The Last Bite

I had reservations about posting this because most of the niche I have carved out here is associated with Raw Food nutrition. And I was frightened (big surprise) about how I would appear if I actually put this out there… but I am always afraid of actually saying what it is that I am experiencing for fear of judgment, and this needs to stop, so my apologies if this dismantles anyone’s idea about me but the following is pure and sincere, and so must out. And thus...

I have become very annoyed by seeing that every cookbook on health begins with Hippocrates. “Let Food Be thy Medicine and Medicine, Thy Food…” It always appears somewhere, usually in the first twenty pages, if it wasn’t the opening quote. This concept attributed to Hippocrates, was what drew me into food and nutrition long before I knew who spoke the words. This goes to show how true and natural concepts become pervasive, especially when one is looking for it. And I know that this is a truth. That food heals. But so do our thoughts… and it has gotten to the point that no matter what I put into my mouth, I am in judgment about it. I rationalize, polarize, and vacillate into extremes out of the need to control something! Let me have control over one tiny part of something… let me get out of this fear that unravels and twitters behind every thought, every action: nothing is sincere anymore, or at least, sometimes, it feels this way.

Food has become so many things for so many people. It is not merely what provides sustenance, for many it is comfort, love, acceptance, a drug, an obsession, another means of control, another way to abstain from any sense of being, a numbing shot against pain or grief, pornographic gastronomy.

There it was, on the top of page 30 in Sally Fallon’s Nourishing Traditions: my ultimate issue.

“The desire to abstain from animal products, found so often in those of a spiritual nature, may reflect a longing to return to a former, more perfect state of consciousness that was ours before our souls took embodiment in a physical material plane […].”

I find myself in this struggle of what I relate to in my spiritual sense and my fear and buffering against the joy and the sorrow of the physical body. The compassion for all living creatures, the love in their eyes and innocence, mixed with my craving for animal protein. Most of the time, meat tastes dead to me. But then I can remember a bacon-wrapped date that dissolved in my mouth with such exquisite sweetness, such tender, melt in your mouth, salty, crispy sublimity, it had a density which made the tongue giggle all on its own. And I don't even like pork. But there was such attention put into that meal, that night, in Marin County, under palm trees and lanterns, sharing wine amongst friends.

It’s not that I think raw food is not of benefit to my body, but I have developed so many food-rules for myself, that I feel like I am just using raw as one more way to control what goes in my mouth. I have a very bizarre eating disorder. I’m not bulimic, although I have made myself throw up …more in the last 2 years than ever in my adolescence. But I definitely have a binge-purge pattern going on, especially when I look at my food journal. I didn’t think I starved myself… but some days, I eat hardly anything at all… and wonder why I am so maniacally famished into downing too much pasta or potatoes the next: my body is screaming for quick glucose. I am realizing that I have royally screwed up my relationship with my body. I stopped seeing it as sacred: it was the enemy.

Whenever it comes to food, thoughts about said bacon-wrapped bounty are always essential (in what way, who knows?) … But I think it is also what thoughts and intentions I use in preparation. One of spiritual my teachers, a small Indian man with a gravelly voice would stand over his pot of rice or sautéing ginger garlic onions, and say: “You are so beautiful. You are the most wonderful onions. Look at you, look at how beautiful you are.” The tomatoes blushed in response. The same man also said that whenever you truly enjoy something… not out of craving-aversion-lust-compulsion: but genuinely enjoy – it all turns to soma. And no matter how healthy something else is, if your body is in judgment or in fear-hate-compulsion about it, it becomes ama … undigested matter = dis-ease.

Somewhere between nineteen and twenty-six years old, I had developed a love-hate relationship with food. A need to stuff myself with the most sublime things, coupled at other moments with anything that would do to make me numb, send me into a carbohydrate induced coma, just anything to not feel. Now, to be clear, this was not fast food or ice cream. I was a health foodie, all-organic everything. Whole grain, (spelt, buckwheat, barley, brown rice, quinoa) what’s-it and every manner of vegetable. I had an adventurous palate, within reason (no chicken feet stew or sweetbreads has made it past my lips, and I’m pretty sure that won’t change). But then again, organic pasta was always enough to send me down that dark spiral, where the fog rolls in on the east coast of consciousness and nothing but the blur and heft of fullness can be felt. Here, I didn’t have to think about school or sex or the unfairness I always associated with be female, I could just disconnect from any sub-sensual method of being alive and slip away into a useless stupor; a drug just as powerful as anything you could inject into the bloodstream, by needle, and almost as fast. I was addicted to not feeling. But like any addiction, it never really makes you feel good for very long, and when the fog cleared, the sun always rises the next morning and the pain (which I had pushed so deeply into my sinews, my feminine parts, places I knew that at least, I would never look, into cavernous brokenhearted hotels, muscles, curvaceous fatty deposits that I had never had before) was still there. I am a self-admitted food snob Spiritual egoist, South beach (tried it), Zone (tried it), Macrobiotics (tried it), Ayuveda, Vegetarian, Vegan(tried it), Raw food(tried it): glutton(tired of it). And am so sick of all the labels.

Someone recently asked me, have I ever tried just letting my body have whatever it actually wants? No judgments no second-guessing and after really thinking about it… no I haven’t. I have never actually let my body, not my neuroses, pre-programmed food-abridged rule induced conceptualized intellectualized rationalization, make a single decision in my life. I am beginning to suspect (har) that my issues with food will not go away with being thin or healthy, because they are 100% of the mind.

M has been on this wonderful kick of picking “intention” cards for the week – one of these for me was : I Love My Body.

…maybe I should just try that for awhile. And talking to my mom, she says: wow. I think you think too much. And she says, whenever I start to think too much, I should just breathe. Whenever you see yourself spiral into old thoughts, trying to find someplace in the head where its safe... just breathe. Ok. I will. I'll breathe. Love and Breathe.

Dreaming of Mary Oliver

Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting,
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Readjusting

So, yesterday, after reading my blog, my dear M informs me that it was a bit of rambling, wasn't it? And re-reading it, yes, completely unfocused and garbled and morose, really. But I'm glad I got it all out. Now I can sit down and readjust.

