Coping Amidst COVID: Wellness Digest from the Natural Resources Agency – Friday, January 22, 2020

COVID Update

Secretary Speaker Series on February 2: 2021 Priorities with Secretary Crowfoot—Resilience and Resurgence: Advancing Environmental Stewardship Across California

Natural Resources Agency staff persevered through an uncertain and difficult last year, navigating a global pandemic and catastrophic wildfire to make progress on our Agency’s mission to steward our state’s natural, cultural, and historic resources.

As we turn the page into 2021, we are positioned to advance key priorities, including doubling down on climate action, expanding environmental conservation to meet the Governor’s new “30 by 30” goal, expanding tribal engagement, and expanding equitable access for all. We are also leveraging lessons- learned from the pandemic to create a more dynamic, collaborative, and flexible workplace.

Join us on Tuesday, February 2 from 12:30-1:30 for a virtual town hall-styled Secretary Speaker Series event titled 2021 Priorities with Secretary Crowfoot – Resilience and Resurgence: Advancing Environmental Stewardship Across California to learn more—and help inform—our Agency’s 2021 priorities. Please bring your questions and suggestions!

This event will be live-streamed on Zoom.

Amanda Gorman’s “The Hill We Climb” Poem Transcript

Poem performed by Amanda Gorman on January 20, 2021 at President Joe Biden’s Inauguration.

When day comes, we ask ourselves where can we find light in this never-ending shade?

The loss we carry, a sea we must wade.

We’ve braved the belly of the beast.

We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace,

and the norms and notions of what “just” is isn’t always justice.

And yet, the dawn is ours before we knew it.

Somehow we do it.

Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed a nation that isn’t broken,

but simply unfinished.

We, the successors of a country and a time where a skinny Black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president, only to find herself reciting for one.

And yes, we are far from polished, far from pristine,

but that doesn’t mean we are striving to form a union that is perfect.

We are striving to forge our union with purpose.

To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters, and conditions of man.

And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us, but what stands before us.

We close the divide because we know, to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside.

We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another.

We seek harm to none and harmony for all.

Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true:

That even as we grieved, we grew.

That even as we hurt, we hoped.

That even as we tired, we tried.

That we’ll forever be tied together, victorious.

Not because we will never again know defeat, but because we will never again sow division.

Scripture tells us to envision that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree and no one shall make them afraid.

If we’re to live up to our own time, then victory won’t lie in the blade, but in all the bridges we’ve made.

That is the promise to glade, the hill we climb, if only we dare.

It’s because being American is more than a pride we inherit.

It’s the past we step into and how we repair it.

We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation rather than share it.

Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy.

This effort very nearly succeeded.

But while democracy can be periodically delayed,

it can never be permanently defeated.

In this truth, in this faith, we trust,

for while we have our eyes on the future, history has its eyes on us.

This is the era of just redemption.

We feared it at its inception.

We did not feel prepared to be the heirs of such a terrifying hour,

but within it, we found the power to author a new chapter, to offer hope and laughter to ourselves.

So while once we asked, ‘How could we possibly prevail over catastrophe?’ now we assert, ‘How could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?’

We will not march back to what was, but move to what shall be:

A country that is bruised but whole, benevolent but bold, fierce and free.

We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation because we know our inaction and inertia will be the inheritance of the next generation.

Our blunders become their burdens.

But one thing is certain:

If we merge mercy with might, and might with right, then love becomes our legacy and change, our children’s birthright.

So let us leave behind a country better than the one we were left.

With every breath from my bronze-pounded chest, we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one.

We will rise from the golden hills of the west.

We will rise from the wind-swept north-east where our forefathers first realized revolution.

We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the midwestern states.

We will rise from the sun-baked south.

We will rebuild, reconcile, and recover.

In every known nook of our nation, in every corner called our country,

our people, diverse and beautiful, will emerge, battered and beautiful.

When day comes, we step out of the shade, aflame and unafraid.

The new dawn blooms as we free it.

For there is always light,

if only we’re brave enough to see it.

If only we’re brave enough to be it.

ICYMI: Check out Amanda Gorman’s poem “Fury and Faith” performed at the California African American Museum on June 26, 2020: https://twitter.com/CBSThisMorning/status/1276500512842698753

Hero Chronicles

Thank you to Harriet Ross and the entire Delta Stewardship Council team for all your hard work on the Delta Adapts Draft Vulnerability Assessment.

If you know of a person or group stepping up in an extraordinary, unexpected way to help us combat the crisis, we want to feature them. Please share uplifting and inspiring things you’ve witnessed during the pandemic – sharing, giving, sacrificing, etc. Please email information to Elizabeth.Williamson@resources.ca.gov.

Featured Photo – Scenic California

Photo taken by Jerrie Beard, Gold Fields District, Department of Parks and Recreation. This photo captures the morning fog that hangs over the South Fork of the American River and the Visitor Center at Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park in Coloma, California.

If you would like to submit a photo you’ve taken to be shared in the Wellness Digest, please email Elizabeth.Williamson@resources.ca.gov with a brief description.

Virtual Water Cooler

Tweet of the Day

Telework Tip

Visit telework.govops.ca.gov for best practices and tips to help make telework successful for every employee and the Californians we serve.

Featured Activities

January 27th Webinar: Expanding Nature-Based Solutions and Advancing 30 by 30

Please register for the event here

Delta Conveyance Project: Deep Dive Videos

Who receives water from the State Water Project and who decides how much? In this 2-part installment of Delta Conveyance Deep Dive, we hear from the experts about the complex business of water allocations. Watch the longer form videos here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeod6x87Tu6dDjEDXMgQYMLdUrUGHcQRG…

Learn About Ocean Safety with California State Parks Lifeguards