Daily Sitka Sentinel

February 26, 2021, Community Happenings

Online Dessert

Auction for SAFV

Sitkans Against Family Violence’s online dessert auction will run March 4 through 1 p.m. March 7.

The auction is being held in lieu of SAFV’s Family Fiesta fundraiser.

To support SAFV go to tinyurl.com/safvdessertauction to check out desserts and bid. New items will be added frequently.

Bids can be placed by credit card only, which is needed at the time the bid is placed. Bidders will be notified when they are outbid or if they win.

Winners are asked to pick up desserts at the shelter. Call 747-3370 for directions. Individuals unable to pick them up can request a delivery by leaving a message at 738-0161.

Those who can donate a dessert may go to tinyurl.com/safvdessertentry  and submit details of the dessert by March 3.

Call 738-0161 with questions.

Climate Connection -- Feeling Change

By John Lewis

In this column we have looked at a lot of the difficulties related to climate. The anxiety and depression and even despair we can feel. But clear eyes require not only seeing the dark side but the light as well. Because even in difficult times, beauty never ceases to be and hope does not flee, though we can and will lose contact with both. 

There are sources of hope in our climate situation. Last month we looked at our social fabric and how it helps support us through change. But this social fabric is a part of something much larger. A changing climate reveals that life is not a bunch of separate things isolated from each other, but rather an interconnected web of living beings. 

Many of our ways of thinking and being are based on an individual view point. And this is valuable. We are all individuals with our own needs and experience. But these very same needs and experiences are also tangled up with other living things. We’re individual threads woven into this web of life. 

In times of change, the ways that life connects and is dependent on itself becomes clearer. We come to realize that our fate is tangled up with the fates of others. This is because we can’t ever fully separate ourselves from this web of life. We depend on it to nourish and sustain us. 

Life is something we share, something we all are a part of. This mysterious and ever diversifying thing that is both us and much bigger than us. Our sense of belonging to each other is not merely a cliche to encourage kindness but rather a basic reality of our existence. Who we are, our very being, is tied up with other living things. And what happens to them ultimately affects what happens to us. 

In this there is both liberation and responsibility. We are freed from the notion that life is us versus them in a never-ending struggle for survival even though at times it feels that way. But with that comes an understanding that we are always exchanging energy with this web of life. Taking energy from it to sustain us and releasing energy. 

Light and dark, hope and despair, freedom and responsibility, self and other. Our reality must be big enough to hold these differences at the same time. Because they are all parts of life. When we can hold them together, nothing in life is closed off to us. We are then open to life in all its fullness and ready for what may come. 

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John Lewis, a behavioral health professional, is a member of the Sitka Citizens’ Climate Lobby

Music Festival

Concert Online

Sitka Music Festival will present its final concert of the Autumn & Winter Classics “virtual” series 6 p.m. Thursday, March 11.

The concert will feature pianist Richard Dowling performing works by Beethoven, Chopin and Gottschalk.

Visit sitkamusicfestival.org for details and to access the concert March 11. The passcode is SITKA (all caps).

‘Tradition Innovation’

Exhibition Online

The Sheldon Jackson Museum has announced the exhibition ‘‘Tradition Innovation’’ can be viewed online on the Alaska State Museum website.

Images of Yup’ik artist Peter Williams’ works, including garments, hunting and sewing equipment, and environmental-based art, a copy of Williams’ artist statement, and a video recording of his Jan. 16 opening reception artist talk can be accessed online at: https://lam.alaska.gov/peter-williams.

The exhibit at the Sheldon Jackson Museum is up until the last week of April.

The proposal for the exhibition was selected by panel from more than a dozen applications. The next Solo Show Exhibition Series will take place in 2022. Images of the exhibition will be posted on the Alaska State Museum website in the online exhibitions section for viewing.

For the most up-to-date information on museum operating hours, visit: https://lam.alaska.gov/sjm-info.

Seats Open on

City Committees

Volunteer positions are available on several municipal boards and commissions, including: Municipal Boards and Commissions: Animal Hearing Board (category specific seats), Building Department Appeals Board, Gary Paxton Industrial Park Board of Directors, Health Needs and Human Services Commission, Historic Preservation Commission (category of at-large and STA seat), Library Commission, Local Emergency Planning Committee, Port and Harbors Commission, and Tree and Landscape Committee.

Persons may submit a letter of interest and board application to the Municipal Clerk’s Office at 100 Lincoln Street. Applications are available online at www.cityofsitka.com or at the clerk’s office. For further information, call Melissa at 747-1826 or email clerk@cityofsitka.org.

Fish and Game

Advisory Meets

The Sitka Fish and Game Advisory Committee will hold a public meeting via web-conference 6 p.m. Wednesday, March 3. Due to the pandemic, the meeting will be held on Zoom. 

The meeting link is https://zoom.us/j/97113349983?pwd=a3dMY0NNeGR2ZHUyZEZad3RJYllIdz09; phone number +1 253 215 8782; meeting ID is 971 1334 9983; and passcode Sitka.

The agenda will include: dive and shellfish proposals 187-214 and other business.

Go to the online public notice page at http://notice.alaska.gov/201585 for more information. Meetings are open to the public and all may participate.

For further information and questions, contact John Murray, Vice Chair, jmfish3@gmail.com or Annie Bartholomew at the Department of Fish & Game.

Sitka LIO Office

To Open March 1

Staff will be at the Sitka Legislative Information Office daily by appointment beginning Monday, March 1.

Sitkans can call 747-6276, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., to set up an appointment.