A Raven Asked Me To Pay Attention - A Zine
In which I saw a raven and grossly conflated the experience and made a zine about it. Plus I'm pissed.
I saw a raven perched on the dead pine tree at the pass. Their feathers ruffled from the wind, making them scruffy, unkempt, piratical even. We saw them when were on our way back from skiing at Deer Valley the other day. I wanted to stop and have a conversation, but my stomach grumbled.
Matt had taken me over to the new East Village, a brand new resort, essentially a city, that is being built as you read this. He brought me there as a way to ease my funk, my poor mood, my sadness that had come in a like a king tide. Perhaps it was more like a wet storm that blankets everything in a thick, warm layer of snow, more water than frozen.
I wasn’t drowning by any means, but I was treading and tired from the exertion to stay afloat. The day before I felt like I was moving so slowly, like I was walking through water. It’s the “Post-Show Blues” I told myself now that I had finished working on my newest show "Grounded”.1 I was willing myself not to succumb to letting go and spiraling down, down, down.
“This always happens when you finish a show,” I remind myself. It’s ok. You’re ok.
I couldn’t tell you what was wrong specifically within me, except that everything felt wrong. The disasters, the wars, the plane flipping over. Am I doing enough? What will happen to the dogs during the apocalypse? Those poor NPS and Forest Service staff fired just so billionaires get their tax cuts. And all the other people who have been purged in science, medicine, the FAA, education, health and human services, financial protection, the IRS, Department of Energy. Honestly, I’m not going to list them all. Just read the news. All so the rich get richer.
If you think this is all done for mere efficiency gains, then I also might convince you I can double your retirement savings by next year. I am quite efficient after all. Send me your bank information and I’ll make you independently wealthy.
Just to be clear - they are stealing from us. The millionaire and billionaire grifters who are using Trump like a pawn. They don’t care about you, about me. They will not “fix” the government, but they will fix it so they pay less taxes, come up against less regulation, and make even more money. If you are not outraged by this, then you are not paying attention.
But I digress.
Skiing can be a form of resistance, and by that I mean, resistance against my own mind, against falling into the depths of despair. And novelty works really well to get me out of these funks, so it was a good day to explore the new East Village and the new hotel. We both got tea and sat in the lobby checking our messages with a shitty cell signal. Eventually I gave up and watched the snow swirl in the pool’s courtyard outside, the fat flakes gently falling down onto the gas fire pits where no one sat or enjoyed their warmth.
We wandered around the convention center space - 30,000 sq feet, so I’m told. We marveled at the giant holes in the ground outside - foundations being poured, new streets, new views we have never seen, even though I’ve lived here for years. “Under Construction” signs everywhere, which should probably read instead “Under Construction for the next 20 years”.
The ski terrain was really interesting though, and I was appropriately wowed by how much there was, as it will effectively double the skiable terrain of Deer Valley. Assuming there will be snow that is, assuming we will have real winters, especially at the base of the new resort, located only at 6500 feet in elevation. Some years that zone is bone dry. I shake my head - the balls on these developers. It seems like a sketchy proposition to me, but maybe they have confidence in their snowmaking abilities. And maybe they figured out how to control the temperature and seed the clouds to make snow. If only.
But if you can ignore all that, which of course everyone else is doing, then I guess it was all rather grand. Marvels of construction, of progress, of development. Think of all the shops you’ll be able to wander through, and the new restaurants to try. Truthfully, the heated chairlift with a bubble enclosure certainly was comfortable and warm. I mean who doesn’t love a good heated seat?
Overall, it was a good ski day with soft snow. And if nothing else I was grateful the snowpack had crested to the average mark for our area. Unfortunately, we’re headed for a period of high pressure, and possibly no more snow until March.
“But we’ll take what we can get,” we all say to each other.
I should do a snow dance. Or wash my car. We’ve been shoveling the entire deck this year with our electric snowblower we bought in the winter of ‘23, when we had so much snow our backs broke. We are trying to taunt the snow gods, and likewise lighting candles to the saints, to hedge our bets - Saint Taylor - who will perhaps intervene for us, if we are devote enough. We’ll keep trying, although nothing is certain in this new world. It’s feast or famine. Flood or drought.
Sometimes I worry that the entire snowpack depends on my ability to make it snow. That if I don’t dance or make appropriate sacrifices - you know, like shoveling the deck or washing the car, but not an actual sacrifice like NOT driving my car - then we won’t get enough. Am I that conceited to believe it all depends on me, that I am such a powerful witch? Or am I just afraid that I’m not doing my part? Which truthfully, I am not.
I should move to a small village, somewhere I can grow all my own food, ride only a bike, never fly again, and mend all my clothes. No, I should make them all from scratch from the linen I grow in my field, while tending to the goats and chickens, and subsist mostly on lentils, fertilized from my own waste. This is how my brain works. And I can’t square the life I lead, with the ideals I have for sustainability and living in concert with this beautiful planet. I regularly feel like I am a parasite, sucking the blood from my host, slowly killing it. I am in a constant battle with this dilemma and the only thing I can say to soothe my mind is to remind myself2 - it is so hard to be a human.