I spent yesterday afternoon reading and cleaning out my computer ... going through old documents, .jpegs, etc and wondering: do I really need this anymore? I come from a long line of pack-rats, and although I can be grateful that I don't have a garage with 40+ or even 10+ years of backlog; my computer does take on a lot of damage in terms of using it hide and tunnel old thought patterns. But sometimes I find good things too. Like Goal setting documents that I wrote one day and disappeared into my hard-drive, folder within folder. Like one of those russian dolls that has a smaller doll on the inside.

I also found old journal entries, spiritual experiences, dreams. I have always had journals, but I have never been any good at keeping them. This blog had tried to come into existence for 3 years before I finally started to actually post with any regularity or any vim.

Today I found a quote I had written in my journal in 2006, by Emerson, and he wrote:

The Gods we worship write their names on our faces, be sure of that. And a man will worship something, have no doubt about that either. He may think that his tribute is paid in secret, in the dark recesses of his heart -- but it will out. That which dominates will determine his life and character. Therefore, it behooves us to be careful what we worship, for what we are worshiping; we are becoming.

And this really made me think, as it must have back then, otherwise, why would I have written it down? I find myself asking: What do I worship? On what alter to I regularly offer thoughts and prayers? Do I prostrate, do I bleed or sacrifice? And I have a confession. I am a terribly egoistic little girl. I try to control things that are beyond controlling, I never ask for help, I don't breathe as deeply as I could and I am scared most of the time. That is all true. I use food and knowledge to distract myself from feeling and progressing. From moving forward. I am afraid. They make for wonderful excuses and mind-numbing apathetic body-gloom. But then again. I know all is well. My soul doth magnify the lord. Om, shanti, shanti, shanti. And because I am choosing it to be so, it will get better.

I have meditated since I was five. It was part of my daily routine and part of our community (TM, fairfield, etc.) and although I left TM behind almost eight years ago... I have always been an advocate of what finding time with one's self can manifest. I am ashamed to say, over the last 3 years, I have even let that slip and do it haphazardly, and boy -- I'll tell ya: I can tell the difference.

I tend to make grandiose promises. I'm really good at planning, tend to be poor at execution. I tend to talk and talk and talk until the desire snuffs out and then I don't have to do anything. Ay, there's the rub.

There are so many things I want to do, but one step at a time. Time to readjust. I am beginning to get so excited about doing the Juice Feast. I can't wait to start. But I am, because I need to prepare. I am trying to read as much as possible. Blogs, juicing, knowledge... I wish I could absorb it all -- just let my body lie along the pages and pore, by pore absorb it like a sponge... words and grace drinking in. *Sigh.

In A Course in Miracles it reads that "health is the result of relinquishing all attempts at using the body lovelessly."

And I am guilty of using my body lovelessly. What wonder could be seen, what gifts unfurled if I could just live and let go...

There's a Native American parable, but I forget which tribe it is actually attributed to, where the Creator (Grandfather in some circles: daddy-mommy-god in others) amasses the clans of his animals and offers the following:

"I want to hide something from my human children until they are ready for it. . . . It is the realization that they create their own reality."

"Give it to me. I'll fly it to the moon," says the Eagle.

"No," says he Creator. "One day soon they will go there and find it."

"How about the bottom of the ocean?" asks the Salmon.

"No," says the Creator. "They will find it there, too."

"I will bury it in the great plains," says the Buffalo.

"They will soon dig and find it there," says the Creator.

"Then put it inside of them," says wise Grandmother Mole.

"Done," says the Creator. "It is the last place they will look."

And so this comes to me while I am reading Rumi and nearly cry when I come upon shining nuggets, like the chants to the steps of the Sufi dance of Universal Peace:

"Come, come whoever you are. This caravan knows no despair.
Even though you have broken your vows, perhaps ten thousand times,
Come, come again."

So, all right. I will come again. Maharishi used to say: desire and let go, the universe will take care of the rest. Ok, that too. I am wake and I will look inside with more love and more patience, and promise that I will walk this path and again, have more patience. And Trust, which is the hardest of all: I will Trust the process. The light can take it from there.

Priorities

Found this online -- thought is was a brilliant way to put things in perspective...

Where should our thoughts go? Where do our priorities lie? What is so very sad is that everything on this list is preventable. Drunk Driving -- everyone knows: don't do it. Second hand smoke? 'Nuff said. Diabetes -- completely reversible, cancer does not have to be a reality in anyone's lifetime, smoking? again. Heart disease. Even the terrorism, to some degree. We could change the world... and why don't we? Because many do not know they they are immense and powerful.

Today on this lovely day for loving each other
what if we made a pact to actually send love out to everyone? To focus on the kind of world, body, lover, life we would like to have? Instead of griping why it isn't how we hoped? We are the creators and the mover-shakers -- we are the dreamers.

Remember: "Your life has an inner purpose and an outer purpose. Inner purpose concerns Being and is primary. Outer purpose concerns doing and it is secondary. Your inner purpose is to awaken. It is as simple as that. You share that purpose with every other person on the planet - because it is the purpose of humanity.
Your inner purpose is an essential part of the purpose of the whole, the universe and its emerging intelligence. Your outer purpose can change over time. It varies greatly from person to person. Finding and living in alignment with the inner purpose is the foundation for fulfilling your outer purpose. It is the basis for true success. Without that alignment, you can still achieve certain things through effort, struggle, determination, and sheer hard work or cunning. But there is no joy in such endevor, and it invariably ends in some form of suffering."
-- Ekhart Tolle

And I just can't get that Buddha story out of my head...because there is actually a tale of Buddha and his young disciple, who comes forward and asks what he may do to experience Nirvana... Buddha says — love everyone in the world as you love me. And so the disciple bows, accepts the grace of the Master and goes off to achieve his direction. After some time he returns to the Master and the Buddha asks him how goes his quest and the young man bursts out in confession that he can love everyone in the whole world but two people and Buddha asks, which two? And he said my wife and my brother, because they had an affair and both have abandoned my company, my heart is broken and I cannot forgive them. And the Buddha is silent for a moment and then he says. Very well, Disciple I release you of your task: you no longer have to love everyone in the world as you love me.... He says: You only have to love just those two.

