Jeff Conant

Sky Burial

The men with blond hair scatter their own ashes With machine gun rounds, they hold back their tears stifle a sob under the ground where a burnt child is laid In dreams they peel back the burnt skin tenderly unwrap the swaddled skeleton With fingers trained on fishing line and engine gaskets and compressor beltsContinue reading “Sky Burial”

Observance: “everyone receives what he deserves”

Sept 22 2025 In a society radically tilted towards authoritarianism, it’s good to revisit history. In a nation traumatized by gun violence, polarized by social inequality and burdened by hate speech, it’s good to revisit poetry. So, here’s one from the great Ernesto Cardenal, pastor and poet of the Sandanista revolution and of Latin AmericanContinue reading “Observance: “everyone receives what he deserves” “

My Father Was an Anti-Fascist Too

I might’ve been eight when I first asked my father if he’d ever killed anyone. “No,” was all he said. But I asked again, and again, in spare moments, and the more I asked, the more he didn’t say. It was the 1970’s and I had an obsession with WWII. I built model planes andContinue reading “My Father Was an Anti-Fascist Too”

Observance: Demons in the Shadowland of Autocracy, or Fear is the Mind Killer

Photo credit: yours truly Feb 25, 2025 Yesterday while I was at work and my first grader was at school, my partner’s phone rang and seconds later my partner ran into my office screaming, breathless: “They took our child! They have our child!” The phone rang again and on speaker I heard my daughter’s voice,Continue reading “Observance: Demons in the Shadowland of Autocracy, or Fear is the Mind Killer”

My 2024 Book List

Welcome! Each year at year’s end I write short-ish summaries of the books I read over the year. A small public service, because the society that reads together increases its chances of resisting fascism. Right? In this year’s reading I came upon this story: A grandfather tells his granddaughter that inside every human there areContinue reading “My 2024 Book List”

Observance: Totalitarian regimes use words to mean their opposite

December 15, 2024 I have intended to use this space to make Observances, mostly in prose, about the intersections between my own personal, lived experience, close to home, and the politics of the moment as I see it. But with some really great sources that echo what I would have to say politically (and sayContinue reading “Observance: Totalitarian regimes use words to mean their opposite”

Observance: On Despair

25 November 2024 In her book, Hospicing Modernity Vanessa Machado de Oliveira offers tools to interrupt the modern behavior patterns that are killing the planet we’re part of, and to “stay with the troubles,” to add the phrase of Donna Haraway, another important contemporary voice. One of the psychological tools offered in Hospicing Modernity isContinue reading “Observance: On Despair”

Observance: Letter to a MAGA Friend

22 November 2024 Since the Trump election, the zeitgeist in my media-sphere* — call it the liberal media if you have to – is all about taking-a-long-hard-look-at-ourselves-as-a-nation. There is the very real dread and the democratic soul-searching and the data-mining and poll-questioning, and the finger-pointing and the circular firing squads and the group therapy sessions,Continue reading “Observance: Letter to a MAGA Friend”

Observances

November 1 2024: Let’s see what we can see Driving through the Massachusetts woods, six-year old Raisa recognizes location by a rainbow-painted mailbox, a sharp bend in the road, a river crossing. Recently, she astonished me with such a noticing, able to detect that we were nearing home as we sped past a yellow bog.Continue reading “Observances”

How Land Speculation Drives Environmental and Human Rights Violations in Brazil’s Cerrado

[Note: Based on my work with Friends of the Earth, where I/we have been publishing and promoting research reports by the Rede Social de Justiça e Direitos Humanos, I was recently invited to write this short analysis for the Washington Brazil Office, “an independent institution which specializes in thinking about Brazil and supporting actions thatContinue reading “How Land Speculation Drives Environmental and Human Rights Violations in Brazil’s Cerrado”