over the head with a bang

Activists, scientists, and politicians tread a fine line between the need to alarm and the need to inspire the public.  Exclusive and relentless gloom and doom messages cause us to cower in fear and overwhelm.  But at one point it’s also time to get our heads out of the sand and decide what future we want to create for our children and grandchildren.

Climate change is no longer drowning the far away Seychelles, it is now violently banging us over the head in the Pacific Northwest, the Southwest, and Middle Europe.  Will we get the message in time to avoid our own demise?

Perhaps we have been asking the wrong questions all along because we have been approaching climate change from the perspective of our culture of lack.  It is not so much a question of what we need to less of or what we should deprive ourselves of. Rather, the issue has to do with reverence, appreciation, respect and cooperation.  We must relearn to appreciate nature for our living environment, we must thank nature for the beautiful foods we are able to grow in cooperation with it, we need to redirect our gaze to its majesty and beauty, we have to recognize the abundance nature is showing us all around.  Only when we come from a place of reverence and gratitude, of wanting to work together with nature, not against it, will the answers reveal themselves easily.

Recently this beautifully inspiring short film that attempts to dislodge us from our collective climate change action inertia popped up in my social media feed.  Perhaps it’ll inspire you, to shift from lack to abundance, from inertia to urgency and action.  

it's ok

Friends who come over for a meal and help clean up afterwards are often surprised that we don’t compost.  I’ll buy my favorite whole milk raw milk yogurt in plastic, and sometimes I dilute some smelly toxic bleach stuff to clean the mold spots on the shower grout.

The 80/20 rule applies to me, and doing the best I can instead of being dogmatic and unwavering seems sensible. Composting is currently not convenient, and since we otherwise produce so little garbage, and recycle everything that can possibly be recycled, I won’t feel bad about throwing my produce waste into the trash can.  Plastics from the packaging process leach into peanut butter, so I make sure to buy tahini and nut butters in glass jars.  However, I’ll buy my favorite yogurt in plastic and avoid a lengthy trip to the farm for the single glass jar benefit.  Most of my cleaning gets done with vinegar and a few other inoffensive products.  But sometimes I need to bring in the strong and toxic stuff to get the job done properly. 

To make a long story short, compromising here and there, albeit with awareness, is ok.  No need to be a saint, no need to be dogmatic, no need to be a good girl or boy 100% of the time.  Just doing the best you can and giving yourself a break, with awareness, is ok. 

food thrills for our times

Some people look for race car driving, roller coaster rides, or bungee jumping for thrills. I look to food for an adventure that stimulates and excites my senses.  I am simply curious how things taste in hopes it’ll be pleasant and delicious, novel and delectable, or perhaps foreign and unexpected.

Many traditional exotic foods are no longer acceptable fare because they’re animal based, their harvesting is unsustainable, or they are cruelly made, and we are starting to know better, think foie gras or shark fin soup.   Hence, we need to look to the plant world for new food excitement.  

Already, I have fallen in love with Chicken of the Woods, a foraged early summer tree mushroom with a surprising meaty texture that is very satisfying.  Puffball mushrooms pop up from one day to the next in meadows a bit later in the season.   Their creamy and dense texture is a surprise and a delight.  The big thick gooey tapioca pearls that have made bubble tea a worldwide phenomenon, are fun to catch through a thick straw while sipping the beverage.  Smooth and slightly sweetened cashew cream has been a delectable revelation to me, and then of course there is color.  Animal products just don’t cut it when it comes to aesthetic appeal.  But cut a watermelon radish open, and surprise!  While a sliced starfruit will put a smile on anyone’s face.

Watermelon Radish

All these sensations delight me, excite me, make me want to discover new tastes, textures, consistencies, combinations, and possibilities.  Let me know if you have made any thrilling vegetarian discoveries.

as abundant as nature

We have been gifted so many plants from friends over the years, by splitting root  (lily of the valley, hosta, hydrangea) or rizome clumps (tiger lilies, irises), separating shoots (lilacs, raspberries) and transplanting runners (strawberries, strawberry begonia), as well as accepting seeds (hollyhocks) and whole seed heads (echinacea).  Many of these plants have grown big enough that we can now share and provide a never ending supply of joy to others.  And we know how quickly animals can multiply, the smaller the faster.  One mouse pair could theoretically produce about 5000 mice in a year.

Nature is just so amazingly abundant that I’m not quite sure how we humans ever came up with this idea of lack and not enough which so permeates our culture (“not enough time,” “not enough money,” “only 2 left,” or “get it while it lasts”).  Perhaps we are so disassociated from nature that we no longer understand its principals. Nature gives so freely, it doesn’t hold on.  It sends its seeds so liberally into the wind by the gazillions.  Abandoned farmland reforests all by itself over the years.  A garden rewilds and overgrows so fast if you don’t constantly pull the weeds and mow the lawn.