What would happen if this became our practice? I know this sounds hippster-ish but it is a very valid intention, and we obliterate ourselves with our food practices, our thought and body practices... what would happen if we could love into the world. Heal, perhaps? Expand. Grow. Love. Just love... what would happen then?

St. Valentine's Brings Snow

I have, growing up, been told that it is auspicious on holy days for there to be snow or rain... Today as of 4 am, drifting fluffy snow, white as virginity has been falling all over the Boulder valley. Pure as the driven snow indeed. It was 65 degrees yesterday. I wore flip-flops. Ahh, yes. The rocky mountains climactic conundrum. If its 70 degrees in the middle of winter: guaranteed -- there will be snow tomorrow. But, today, it seems to blanket and wash clean past hurts and burnish new hearts and new hopes for securing a certain someone's affections. Luckily, I have a “someone,” already.

My intended M and I have very low-key plans for the day. Dinner, a movie. Chocolate. I told you, I'd make a terrible Catholic. M and I have been considering this whole Lent thing and think that we should (maybe now immediately, maybe next year) add something good in, instead of trying to take something away. Like add more walks, more time in seva (service) to the world, be more kind, more patient. Those sort of things. And instead of doing it only for the traditional duration, add it in as something we think will enhance our lives and our beings in a larger and longer sense than a timed deprivation.

Anyhow -- Valentine's Day. I must admit -- this was never a holiday I ever got thrilled about since lower-school when we still got to make all our own Valentines, I always liked that. But I think its just such an odd day. I like the concept but have never gotten into it. You go out, have dinner, go see a movie, cannoodle when you get home, etc. I like the flowers I get... I love flowers.

Yet, on this day, My beloved, M has purchased a vita-mix for me. A 3hp giant of juicing, blending power and its one more thing I have been feeling a Jones for on my way to going more and more raw. Now I can make my own nut-mylks! Hurrah! It is a required staple in the Raw Superhero Household, after all. The more I eat things that are alive, I can't believe the difference. Every morning, I drink my cucumber-celery-apple-parsley-lemon juice (almost -- I do mix it up on occasion, sometimes kale, romaine, raspberry, pineapple, etc. But 9/10 its very very green); it's like drinking liquid sunshine and I can't believe anyone uses coffee to wake up in the morning. Anyhow. I am very happy.

Now a little history notation for you all out there: did you know that St.Valentine's day only became associated with romantic love in the circle of Chaucer in the High Middle ages,when the tradition of courtly love was flourishing in high fashion? It showed up in his Parlement of Foules (1382).

For this was on seynt Volantynys day Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese [choose] his make [mate].

There you are. History lesson accomplished. And now a poem, and I will leave you all to love and be loved and Happy Valentine's Day!

e.e. cummings --
who knows if the moon's
a balloon,coming out of a keen city
in the sky--filled with pretty people?
(and if you and i should
get into it, if they
should take me and take you into their balloon,
why then
we'd go up higher with all the pretty people
than houses and steeples and clouds:
go sailing
away and away sailing into a keen
city which nobody's ever visited, where
always
it's
Spring) and everyone's
in love and flowers pick themselves

Turning the Light on With John

It seems to me that the only true Christians were (are?) the Gnostics, who believe in self-knowledge, i.e., becoming Christ themselves, reaching the Christ within. The Light is the Truth. All any of us are trying to do is precisely that: Turn on the Light.

– John Lennon

The Mystery of Beauty

Seek, all of you, after the Light, so that the power of your Soul that is in you may live. Do not desist from seeking by day and by night, until you find the purifying mysteries of the Light which refine the body of matter and make it a pure Light very refined. Do to all men who come to you and believe in you and listen to your words what is worthy of the mysteries of the Light, give the mysteries of the Light and do not hide them from them. For he who shall give life to a single soul and liberate it, besides the Light that is in his own soul, he shall receive other glory in return for the soul he has liberated.

- Book of Sophia

and a soundtrack to go along with it...



... that's all.

Two Weeks & Past Loves

I have now been to two Still Life Classes and one figure in graphite class here in town at the CCA. I don't know how I went so long without doing this...maybe a little background is in order.

My history with art goes back to age 2 when I, having gotten hold of a box of crayons, managed to draw a squiggly mural all over a white wall in my parent's first house, the entire length of the wall and as high as I could jump. It also (probably rightly so) garnered me my first spanking. I was forced to find smaller mediums to channel my creativity. **smile**

I began taking art classes, privately at the age of seven or eight. First grade I think. I did local art day camps in the summers and private study in the fall and winter (apart from bi-weekly art classes in school). I can still remember learning how to draw glass, candlesticks, light from a candle. Seeing reflections. I owe her my ability to compose still-life's and my eye, basketweaving, and pinch pots, gingerbread houses and putting Parmesan on my popcorn.

By age twelve I was in group classes with a local woman who had a large backyard and horses next door. There, I learned color study, aesthetics, oil painting and pen and ink. And continued there for three years, during the school year. until my family moved away from Iowa to Wyoming.

I was also studying weekly with local art teacher and the mother of a friend of mine in the class ahead of me. I wanted to be an Artist. I always wanted to be an artist. I even spent 6 weeks of my summer at the NCSA (North Carolina School of the Arts).

It wasn't until I was in college in Arizona that I realized I was detesting my studio classes but falling fast for Art History. When I transfered to Colorado, it would end with a Humanities major with emphases in Literature and Art History/Fine Arts. I think that part of the stall of my affair with studio was due tot he fact that Arizona wouldn't let me portfolio out of the Foundation classes. I had done drawing and color theory since I was nine. But they were of "we all start down here" mentality... which (to be honest) looking back at it, was fine. And probably needed, you can always need more practice drawing. I was just an arrogant little poop and thought I was above it. My art profs were either jerks or confused at what I could actually accomplish in texture and color with just a box of prismacolor colored pencils.

Anyway, long story short. I stopped drawing, period. I started focusing on photography in college. Which was fine, but I lost my hand-eye coordination...

