Freedom, a Hot Rarity

At the 4th of July parade this afternoon in Homer Alaska, we celebrated the 20th year of Mavis Muller's Burning Basket community art project. We'll be burning this year's "CREATE" basket on September 10 on the Homer spit.

The spit is a narrow strip of land that juts out into Kachemak Bay for 7.5 miles. I ride my bike for a gorgeous 15-mile roundtrip of watching the waves crash against the shore, the seagulls glide in squadrons, and the otters floating on their backs. 13 glaciers ring the southern shore of the Bay. 5 volcanos rise on the connecting Cook Inlet.

Homer is a small fishing village with a bar or church on nearly every corner. Art galleries give plenty of glimpses into the beauty of this place. The truth though can be found on Facebook's Homer Area Communications group. The hot topic this summer seems to be a hot dog stand delivering lots of laughs and community sentiment. And the goodness found in kind people doing their best to go along to get along lined both sides of Pioneer Street today for our 4th of July parade.

You might be wondering why no Red White and Blue. We gathered to give grace and gratitude to Mavis for two decades of bringing our community together to collaboratively build and then burn a 15-foot-tall basket. It takes the community-or whoever shows up 10 days to build from Labor Day to the Burn. It's woven of every plant you can imagine finding in a wild little place like Homer. So we dressed in orange and black and red. It is always a fascinating surprise to see who will show up at any of these spontaneous affairs. Drummers and rattlers and clappers gave us the beat. People on Pioneer Street jumped in and donned the fire crowns, clapping along with us. Unicyclist, hooper, and a megaphone stirred up the crowd.

I gave out special trinkets like imitation very large, about an inch each, rubies and diamonds and sapphires to sparkle delight and oo's and ah's. Special authentic treasured ski/golf/football memorabilia elicited wonder & awe. And mini squishy footballs tossed into the crowd at the corner, and RWB tiny tins, and all sorts of red or white or blue chachkies. And freedom facts like the Dred Scott decision of 1857 when black Africans were not seen as equal by the US Supreme court. And smiley clips to our gang to remind us to smile, we are free. And a very special red white and blue squishy heart to a very young Down syndrome boy, who reminded me of my great-grandson Jax. The smile on kids' faces, when you give them a special treat, is priceless. More tiny treasures please pressed into the hands of little ones. 

So what does this have to do with freedom being a rarity? It might have something to do with size. Is it possible that when a good idea scales it loses some of its original intent? In a tiny town like Homer, we are all still free to be our quirky selves. To close down the harbor at midnight on our 20-hour days in the summer and show up at church the next day for community and God. And then there are those who do not subscribe to religion and find their faith in tree and fox and sandhill crane. Whatever or wherever we find it we are free to find it as we wish. The point is we are the fortunate few who can choose, freely to Xpress ourselves fully: spiritually, physically, vocally, economically, and politically.

Our Representative from Kenai Peninsula for Alaska brought her young son dressed as George Washington to the parade. Politically in the USA how free are we when our political parties constrict the range of choices of who we have representing us? Is it possible in the future we might find a way to have technology serve a more direct form of governance? COuld blockchain secure a voting system that permits more direct input from citizens? Would I be freer? Or burdened with the infinite number of decisions that must be made when millions decide to live as a nation together?

Consider China, with 1.4 billion humans living, working, and playing alongside each other. Authoritarian governments are on the rise in a world that is presenting layers of Xistential risks: climate, nuclear, AI, biodiversity loss, ocean acidification, pandemics, and the list grows daily. In 2023 there are 57 dictatorships in the world. These nations are deemed rogue due to their dictatorial governing systems. Their citizens are not free. The appeal is making changes fast when the man at the top says it's time. In the case of China, they are adapting to climate change faster than the USA. China is promoting green infrastructure development through the Belt and Road Initiative, creating a model for South-South cooperation in addressing climate change throughout Africa and South America.

So how is freedom a rarity? In the USA, some feel freedom is being free from threats to personal security and individual rights. Here in the cosmic hamlet by the sea at the end of the road, Homeroids, as we call ourselves, we feel safe enough to not lock our doors on anything, to leave our bike at the other end of the parade at the high school, and to speak to our Representative directly about the individual rights we feel matter.

My friend Lucy, who teaches Mandarin in the USA, "What's Apped" me while she was visiting her family in China this month. She showed me uber clean streets-no people in them because everyone was working or studying (245 days in China & 180 in many USA states) and Xquisite architecture. Xi invested $150 billion in bringing 745 million out of poverty in a few decades freeing so many to have a better quality of life. Is economic prosperity freedom?

The Homer 4th of July parade is over. Freedom, however precarious or abundant it may be in your life, is not free. Freedom is an idea whose time has come and is Xpanding. "Let freedom ring!" the American revolutionaries may have cried out 230 years ago. China lifted from poverty hundreds of millions over the past 30 years. Is freedom rare? Is it economic? Is it Xpressive? Eagles are often a symbol of seeing clearly. For me, an eagle soaring is freedom. Let freedom soar!

Signing off from the end of the road,

Kat-rare-bird-in-a-gaggle-of-hot-burners