Marisa Handler
Marisa Handler is a writer, activist, and singer-songwriter living in San Francisco. Her memoir is titled Loyal to the Sky: Notes from an Activist (Berrett-Koehler). She spent this past June on a meditation retreat where she practiced total silence, except for the times she’d go far into the woods and sing to the trees and salamanders.
— From October 2008The Magic-Makers Of Havana
In a globalized world of interlocking economies, is it possible for a culture to evolve at its own pace, or does change come in only two packages: fast-tracked by corporate-sponsored leaders, or arrested entirely by dictators and juntas? I’ve seen savvy indigenous communities in Ecuador and Chiapas, Mexico, incorporate what they like of the outside world and reject the rest, but can this be done on the scale of an entire country? Is there even a possibility that Cuba can preserve its culture while opening to the world, to dissent, to change?
October 2008