This past October I took a fundamentals drawing class and despite my fear and my anxiety (what if I'd lost it and could never get it back? what if I was never ever meant to be an artist...etc. etc.), when I stood in front of the easel, despite my mind's loop-de-loops, my hand and body and heart knew how to proceed. I wasn't as polished as I'd been at 15 or 16 years old when I went to NCSA... but somehow, the body remembered all the training it had gotten beginning almost twenty years ago, and abandoned nigh-on completely seven years ago... don't be timid, just start putting something down. Focus the eye, soften the gaze. Squint if you have to. And time disappeared for 6 weeks, and I fell in love with this feeling again. It was magical. And so very needed when I was just barely treading water in my MA, grades were fine, but my Soul just wasn't in it. And it's been two weeks and I don't miss being in school like I was a month ago. At all.

Who knows where this will go, but I can promise myself that I will never let myself put art aside again. It is like life-blood. It is somatic and moving. Don't get me wrong, I still worry that I won't be good enough (I am highly competitive and a notorious perfectionist. But, I am beginning again and returning to an old love. It's subtle and thrilling. More later, of course...

A Winter Walk by Henry David Thoreau

The essay first appeared in The Dial of October 1843.
It was reprinted in the first posthumous volume of Thoreau's works,
Excursions (edited by Sophia Thoreau and Ellery Channing), in 1863.

A Winter Walk by Henry David Thoreau

The wind has gently murmured through the blinds, or puffed with feathery softness against the windows, and occasionally sighed like a summer zephyr lifting the leaves along, the livelong night. The meadow mouse has slept in his snug gallery in the sod, the owl has sat in a hollow tree in the depth of the swamp, the rabbit, the squirrel, and the fox have all been housed. The watch-dog has lain quiet on the hearth, and the cattle have stood silent in their stalls. The earth itself has slept, as it were its first, not its last sleep, save when some street-sign or wood-house door has faintly creaked upon its hinge, cheering forlorn nature at her midnight work,—the only sound awake 'twixt Venus and Mars,—advertising us of a remote inward warmth, a divine cheer and fellowship, where gods are met together, but where it is very bleak for men to stand. But while the earth has slumbered, all the air has been alive with feathery flakes descending, as if some northern Ceres reigned, showering her silvery grain over all the fields.

We sleep, and at length awake to the still reality of a winter morning. The snow lies warm as cotton or down upon the window-sill; the broadened sash and frosted panes admit a dim and private light, which enhances the snug cheer within. The stillness of the morning is impressive. The floor creaks under our feet as we move toward the window to look abroad through some clear space over the fields. We see the roofs stand under their snow burden. From the eaves and fences hang stalactites of snow, and in the yard stand stalagmites covering some concealed core. The trees and shrubs rear white arms to the sky on every side; and where were walls and fences, we see fantastic forms stretching in frolic gambols across the dusky landscape, as if Nature had strewn her fresh designs over the fields by night as models for man's art.

Silently we unlatch the door, letting the drift fall in, and step abroad to face the cutting air. Already the stars have lost some of their sparkle, and a dull, leaden mist skirts the horizon. A lurid brazen light in the east proclaims the approach of day, while the western landscape is dim and spectral still, and clothed in a sombre Tartarean light, like the shadowy realms. They are Infernal sounds only that you hear,—the crowing of cocks, the barking of dogs, the chopping of wood, the lowing of kine, all seem to come from Pluto's barnyard and beyond the Styx,—not for any melancholy they suggest, but their twilight bustle is too solemn and mysterious for earth. The recent tracks of the fox or otter, in the yard, remind us that each hour of the night is crowded with events, and the primeval nature is still working and making tracks in the snow. Opening the gate, we tread briskly along the lone country road, crunching the dry and crisped snow under our feet, or aroused by the sharp, clear creak of the wood-shed, just starting for the distant market, from the early farmer's door, where it has lain the summer long, dreaming amid the chips and stubble; while far through the drifts and powdered windows we see the farmer's early candle, like a paled star, emitting a lonely beam, as if some severe virtue were at its matins there. And one by one the smokes begin to ascend from the chimneys amid the trees and snows.

The sluggish smoke curls up from some deep dell.
The stiffened air exploring in the dawn,
And making slow acquaintance with the day
Delaying now upon its heavenward course,
In wreathed loiterings dallying with itself,
With as uncertain purpose and slow deed
As its half-wakened master by the hearth,
Whose mind still slumbering and sluggish thoughts
Have not yet swept into the onward current
Of the new day;—and now it streams afar,
The while the chopper goes with step direct,
And mind intent to swing the early axe.
First in the dusky dawn he sends abroad
His early scout, his emissary, smoke,
The earliest, latest pilgrim from the roof,
To feel the frosty air, inform the day;
And while he crouches still beside the hearth,
Nor musters courage to unbar the door,
It has gone down the glen with the light wind,
And o'er the plain unfurled its venturous wreath,
Draped the tree-tops, loitered upon the hill,
And warmed the pinions of the early bird;
And now, perchance, high in the crispy air,
Has caught sight of the day o'er the earth's edge,
And greets its master's eye at his low door,
As some refulgent cloud in the upper sky.

We hear the sound of wood-chopping at the farmers' doors, far over the frozen earth, the baying of the house-dog, and the distant clarion of the cock,—though the thin and frosty air conveys only the finer particles of sound to our ears, with short and sweet vibrations, as the waves subside soonest on the purest and lightest liquids, in which gross substances sink to the bottom. They come clear and bell-like, and from a greater distance in the horizon, as if there were fewer impediments than in summer to make them faint and ragged. The ground is sonorous, like seasoned wood, and even the ordinary rural sounds are melodious, and the jingling of the ice on the trees is sweet and liquid. There is the least possible moisture in the atmosphere, all being dried up or congealed, and it is of such extreme tenuity and elasticity that it becomes a source of delight. The withdrawn and tense sky seems groined like the aisles of a cathedral, and the polished air sparkles as if there were crystals of ice floating in it. As they who have resided in Greenland tell us that when it freezes "the sea smokes like burning turf-land, and a fog or mist arises, called frost-smoke," which "cutting smoke frequently raises blisters on the face and hands, and is very pernicious to the health." But this pure, stinging cold is an elixir to the lungs, and not so much a frozen mist as a crystallized midsummer haze, refined and purified by cold.

