Lift our spirits, trust science, own our land! Let it RAIN!

Women of the world, we are living history at this precise moment. Governments are struggling to save our communities to survive this novel coronavirus. Inequality is more severe than in any other time in modern times. Our climate is creeping along crashing under our scientists' studies. Nuclear weapons are pointed from a dozen locations to a dozen others-none of which would survive if any of them were used. Our financial systems are faltering and our families very feeding and safety are threatened. So what can we do as women uncovering our own superpowers right now? SHERO's, love the RAIN. https://pin.it/2BqtQO0

Lift Our Spirits: In times of trouble, it is easy to become paralyzed, or find conflict with neighbors when supplies feel lacking. So what are some of these tools to lift our spirits? Think of loosening up our community's natural creative expressions. In Italy, oper singers and citizens are singing out of their balconies. This takes no technology. For musical uplifts using our cells, there is Spotify and other platforms. Here's one from TEDxVailWomen BOLD & BRILLIANT in December: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/63WCgXJQLFaX6jWW3oCUbH?si=K-fvhtjOSuit... I'll be joining a virtual dance party this Saturday called 5 Rhythms. This is connecting with neighbors. Art, who might be able to design graphic messages or paint a mural or send some sort of artful motif to reassure our villages now. How might digital storytelling like Story Corps (https://storycorps.org/) or other platforms help us link our feelings to our futures? How are we learning? Are we watching TED Talks (https://www.ted.com/) online? Doing online learning platforms like Acumen (https://acumen.fyi/aa-signup) or any number of university courses? Are we writing plays and performing skits online by recording these with our cell phones? Are we discovering new sets of apps that answer our precise needs for our health, nutrition, biological rhythms, weather, planting information, market data, etc.? 

Trust Science: Being informed gives us the greatest opportunity to survive the many crises of living in 21st Century Earth. Much is already understood about the science of changes in our communities. How can we discern truth from misinfo/disinfo? Which are our networks are trusted sources? How do we know what we know? Celebrated are we for our power of intuition. Trust it. Power up. Speak up. Will we move urgently when we understand deeper truth-like climate breakdowns happening all over Earth at varying rates right now? 

Living in Alaska, I've been watching over the past 25 years so many indicators that Earth is changing dramatically and for devastating effect for native Alaskan villagers: coastal erosion, methane release from permafrost melting, high temperatures causing ocean acidification, breakdown of the base of the marine food chain, bark beetle infestations, millions of acres of wildfires, the list is too long to continue. What I witness with my truth-telling eyes is evidence by decades of scientific study. I see what I see. But having the science to defend my observations makes it easier to get the message across. What are you noticing in your community? Who are the ones studying these changes? How might we add to citizen science where we live? Who are the Xperts who can help tell a compelling story? If your community does not believe a pandemic or climate chaos or nuclear threat exists right now, how might we use technology to change their minds?

I am assembling images, data, graphs, Xpert testimony to create a presentation to persuade 50 Hawaiian Rotary Clubs to use zoom online to continue what once were their in place meetings. so they can continue their service in the Hawaiian Islands. Respecting our spiritual traditions should not come in conflict with the evidence that science is giving us. I am learning to respect deeper each day other religious traditions while understanding what the science says about the nature of life today. Visit my Facebook timeline (https://www.facebook.com/kat.haber) for updates on the pandemic, climate crisis and nuclear threats. I spread verified, as much as I can fact check, information from my TED, Climate Reality Mentor, and Rotary networks. 

My healing heart extends to my families: my 96-year-old dad living with my younger brothers, my 79-year-old husband in Hawaii needing to return to our home in Alaska, my formerly homeless brother struggling with his reality, another brother with a store open to the public now exposing him and his daughter to the possible public transmission of novel Coronavirus, and my son with a long term girlfriend with precarious physical health from having salmonella twice and her appendix and gall bladder removed also trying to get home. At this moment, I am hyper-informed to help them navigate this tricky time. 

Own Our Land: World Resources Institute suggests this for how women can secure land tenure. When our homes are our own, we are secure. We can focus on curing whatever ills threaten our communities knowing confidently that our own selves and families are taken care of. We must know our worth. Make our own lives worth living. Value our lives. On Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, shelter is among the foundation. Shelter requires place. Will we claim our places on the planet so that we can also own the health of these places? Righting our relations within nature's laws of chemistry, biology, and physics? How might we then respect the rights of indigenous women, plants, people, animals and nature's evolved processes? May peace prevail in these places we women call home. https://www.wri.org/news/beyond-title-how-secure-land-tenure-women?utm_c...

We are facing two exponential threats simultaneously: Financial/economic and health. With financial support, women can claim our homes. But this moment is delivering to us a special challenge. It's math when a virus doubles and doubles and doubles. Like a hurricane offshore, we are seeing storms approach. Like a loan shark, we borrow $1 and by the end of the week at 25% interest per day, we owe $7,500. By the end of three weeks, we owe $1,000,000. With Moore's Law the doubling of what can be produced with technology, could this same doubling of understanding happen for vaccines or anti-viral therapies during the pandemic? Imagine a 1971 VW Beetle with this massive computing power applied to it in 2020. It would go 300,000 miles per gallon, it would go 200,000 miles per hour and cost 4 cents if designed with this same iterative innovation. Might we keep the number of patients globally below the number of beds and ventilators now to avoid mass death? For Americans, we are just now understanding that staying safe means isolating ourselves from our communities. We are sheltering in place. 

A crisis is a terrible thing to waste. Let's embrace this moment to emerge stronger, with lifted spirits, trusting science, and owning our places like no women on Earth have ever before in our places. Along the way may peace prevail in our places. We are in this together. When we pitch in with food, healing, and compassion, we are pulling humanity into a Shemanity far lovelier living in 21st Century Earth. When we see the other as ourselves, we are one. United we stand. Divided we suffer. Free and loving is possible for all human beings. Let's circle up, let's lighten up, let's stand up together! SHEROs, freeing 7 billion people is a little lift, a teeny trust, an awesome owning away. Let it RAIN!