The difference between nature and our human behavior is our lack of generosity.  We hold on, tight and tighter.  We stash our money away and get rewarded for it with interest.  During the pandemic we horded toilet paper and meat and created actual shortage.  No wonder then that we live in a culture of stinginess, lack, and miserliness.  Instead of living and modeling abundance, we live and model lack.  Perhaps things would be different if we got rewarded for giving our stuff and money away

To experience abundance, we need to emulate nature’s generosity of giving.  Be like nature.  The more generous you are, the more generous the world around you becomes.

let's make a little room

We just learned that zoo baby births increased by 25% over the past pandemic year because the lack of human visitors put the animals more at ease.  

Good things happen when we humans get out of the way.  When our impact lessens everything else – the air, the water, the animals, the environment in general – recuperates and flourishes, as we saw so immediately last April.

We need to shift our thinking from I to We and consider the bigger picture, the benefit of the many versus the personal benefit to just one person, then we all profit.  Let’s make a little room for the rest of Nature so we can all thrive!

a seed was sown

Looking back through my silver lining pandemic posts from last spring I ponder the take-aways that will seep permanently into our culture.  Some will stick, others may not.  But as a friend said with much insight, “A seed was sown, a spark was lit.”  The possibilities glimpsed will remain in our subconscious, perhaps dormant for a while longer, but not forgotten.  

I might surmise that the more philosophical silver linings, like the need  for patience (silver lining #14), the merits of simplifying your life (silver lining #10), or the benefits of going deep (silver lining #12), will be gone in a jiffy as people rush to get back to “normal.”  At the end of last year, however, we did elect a president who is more in tune with our environmental (silver lining #2) and social challenges.  A deeper awareness of the baked-in racism seems to have taken hold, prompted by more shootings, also of Asian-Americans recently, and a growing awareness that we were previously oblivious to racisms and the plight of minorities.  The advertising, film and entertainment industry all now show such a greater rainbow of people, and I think that shift will stick. 

I still don’t think we achieved an environmental healing crisis (silver lining #9), but the push for cleaner energy sources like electric cars, solar and wind power, is now unstoppable and hurtling forward with remarkable speed.

On the other hand, the pandemic has not become the Great Equalizer.  The rich became richer, and industrialized nations hogged vaccines.  Did we get the message that the true heroes are those who keep our life glued together (silver lining #7) and not some internet influencer? That a better social safety net, higher minimum wage, more comprehensive health insurance, and education benefit us all?  What have the superrich got to lose?  A few millions or billions?  How much do you really need to live a comfortable life?  What about the shift from I to We (silver lining #13)?  Philanthropy is not the answer, a more equitable distribution of resources is.

Have people gained greater trust in their bodies and its innate healing abilities instead of relying exclusively on the miracle vaccine (silver lining #11)?  We know from a year of Covid research that the Coronavirus thrives in an acidic body environment (too much sugar, starch, meat), hence a healthy diet (silver lining #4), with alkalizing greens and lots of fruits and vegetables in general is the way to go, not only to prevent you from catching Covid-19 but all civilization diseases, from diabetes and heart disease, to inflammation and cancer, to obesity.

We have experienced the limits of online study, work, entertainment and socializing, as novel and practical as it all seemed in the early days.  And while it prevented life from coming to a standstill, we have discovered the troubling shortcomings, from students who are behind in their school curriculum, and depressed from lack of interaction with their peers, to the emotional impact of literally losing touch with people (silver lining #6).

What we have learned is that as a civilization we can move mountains if we combine forces in a mutual goal and vision (silver lining #1).  That is powerful.

ode to the mother

For several thousand years we have lived in yang cultures, more warrior than nurturer, more taking than giving, which shows in how we have treated Mother Earth. She has been used and abused and is tired.  We have taken from her more than we have given back.   

Becoming a mother is the ultimate act of creation, making a new human being out of love and thin air, at least sort of.  A mother gives of her body and soul to create, grow, birth, nurture and nourish a new human being in an act of procreative self-sacrifice that requires putting other before self.  In an instinctual effort to protect a young and fragile life, mothering brings forth ultimate, even fierce, unconditional love. As mothers we pour into these little beings everything we have – milk from our own body, food, love, advice, protection, healing energy, soothing lullabies, and words of encouragement.