The sun at length rises through the distant woods, as if with the faint clashing, swinging sound of cymbals, melting the air with his beams, and with such rapid steps the morning travels, that already his rays are gilding the distant western mountains. Meanwhile we step hastily along through the powdery snow, warmed by an inward heat, enjoying an Indian summer still, in the increased glow of thought and feeling. Probably if our lives were more conformed to nature, we should not need to defend ourselves against her heats and colds, but find her our constant nurse and friend, as do plants and quadrupeds. If our bodies were fed with pure and simple elements, and not with a stimulating and heating diet, they would afford no more pasture for cold than a leafless twig, but thrive like the trees, which find even winter genial to their expansion.

The wonderful purity of nature at this season is a most pleasing fact. Every decayed stump and moss-grown stone and rail, and the dead leaves of autumn, are concealed by a clean napkin of snow. In the bare fields and tinkling woods, see what virtue survives. In the coldest and bleakest places, the warmest charities still maintain a foothold. A cold and searching wind drives away all contagion, and nothing can withstand it but what has a virtue in it, and accordingly, whatever we meet with in cold and bleak places, as the tops of mountains, we respect for a sort of sturdy innocence, a Puritan toughness. All things beside seem to be called in for shelter, and what stays out must be part of the original frame of the universe, and of such valor as God himself. It is invigorating to breathe the cleansed air. Its greater fineness and purity are visible to the eye, and we would fain stay out long and late, that the gales may sigh through us, too, as through the leafless trees, and fit us for the winter,—as if we hoped so to borrow some pure and steadfast virtue, which will stead us in all seasons.

There is a slumbering subterranean fire in nature which never goes out, and which no cold can chill. It finally melts the great snow, and in January or July is only buried under a thicker or thinner covering. In the coldest day it flows somewhere, and the snow melts around every tree. This field of winter rye, which sprouted late in the fall, and now speedily dissolves the snow, is where the fire is very thinly covered. We feel warmed by it. In the winter, warmth stands for all virtue, and we resort in thought to a trickling rill, with its bare stones shining in the sun, and to warm springs in the woods, with as much eagerness as rabbits and robins. The steam which rises from swamps and pools is as dear and domestic as that of our own kettle. What fire could ever equal the sunshine of a winter's day, when the meadow mice come out by the wall-sides, and the chickadee lisps in the defiles of the wood? The warmth comes directly from the sun, and is not radiated from the earth, as in summer; and when we feel his beams on our backs as we are treading some snowy dell, we are grateful as for a special kindness, and bless the sun which has followed us into that by-place.

This subterranean fire has its altar in each man's breast; for in the coldest day, and on the bleakest hill, the traveler cherishes a warmer fire within the folds of his cloak than is kindled on any hearth. A healthy man, indeed, is the complement of the seasons, and in winter, summer is in his heart. There is the south. Thither have all birds and insects migrated, and around the warm springs in his breast are gathered the robin and the lark.

At length, having reached the edge of the woods, and shut out the gadding town, we enter within their covert as we go under the roof of a cottage, and cross its threshold, all ceiled and banked up with snow. They are glad and warm still, and as genial and cheery in winter as in summer. As we stand in the midst of the pines in the flickering and checkered light which straggles but little way into their maze, we wonder if the towns have ever heard their simple story. It seems to us that no traveler has ever explored them, and notwithstanding the wonders which science is elsewhere revealing every day, who would not like to hear their annals? Our humble villages in the plain are their contribution. We borrow from the forest the boards which shelter and the sticks which warm us. How important is their evergreen to the winter, that portion of the summer which does not fade, the permanent year, the unwithered grass! Thus simply, and with little expense of altitude, is the surface of the earth diversified. What would human life be without forests, those natural cities? From the tops of mountains they appear like smooth-shaven lawns, yet whither shall we walk but in this taller grass?

In this glade covered with bushes of a year's growth, see how the silvery dust lies on every seared leaf and twig, deposited in such infinite and luxurious forms as by their very variety atone for the absence of color. Observe the tiny tracks of mice around every stem, and the triangular tracks of the rabbit. A pure elastic heaven hangs over all, as if the impurities of the summer sky, refined and shrunk by the chaste winter's cold, had been winnowed from the heavens upon the earth.

Nature confounds her summer distinctions at this season. The heavens seem to be nearer the earth. The elements are less reserved and distinct. Water turns to ice, rain to snow. The day is but a Scandinavian night. The winter is an arctic summer.

How much more living is the life that is in nature, the furred life which still survives the stinging nights, and, from amidst fields and woods covered with frost and snow, sees the sun rise

"The foodless wilds
Pour forth their brown inhabitants."

The gray squirrel and rabbit are brisk and playful in the remote glens, even on the morning of the cold Friday. Here is our Lapland and Labrador, and for our Esquimaux and Knistenaux, Dog-ribbed Indians, Novazemblaites, and Spitzbergeners, are there not the ice-cutter and woodchopper, the fox, muskrat, and mink?

Still, in the midst of the arctic day, we may trace the summer to its retreats, and sympathize with some contemporary life. Stretched over the brooks, in the midst of the frost-bound meadows, we may observe the submarine cottages of the caddis-worms, the larvæ of the Plicipennes; their small cylindrical cases built around themselves, composed of flags, sticks, grass, and withered leaves, shells, and pebbles, in form and color like the wrecks which strew the bottom,—now drifting along over the pebbly bottom, now whirling in tiny eddies and clashing down steep falls, or sweeping rapidly along with the current, or else swaying to and fro at the end of some grass-blade or root. Anon they will leave their sunken habitations, and, crawling up the stems of plants, or to the surface, like gnats, as perfect insects henceforth, flutter over the surface of the water, or sacrifice their short lives in the flame of our candles at evening. Down yonder little glen the shrubs are drooping under their burden, and the red elderberries contrast with the white ground. Here are the marks of a myriad feet which have already been abroad. The sun rises as proudly over such a glen as over the valley of the Seine or the Tiber, and it seems the residence of a pure and self-subsistent valor, such as they never witnessed,—which never knew defeat nor fear. Here reign the simplicity and purity of a primitive age, and a health and hope far remote from towns and cities. Standing quite alone, far in the forest, while the wind is shaking down snow from the trees, and leaving the only human tracks behind us, we find our reflections of a richer variety than the life of cities. The chickadee and nuthatch are more inspiring society than statesmen and philosophers, and we shall return to these last as to more vulgar companions. In this lonely glen, with its brook draining the slopes, its creased ice and crystals of all hues, where the spruces and hemlocks stand up on either side, and the rush and sere wild oats in the rivulet itself, our lives are more serene and worthy to contemplate.