I want to enjoy myself as much as I can as the ship goes down. Soaking up moments of joy, of fun, and savoring my meals, like I’m a death row inmate. I catch the snowflakes on my tongue silently praying that the PFAS was not the nucleus that catalyzed the snowflake crystallization. I giggle while making turns in fluffy powder, but wonder at the bottom while in the lift line, will this be the last good winter? And will summer be full of smoke and unrelenting heat?
I used to be grateful for winter so the wildfires would stop, but even this is lost now too. Out here in the west, we fear fire mostly, and perhaps you fear flooding, storm surges, tornadoes or hurricanes more than you ever did as a child. Do you still have home insurance? Are you considering moving somewhere less risky?
When we returned from skiing, we hopped on our snowmobile to head home. The raven cawed, or perhaps croaked, as they are wont to do, and Matt and I both said “hello” out loud as we passed almost directly underneath it. I have taken it as a sign when I see any corvid that I should “pay attention”. As if their mere presence is an alert of something coming ahead, a portent of importance. To what extent exactly, I do not know.
Was there something specific they wanted me to notice that day? I stayed vigilant the entire day, watching, waiting, jotting notes in the corners of my mind. Their stark black presence on a dead tree against the paleness of a cloudy sky has seared an image in my brain. Perhaps it was a special moment I would record in my memory palace to retain forever? Or was it just a simple suggestion to be present the best I could, so I could remember what the days were like before it was all gone? Pay attention, they said.
To see the full zine, or print it out, please use this download and follow Austin Kleon’s instructions for folding and tearing. I feel like the full effect is best printed. Set your printer to “fit” and then if there are white edges, cut those off and fold from there.
I’m Pissed. And you should be too.
I care deeply about this place. And about you. About all of us. This planet will *likely* be here longer than us, unless that asteroid gets us in 2032.3
But us, will we make it through climate change? I don’t know.
When I was in school to become a sustainability engineer, I studied all manors of the effects of human-induced climate change - rising sea levels, heat, drought, floods, stronger storms, bigger natural disasters, new and novel pandemics, mass extinction, overall global weirding. They terrified me of course, and I wanted to do what I could to play my part to stop it. Turns out the best way for me to do that is to be an artist and writer dedicated to drawing awareness to these issues.
Which is why I am writing about how deeply worried I am that Trump is working to hamper those efforts, and worse, reverse some of the work we have done to transition to renewable energy, to make our cities more climate resilient, to make the world safer and more equitable for everyone. Everyone has an equal right to clean air, clean water, and a safe and secure home.
This administration, in just their first month, is doing everything they can to stop our work to rectify climate change, including firing important scientists, protecting this place. I’m pissed. They’re also denying critical research funds that allow scientists to do the work to figure out solutions. I’m paying taxes to support that effort. I don’t care about DOGE’s “efficiency” if you’re just going to hack it all to pieces with a chainsaw and not make any effort.
What I don’t support is giving tax breaks to rich assholes who want to build rockets to go to fucking Mars. I don’t support firing FDA staff so Elon Fucking Musk can dodge regulations for his company Neuralink. I don’t support firing NPS and FS workers who are needed to protect our beautiful public lands so they can save a very small percentage of the budget. NPS is less than one-fifteenth of one percent of the federal budget. They want to make the NPS work badly so they can justify handing over public lands to private interests. The state of Utah has been trying to do this for ages. I also don’t support taking away funding and life saving aid from other countries, among so many other things.
I love this place. It might be the ONLY planet in the universe where there are rainbows. And giraffes. And honeybees that pollinate flowers. And ravens who croak hello. I suspect that you follow me and read these newsletters all the way to the end because, you also like this place a whole heck of a lot too.
As climate change continues, the billionaires will be fine in their bunkers, or their rich neighborhoods where they can afford to raise the streets and operate the pumps. They will be able to rebuild their house if gets washed away or burned down. They will be able to afford food, when others go starving. They can move if it gets too bad, but the poor will be hurt so much worse in the face of all of this. Where will they move? How will they rebuild?
Please stand up for your rights and all of ours as well. Call your reps. Repeatedly. Go to a rally. Talk to your friends about all this. Tell your parents and family how worried you are. Don’t let THEM get away with all the bullshit they are pulling just so they can get richer at the expense of all of us.
I really liked this article which detailed a number of interesting ways to protest for your rights. See if you like any of these.
Download the 5Calls App which gives you talking points while calling your reps. And then use the Screen Zen app on all your devices to limit your time on news or social if you have a problem, like I do. I initiated a HARD BLOCK on everything for the weekend. 2 weeks in and I am already noticing a difference.
Hugs to all my federal (and state) workers out there. Thank you for all your hard work. Please don’t give up.
Opening March 7th at Gallery Wild in Jackson!
Here is where I insert my privilege clause. In which I am grossly over privileged, being white, living in the US, with a paying job, married with no kids, being of good health, and *mostly* solid mind. I can still afford eggs for god’s sake. And I know how good I have it.
I know I’m full of rainbows and unicorns today. Sorry. The moodiness of the times has me in her grip.
I wish I could pour warm liquid love on you. Feeling so deeply is hard. I don’t think that was Poe’s raven - I hope when this raven cawed “never more….” she meant - never more will we sit idly by and let THEM destroy our right to clean air and water, our right to privacy, our right to the people’s parks. You are so much more than you think you are.
Thanks so much for this Bridgette.