Spring Rain 6/6/2025:

“If you cherish the children, turn grief to gusto and make sorrow sing.” — Kim Stafford

“Spring Rain” posts are a collection of time sensitive or unique opportunities that we should take advantage of if we can. Past spring rain posts can be viewed here.

For a more complete view of ongoing ways to be involved, find the most recent Dandelion Repot here.

Need inspiration rather than action at this moment? Take a look at my Sunflower posts here.

This Spring Rain Includes:

• “The Turning” Poem and Prompt by Kim Stafford

• Upcoming national protests/rallies on June 14 and 28th in last week's Spring Rain.

• Rachel Cohen’s Email Templates to Protest Law Firms’ Capitulations

• Some Ways to Support the Transgender and Gender Non-Binary Community

• Quick emails to your representatives, using Resistbot Codes.

Some rain doesn’t fall, but arrives as mist in the height of the redwoods. Photo by me.

When they cut a tree, plant ten.
When they stain the river, welcome rain.
When they say no to wisdom, say yes.
When they say yes to greed, say no.
Know comfort and convenience kill.
Know economic growth withers earth.
How long shall we smoke the sky?
When they take the easy road,
choose the stony path.
If you cherish the children,
turn grief to gusto
and make sorrow sing.
 
                                                                                                            
Prompt:  Write your own instructions for changing the world…

Redwoods, on the cusp of old growth, and post-logging new growth. Photo by me.

This is the first action that I have seen where non-lawyers could have an effective way to influence and protest the various law firms that agreed to offer the administration free legal services when pressured.

In short, Rachel Cohen’s was able to identify the decision makers in these firms, and identified positions they hold in Board of Director positions in other organizations. Cohen then put this information into a Toolkit with email templates, that we can use to pressure these secondary organizations to remove them from critical positions. As Cohen states:

“This isn’t about punishment (though it’s a nice side effect). It’s about proactively ensuring that people who prioritize profit over defending the legal system are not in other decision-making positions.”

If Mailto links work for you (I could not make them work for me), this Google spreadsheet may automate some of the process.

Otherwise, here is what I would do:

• (15 Minutes) Go here for the high-yield letters first. There are 13 emails to 13 organizations. They took about one-minute each when I had my system down.

  • Be sure to add your name at the bottom, and create a unique subject line for each letter. I used some variation of: “Concern about the [Board of Directors/Committee/Etc] of [Name] Organization”.

  • These are high-yield because they include democracy and law-related organizations.

• (25 Minutes) Go here if you have time, or are having fun. 23 more organizations, same process.

More Information:

• One-Page explanation.

• Here is a TikTok from Rachel Cohen speaking about this toolkit.

• Here is a PDF slideshow explaining this action.

I first learned about this action through

Chop Wood, Carry Water

, a great resource.

Photo by my talented mother.

In honor of Pride month, I want to encourage people to support a local organization helping our community members who are transgender and gender non-binary, who have been facing ongoing attacks from this administration.

If you don’t have a local organization, or would rather give nationally, here are some possible options, these were highlighted by

Rogan's List

(another great resource) in these two posts:

• Trans Lifeline. “Trans Lifeline’s Hotline is a peer support phone service run by trans people for our trans and questioning peers.”

• Trans Continental Pipeline. “We help Transgender, Queer and LGBT individuals move from unsafe/unaccepting environments within the U.S. to Colorado through a 4 step relocation program!”

• Distribute Aid. “Produce harm reduction kits with medical equipment for trans people taking injection-based gender affirming hormone therapy.”

• One of these 7 Mutual Aid Funds.

• Here is a List of Some State Level Organizations in All 50 States.

Here are some other resources of note:

• IGLTA Pride Event Calendar.

• GLAAD’s Alert Desk. Tracking, reporting, and sharing of anti-LGBTQ incidents.

• Here are 19 companies that have pulled back their support for pride this year, by

  Popular Information
  .

Remember, June may be Pride month, but our community members need our support all year long.

Resistbot Emails to Representatives

Resistbot is a tool to quickly send emails to your representatives. Click the link to learn how to set up your account. Emails are much less effective than calling (I have seen some estimate that a call is worth 10 emails), but with Resistbot templates it is so fast it is worth doing in addition to calling.

I often will be able to send these emails while I make calls using The 5 Calls App.

To save space and to organize codes from all the past Spring Rains, all my used Resistbot codes can now be found in this Google sheets form.

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If you are looking for more frequent updates on unique actions to take, or for phone scripts apart from 5 Calls App, you may want to consider

Chop Wood, Carry Water

or

Rogan's List

.

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I am grateful you are here.

Thank you,

Chris