As the day advances, the heat of the sun is reflected by the hillsides, and we hear a faint but sweet music, where flows the rill released from its fetters, and the icicles are melting on the trees; and the nuthatch and partridge are heard and seen. The south wind melts the snow at noon, and the bare ground appears with its withered grass and leaves, and we are invigorated by the perfume which exhales from it, as by the scent of strong meats.

Let us go into this deserted woodman's hut, and see how he has passed the long winter nights and the short and stormy days. For here man has lived under this south hillside, and it seems a civilized and public spot. We have such associations as when the traveler stands by the ruins of Palmyra or Hecatompolis. Singing birds and flowers perchance have begun to appear here, for flowers as well as weeds follow in the footsteps of man. These hemlocks whispered over his head, these hickory logs were his fuel, and these pitch pine roots kindled his fire; yonder fuming rill in the hollow, whose thin and airy vapor still ascends as busily as ever, though he is far off now, was his well. These hemlock boughs, and the straw upon this raised platform, were his bed, and this broken dish held his drink. But he has not been here this season, for the ph--bes built their nest upon this shelf last summer. I find some embers left as if he had but just gone out, where he baked his pot of beans; and while at evening he smoked his pipe, whose stemless bowl lies in the ashes, chatted with his only companion, if perchance he had any, about the depth of the snow on the morrow, already falling fast and thick without, or disputed whether the last sound was the screech of an owl, or the creak of a bough, or imagination only; and through his broad chimney-throat, in the late winter evening, ere he stretched himself upon the straw, he looked up to learn the progress of the storm, and, seeing the bright stars of Cassiopeia's Chair shining brightly down upon him, fell contentedly asleep.

See how many traces from which we may learn the chopper's history! From this stump we may guess the sharpness of his axe, and from the slope of the stroke, on which side he stood, and whether he cut down the tree without going round it or changing hands; and, from the flexure of the splinters, we may know which way it fell. This one chip contains inscribed on it the whole history of the woodchopper and of the world. On this scrap of paper, which held his sugar or salt, perchance, or was the wadding of his gun, sitting on a log in the forest, with what interest we read the tattle of cities, of those larger huts, empty and to let, like this, in High Streets and Broadways. The eaves are dripping on the south side of this simple roof, while the titmouse lisps in the pine and the genial warmth of the sun around the door is somewhat kind and human.

After two seasons, this rude dwelling does not deform the scene. Already the birds resort to it, to build their nests, and you may track to its door the feet of many quadrupeds. Thus, for a long time, nature overlooks the encroachment and profanity of man. The wood still cheerfully and unsuspiciously echoes the strokes of the axe that fells it, and while they are few and seldom, they enhance its wildness, and all the elements strive to naturalize the sound.

Now our path begins to ascend gradually to the top of this high hill, from whose precipitous south side we can look over the broad country of forest and field and river, to the distant snowy mountains. See yonder thin column of smoke curling up through the woods from some invisible farmhouse, the standard raised over some rural homestead. There must be a warmer and more genial spot there below, as where we detect the vapor from a spring forming a cloud above the trees. What fine relations are established between the traveler who discovers this airy column from some eminence in the forest and him who sits below! Up goes the smoke as silently and naturally as the vapor exhales from the leaves, and as busy disposing itself in wreaths as the housewife on the hearth below. It is a hieroglyphic of man's life, and suggests more intimate and important things than the boiling of a pot. Where its fine column rises above the forest, like an ensign, some human life has planted itself,—and such is the beginning of Rome, the establishment of the arts, and the foundation of empires, whether on the prairies of America or the steppes of Asia.

And now we descend again, to the brink of this woodland lake, which lies in a hollow of the hills, as if it were their expressed juice, and that of the leaves which are annually steeped in it. Without outlet or inlet to the eye, it has still its history, in the lapse of its waves, in the rounded pebbles on its shore, and in the pines which grow down to its brink. It has not been idle, though sedentary, but, like Abu Musa, teaches that "sitting still at home is the heavenly way; the going out is the way of the world." Yet in its evaporation it travels as far as any. In summer it is the earth's liquid eye, a mirror in the breast of nature. The sins of the wood are washed out in it. See how the woods form an amphitheatre about it, and it is an arena for all the genialness of nature. All trees direct the traveler to its brink, all paths seek it out, birds fly to it, quadrupeds flee to it, and the very ground inclines toward it. It is nature's saloon, where she has sat down to her toilet. Consider her silent economy and tidiness; how the sun comes with his evaporation to sweep the dust from its surface each morning, and a fresh surface is constantly welling up; and annually, after whatever impurities have accumulated herein, its liquid transparency appears again in the spring. In summer a hushed music seems to sweep across its surface. But now a plain sheet of snow conceals it from our eyes, except where the wind has swept the ice bare, and the sere leaves are gliding from side to side, tacking and veering on their tiny voyages. Here is one just keeled up against a pebble on shore, a dry beech leaf, rocking still, as if it would start again. A skillful engineer, methinks, might project its course since it fell from the parent stem. Here are all the elements for such a calculation. Its present position, the direction of the wind, the level of the pond, and how much more is given. In its scarred edges and veins is its log rolled up.

We fancy ourselves in the interior of a larger house. The surface of the pond is our deal table or sanded floor, and the woods rise abruptly from its edge, like the walls of a cottage. The lines set to catch pickerel through the ice look like a larger culinary preparation, and the men stand about on the white ground like pieces of forest furniture. The actions of these men, at the distance of half a mile over the ice and snow, impress us as when we read the exploits of Alexander in history. They seem not unworthy of the scenery, and as momentous as the conquest of kingdoms.

Again we have wandered through the arches of the wood, until from its skirts we hear the distant booming of ice from yonder bay of the river, as if it were moved by some other and subtler tide than oceans know. To me it has a strange sound of home, thrilling as the voice of one's distant and noble kindred. A mild summer sun shines over forest and lake, and though there is but one green leaf for many rods, yet nature enjoys a serene health. Every sound is fraught with the same mysterious assurance of health, as well now the creaking of the boughs in January, as the soft sough of the wind in July.