It’s time for us, whether man or woman, mother or not, to remember that we have all experienced being mothered and nurtured, what that feels like, and how healing that is.  Dear fellow women and mothers, we must now show the way of the nurturing yin to rebalance our lopsided relationship with the earth, our ultimate Mother who gives us everything that brings forth our existence.  I see you becoming stronger, rising to the occasion, and bringing your creative nurturing spirit to heal our Mother Earth.  

Happy Mother’s Day!

moon and tides did it

Technology alone was unable to dislodge her. “The crews working to dig out the ship were largely dependent on forces beyond their control: the moon and the tides,” the New York Times wrote about the all-out effort to free the Ever Given, one of the world’s largest container ships that was stuck sideways in the sandy banks of the Suez Canal for almost a week,  holding up hundreds of other cargo ships with billions of dollars worth of goods and livestock from pursuing their journeys through the canal to their destinations to keep global markets humming.

The message is a crucial one, one we seem to need to hear over and over and over again.  Whether we’re talking about climate change, growing food, protecting ourselves from viruses, or lifestyle improvements in general, technology applied in a vacuum has often far reaching negative side effects which we seem unable to predict.  Only in cooperation and harmony with nature can science and technology achieve true heights, as the crews freeing the Ever Given realized.  

We must finally integrate science, technology and nature into a holistic, sacred and mutually inclusive whole to evolve into a better incarnation of ourselves and assure the survival of our species.

from the heart, not the head

Changes and shifts happen faster through the heart than the head.  Reading an academic treatise or an article on the need for more diversity, or mandated hiring or enrollment percentages for corporations or colleges, remain abstract and stilted. 

Previously, I wrote about the impact I believe the series Queer Eye has on softening prejudice when you just fall in love with the characters because they are so joyful, kind, compassionate, self-deprecating, and all around likeable, that potential underlying biases might just fade into the background. 

I found myself thinking about this again after watching Bridgerton, the massively successful Netflix series, and enjoying the diversity of the cast so thoroughly, the fabulous Queen Charlotte, the smashing Duke, the formidable Lady Danbury, and all of the many non-white extras who populate the reimagined Regency England.  How can you not admire them, enjoy their personalities, laugh and cry with them, and think that an integrated society is the most natural thing? 

Even though the reviews from the queer community of the Queer Eye series have not always been kind arguing that it’s a show for cis white people, the commentary on the diversity of the Bridgerton casting has been smashing.  When popular culture reflects more diversity and inclusivity without straining, it comes from within the culture and the heart, and is a sure sign of a cultural shift. 

being human?

From an emotional and psychological perspective the social isolation side effects of the pandemic guidelines and directives have become an existential conundrum.  This is not the place where I wish to discuss the pros and cons of such directives but rather what defines our humanness.  

Already before the pandemic much of our reading had shifted from paper to screen (granted, it saves trees); many of our financial transactions shifted from bills, coins and bank visits to online and cashless transactions (no loss there); and cinema has moved from movie theatres to the home screen (there are definite pros and cons here).  The pandemic has accelerated this development and we have to ask ourselves some urgent questions. Now, many job related activities, teaching, consulting, diagnosing, coaching, and meeting come to mind, even entire jobs, have moved online in just a few short months.  My daughter even does virtual dissection in one of her bio labs, a crutch to bridge the pandemic yes, here to stay I hope not.  Luckily, there are still many professions that cannot be accomplished virtually, such as sports, the visual arts, chefing, farming, surgeoning, nursing and many more.  The big question is what we give up and how we compromise our humanness when we move further and further into an online environment just because we can.

What does it mean to you to be human?  What experiences actually distinguish us as humans?  I think we hit the limits with virtual weddings, cocktail hours, Thanksgiving and Christmas meals.  Lack of in-person contact steeply increased depression during the pandemic, and it is incredibly sad to see nursing home residents isolated from friends and family withering away, mere shells of their former selves.  

In our human history we have always come to crossroads where we’ve had to decide what’s a good idea and what’s not.  Moving forward with nuclear, GMO and CRISPR technology in human reproduction is questionable and proves that just because we can doesn’t mean we must.  I drew the online line when faced with the option of shifting my talks and workshops to the screen a year ago.  It gives me no pleasure to speak to a screen and having to imagine my listeners, or interacting with a flat workshop audience on a screen in my kitchen.  And isn’t life all about the physical experience?  My definition of being human involves the senses. I want to experience the entire you, look you directly into the eyes, detect every minute facial expression, feel your hug and touch,  take in the three dimensionality of your outfit, smell your perfume or cologne, unwrap your beautiful present with you by my side,  hear people’s voices mingling and overlapping in joyful conversation, or popping in unexpectedly to hash something out in person.

Ask yourself to what extent you want to live in an increasingly virtual world going forward?  Where do you draw the line for yourself?