sheets drenched in scent of violets, ferns, trilliums in the woods. 
It was good.

-- Marilynne Walton


The Transition Town - All Saint Anthony Park initiative grew from the Energy Resilience Group, a subcommittee of the Saint Anthony Park Community Council's Environment Committee. Visit the SAPCC website to learn more about Saint Paul's District 12 neighborhood projects, including the Creative Enterprise Zone. Lend a hand!   Our purpose:  To raise our understanding in Saint Anthony Park of climate change, the limits of fossil fuels, and the adaptation of our community that is possible and positive.   What's a Transition Town?   It's a community starting the transition from a fossil-fueled, energy-intensive way of life to a more satisfying, locally oriented community with increased stability in disruptive times.