About This Site

I am a writer, activist, and educator who writes about and acts on issues of social justice, sustainability, anti-militarism, and travel.

Pull the Root, Plant the Seed shares ongoing social change efforts and thoughts, information, and adventures in the struggle for a more just, sustainable, rational, and peaceful world.

Pull the Root, Plant the Seed can be taken literally and metaphorically.  Metaphorically, it means going to the root of systems of injustice, power, and irrationality and yanking–not only exposing it, but challenging it, resisting actively and refusing to cooperate to the extent possible. Just like that crabgrass in your yard, once you start yanking on that root you find it is part of a vast, tangled, interconnected root system.  The crabgrass in our society is–among other factors–excessive corporate power, political corruption, a permanent war economy, racism, irrationalism, media consolidation, along with apathy and feelings of disempowerment.

The other side of that is planting the seeds, planting the positive alternatives and cultivating them. It is not sufficient to just say no.  To what should we say yes?  Sometimes that means literally planting seeds–growing gardens in our yards and in our communities.  Sometimes it means planting seeds of information and critical thinking, seeds of art and music, seeds of peace, seeds of justice, seeds of alternate ways of being and thinking and doing business that little by little spread, germinate, and grow into that transformed world that so many of us envision.

I have them ol’ travelin’ bones and also write about local and world travel at Travelin’ Bones.  I write fiction and other creative writing at Rumi and the Cholo.

Contact me at vanlenning@hotmail.com or

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