When Winter fringes every bough
With his fantastic wreath,
And puts the seal of silence now
Upon the leaves beneath;

When every stream in its penthouse
Goes gurgling on its way,
And in his gallery the mouse
Nibbleth the meadow bay;

Methinks the summer still is nigh,
And lurketh underneath,
As that same meadow mouse doth lie
Snug in that last year's heath.

And if perchance the chickadee
Lisp a faint note anon,
The snow is summer's canopy,
Which she herself put on.

Fair blossoms deck the cheerful trees,
And dazzling fruits depend;
The north wind sighs a summer breeze,
The nipping frosts to fend,

Bringing glad tidings unto me,
The while I stand all ear,
Of a serene eternity,
Which need not winter fear.

Out on the silent pond straightway
The restless ice doth crack,
And pond sprites merry gambols play
Amid the deafening rack.

Eager I hasten to the vale,
As if I heard brave news,
How nature held high festival,
Which it were hard to lose.

I gambol with my neighbor ice,
And sympathizing quake,
As each new crack darts in a trice
Across the gladsome lake.

One with the cricket in the ground,
And fagot on the hearth,
Resounds the rare domestic sound
Along the forest path.

Before night we will take a journey on skates along the course of this meandering river, as full of novelty to one who sits by the cottage fire all the winter's day, as if it were over the polar ice, with Captain Parry or Franklin; following the winding of the stream, now flowing amid hills, now spreading out into fair meadows, and forming a myriad coves and bays where the pine and hemlock overarch. The river flows in the rear of the towns, and we see all things from a new and wilder side. The fields and gardens come down to it with a frankness, and freedom from pretension, which they do not wear on the highway. It is the outside and edge of the earth. Our eyes are not offended by violent contrasts. The last rail of the farmer's fence is some swaying willow bough, which still preserves its freshness, and here at length all fences stop, and we no longer cross any road. We may go far up within the country now by the most retired and level road, never climbing a hill, but by broad levels ascending to the upland meadows. It is a beautiful illustration of the law of obedience, the flow of a river; the path for a sick man, a highway down which an acorn cup may float secure with its freight. Its slight occasional falls, whose precipices would not diversify the landscape, are celebrated by mist and spray, and attract the traveler from far and near. From the remote interior, its current conducts him by broad and easy steps, or by one gentler inclined plane, to the sea. Thus by an early and constant yielding to the inequalities of the ground it secures itself the easiest passage.

No domain of nature is quite closed to man at all times, and now we draw near to the empire of the fishes. Our feet glide swiftly over unfathomed depths, where in summer our line tempted the pout and perch, and where the stately pickerel lurked in the long corridors formed by the bulrushes. The deep, impenetrable marsh, where the heron waded and bittern squatted, is made pervious to our swift shoes, as if a thousand railroads had been made into it. With one impulse we are carried to the cabin of the muskrat, that earliest settler, and see him dart away under the transparent ice, like a furred fish, to his hole in the bank; and we glide rapidly over meadows where lately "the mower whet his scythe," through beds of frozen cranberries mixed with meadow-grass. We skate near to where the blackbird, the pewee, and the kingbird hung their nests over the water, and the hornets builded from the maple in the swamp. How many gay warblers, following the sun, have radiated from this nest of silver birch and thistle-down! On the swamp's outer edge was hung the supermarine village, where no foot penetrated. In this hollow tree the wood duck reared her brood, and slid away each day to forage in yonder fen.

In winter, nature is a cabinet of curiosities, full of dried specimens, in their natural order and position. The meadows and forests are a hortus siccus. The leaves and grasses stand perfectly pressed by the air without screw or gum, and the birds' nests are not hung on an artificial twig, but where they builded them. We go about dry-shod to inspect the summer's work in the rank swamp, and see what a growth have got the alders, the willows, and the maples; testifying to how many warm suns, and fertilizing dews and showers. See what strides their boughs took in the luxuriant summer,—and anon these dormant buds will carry them onward and upward another span into the heavens.

Occasionally we wade through fields of snow, under whose depths the river is lost for many rods, to appear again to the right or left, where we least expected; still holding on its way underneath, with a faint, stertorous, rumbling sound, as if, like the bear and marmot, it too had hibernated, and we had followed its faint summer trail to where it earthed itself in snow and ice. At first we should have thought that rivers would be empty and dry in midwinter, or else frozen solid till the spring thawed them; but their volume is not diminished even, for only a superficial cold bridges their surfaces. The thousand springs which feed the lakes and streams are flowing still. The issues of a few surface springs only are closed, and they go to swell the deep reservoirs. Nature's wells are below the frost. The summer brooks are not filled with snow-water, nor does the mower quench his thirst with that alone. The streams are swollen when the snow melts in the spring, because nature's work has been delayed, the water being turned into ice and snow, whose particles are less smooth and round, and do not find their level so soon.

Far over the ice, between the hemlock woods and snow-clad hills, stands the pickerel-fisher, his lines set in some retired cove, like a Finlander, with his arms thrust into the pouches of his dreadnaught; with dull, snowy, fishy thoughts, himself a finless fish, separated a few inches from his race; dumb, erect, and made to be enveloped in clouds and snows, like the pines on shore. In these wild scenes, men stand about in the scenery, or move deliberately and heavily, having sacrificed the sprightliness and vivacity of towns to the dumb sobriety of nature. He does not make the scenery less wild, more than the jays and muskrats, but stands there as a part of it, as the natives are represented in the voyages of early navigators, at Nootka Sound, and on the Northwest coast, with their furs about them, before they were tempted to loquacity by a scrap of iron. He belongs to the natural family of man, and is planted deeper in nature and has more root than the inhabitants of towns. Go to him, ask what luck, and you will learn that he too is a worshiper of the unseen. Hear with what sincere deference and waving gesture in his tone he speaks of the lake pickerel, which he has never seen, his primitive and ideal race of pickerel. He is connected with the shore still, as by a fish-line, and yet remembers the season when he took fish through the ice on the pond, while the peas were up in his garden at home.

But now, while we have loitered, the clouds have gathered again, and a few straggling snowflakes are beginning to descend. Faster and faster they fall, shutting out the distant objects from sight. The snow falls on every wood and field, and no crevice is forgotten; by the river and the pond, on the hill and in the valley. Quadrupeds are confined to their coverts and the birds sit upon their perches this peaceful hour. There is not so much sound as in fair weather, but silently and gradually every slope, and the gray walls and fences, and the polished ice, and the sere leaves, which were not buried before, are concealed, and the tracks of men and beasts are lost. With so little effort does nature reassert her rule and blot out the traces of men. Hear how Homer has described the same: "The snowflakes fall thick and fast on a winter's day. The winds are lulled, and the snow falls incessant, covering the tops of the mountains, and the hills, and the plains where the lotus-tree grows, and the cultivated fields, and they are falling by the inlets and shores of the foaming sea, but are silently dissolved by the waves." The snow levels all things, and infolds them deeper in the bosom of nature, as, in the slow summer, vegetation creeps up to the entablature of the temple, and the turrets of the castle, and helps her to prevail over art.

The surly night-wind rustles through the wood, and warns us to retrace our steps, while the sun goes down behind the thickening storm, and birds seek their roosts, and cattle their stalls.

"Drooping the lab'rer ox
Stands covered o'er with snow, and now demands
The fruit of all his toil."

Though winter is represented in the almanac as an old man, facing the wind and sleet, and drawing his cloak about him, we rather think of him as a merry woodchopper, and warm-blooded youth, as blithe as summer. The unexplored grandeur of the storm keeps up the spirits of the traveler. It does not trifle with us, but has a sweet earnestness. In winter we lead a more inward life. Our hearts are warm and cheery, like cottages under drifts, whose windows and doors are half concealed, but from whose chimneys the smoke cheerfully ascends. The imprisoning drifts increase the sense of comfort which the house affords, and in the coldest days we are content to sit over the hearth and see the sky through the chimney-top, enjoying the quiet and serene life that may be had in a warm corner by the chimney-side, or feeling our pulse by listening to the low of cattle in the street, or the sound of the flail in distant barns all the long afternoon. No doubt a skillful physician could determine our health by observing how these simple and natural sounds affected us. We enjoy now, not an Oriental, but a Boreal leisure, around warm stoves and fireplaces, and watch the shadow of motes in the sunbeams.

Sometimes our fate grows too homely and familiarly serious ever to be cruel. Consider how for three months the human destiny is wrapped in furs. The good Hebrew Revelation takes no cognizance of all this cheerful snow. Is there no religion for the temperate and frigid zones? We know of no scripture which records the pure benignity of the gods on a New England winter night. Their praises have never been sung, only their wrath deprecated. The best scripture, after all, records but a meagre faith. Its saints live reserved and austere. Let a brave, devout man spend the year in the woods of Maine or Labrador, and see if the Hebrew Scriptures speak adequately to his condition and experience, from the setting in of winter to the breaking up of the ice.

Now commences the long winter evening around the farmer's hearth, when the thoughts of the indwellers travel far abroad, and men are by nature and necessity charitable and liberal to all creatures. Now is the happy resistance to cold, when the farmer reaps his reward, and thinks of his preparedness for winter, and, through the glittering panes, sees with equanimity "the mansion of the northern bear," for now the storm is over,—

"The full ethereal round,
Infinite worlds disclosing to the view,
Shines out intensely keen; and all one cope
Of starry glitter glows from pole to pole."

Had to Share

This may sound strange, but I just made the most yummy snack!

I used sprouted grain tortillas by Ezekiel, and inside them I spread raw Tahini (maybe 2 tsp) and topped that with guacamole (red onion, tomato, lime, cilantro, garlic), then a drizzle of agave, a pinch of pink Himalayan and a couple romaine leaves for crunch: so good, I had to share.

The sesame tahini is creamy and nutty and then the guac is kinda spicy and oozes in lovely ways, the salt brings out flavor, the agave for some sweetness -- this is the kind of thing that keeps me going all day. It feels so lovely and my body doesn't freak out or go into sugar-shock, the way wheat and hybrid grains tend to wear on me.

It's snowing in Colorado this morning. I love it -- it makes the whole world stand still, sit tight, relax, be silent, even for a moment: the universe seems to whisper in a hush.

I hope wherever you are today is lovely and amazing

Early Early

I woke up at about five this morning. Mostly due to kitty squabbles and their hunger issues. But Instead of going back to bed, I watched the sun come up. And I am always grateful when I am awake to experience this. I'd like to do it every morning. Maybe I will. Starting today...

I think there is something missing from our lives if we over-sleep and over-stimulate ourselves that we never feel the ability to get up when the whole non-human world does.

It's November (albeit, it has been an exceptionally warm November in Colorado, thus-far) and the birds are still out in the morning, the air was cool and vibratory. Yes. I went outside with M's furry clogs on my feet and scuffled around taking pictures of the amazing clouds and the glimpse of the flatirons that we have from our front yard or dining room window... I will have to post those later because the battery pack is recharging, presently.

But I think, if you can -- wake up early at least once a week and watch the sky grow light... it's like magic.

(I can't wait for Fall break, however, in all truth, this leaves me about a month to write 50 pages for my grad classes' final project/papers. One paper is going to be comparing space and place in Willa Cather and Melville novels. The other will concern itself with Rushdie's Midnight's Children. )

I find myself (my somatic consciousness) leaning again towards smoothies. Odd, when it's kind of cold in energy, but I really am not liking the foods I always used to like (i.e. cooked). They make me congested and sap my energy. It's really quite amazing, using myself as my own chemistry experiment -- after my juice feast, my body tells me right away which substances are a no-go. I guess my body has always been pretty good about that, I just wasn't listening.

I think listening is going to be my theme for the next year. I turn 27 on Tuesday, which is a Nine, numerologically (sp) speaking. A double nine too! Wow. A year of completion. And it will be. This next year I will graduate from my Masters, I will get married (wow!), I am subscribing to a year's worth of The Best Day Ever! and -- well. I don't know what else. But I will be listening for it.

“A single event can awaken within us a stranger totally unknown to us. To live is to be slowly born.”Antoine de Saint-Exupery

(Juice for the morning: cilantro-celery-pineapple. One of the best!)