no excuse!

Even when we had a teeny-tiny kitchen in our small Manhattan apartment we always cooked lots and had people over for dinner.  Even when we were on a modest food budget we always ate healthy meals.  Even when I don't have a lot of time, I always prepare from-scratch meals.   It's a matter of priorities and strategies. 

Dialing back your meat consumption, maybe a little, maybe a lot - good meat is expensive - is better for your health and the environment, even if you're not on a modest food budget.   But if you are, there are a few other strategies too.  Plant-based foods cost less money. If you can, buy organic for the ones on the Dirty Dozen list and keep to conventional produce for those on the Clean 15 list.  If you cannot do the organics, wash your produce carefully with a produce cleaner to get rid of all external pesticide residue.  Prepare more legumes (vegetable protein).  Legumes (lentils, chickpeas, beans, peas) are very filling, versatile and extremely healthy because of their fiber content. Never waste any food. Make stocks with chicken carcasses or bones, and save your vegetable scraps to make a quick broth for use as a soup base.  Stock up on what's on sale and in season.  Buy tea in bulk, instead of those expensive tea bags, and cut your tea expense by about 2/3.  In general, buying in bulk can save up to 50%.

Working with ready-to-go meal building blocks, which I only assemble at night, helps me to get a healthy dinner on the table even if I've worked all day. Simple, wholesome meals is the idea, nothing lengthy or complicated.  Work your leftovers - I always make and have lots of them.  Make them a new meal component.  Two nights ago, I made leftover chicken into a quick stir-fry by adding broccoli, leeks, noodles and some Asian inspired soy sauce, fish sauce, lime juice and sesame oil - took about 20 minutes.  I always have eggs and cheese in the fridge (for frittatas, omelets, roasted vegetables broiled with some cheese), as well as ready-to-go portion size freezer bags with pre-cooked grains and legumes (for salads, vegetable mixes, as side dishes). When I do have time to cook, I'll make something lengthier that also freezes well (lasagne, eggplant parm, meatloaf, soups). 

And every once in a while I don't cook at all! We’ll have a cheese platter, or pull a bunch of saved leftovers from the freezer, or I’ll make a quick tomato/mozzarella/roasted pepper platter. In my workshops I cover a lot more ideas - come see. Be creative, be simple, be wholesome.

no feeling words

Nonviolent communication introductions - I organize them twice a year - are always an inspiration because I am reminded of my feelings and their importance.  "Suck it up," "you know better," or simply,  "come on......" are an indication of our culture's disregard for feelings.  What are we promoting when we tell our toddler who just fell, "oh, it's nothing, shhhhh, don't cry?" Our children learn to ignore their feelings because they don't get acknowledged, and we perpetuate that they don't matter, so we learn that it's better to ignore them. 

When you first get introduced to compassionate communication a light bulb goes on about how few feeling words you have at your disposition to express properly what you feel.  We don't have many feeling words because we don't feel much as a culture. Reading a cue sheet from the New York Center for Nonviolent Communication is eye opening, or better, feeling opening.  All kinds of words for states of emotions exist that we are not using, because nobody else does either.

Feelings can be so helpful when you understand their function better.  When you are alive you have needs.  You need food and shelter, love and acceptance, creativity and comfort, clean air and rest, to name just a few needs.  Needs, as our trainer last Saturday clarified, are the essence of life. When there are no needs, there is no life.   Feelings indicate how much or how little our needs are being met.   Feelings are a gauge.  When I feel hungry, my need for food is arising and needs to be met so I can be content and satiated.  When I'm fearful, my need for safety or security is not being met, and I need to do something about it unless I want to perpetuate the crummy feeling.    When I am elated, my need for self-realization is fully met.  Feelings are our life essence - no feelings, no life. 

Some people are truly unaware of their feelings, they've become numb from all the pain, and unacknowledged and unmet needs in their life.  Feelings help us navigate life.  They are indicators or guideposts along our journey.  Heed them.

the souls of baskets

Baskets are everywhere in my house.  They show up as silverware and napkin containers on a dinner buffet, are used to corral bathroom countertop items, organize loose kitchen countertop stuff, hold keys in the hallway, serve as cachepots for plants, as paintbrush and pen holders, to set bread or crackers out, organize small office supplies, and besides the ubiquitous laundry baskets (not the plastic kind!) I used to throw the kids toys into huge baskets.  Baskets provide instant pseudo organization for loose items.

Baskets have been around for a very long time, and they have something earthy, authentic, almost archaic and tactile to them.  Unlike glassware or porcelain they are softer in feel and looks. I love baskets in general, but especially artsy and carefully crafted ones, in contrast to the more common and commercial kinds you see on sale by the hundreds in large craft stores.   Mind you, even those "commercial" baskets are all hand made, no basket weaving machine has yet been invented, as an interesting NY Time article on basket making states.  Someone sat for hours and crafted reed, grasses, willow branches or whatever local material, into these holdall containers.  A basket represents a deep connection between its maker and her surrounding ecosystem from which her material comes.  Baskets as an art form are the special ones, where you get a deeper sense of the craftsperson behind it.  More of the artist's soul flowed into her craft because there is more self-expression.    A few years ago, in Alaska, I discovered the beautiful baleen baskets, which were a little out of my price range to say the least.  Basket making as a true art form can be breathtakingly extraordinary.  

            But I enjoy my more modest treasures just as much because they add a certain raw beauty to the otherwise modern lines of my home and accessories.  Slight irregularities and imperfections can only be found in handmade objects and give them a sort of soul in contrast to the predictability of a factory made item. 

on fire

Cooking on electric or gas?   I have always preferred cooking on fire (gas, that is), even though it meant remaining with a fossil fuel when I had the choice of going electric.  Cooking on gas is of course very different from cooking on an actual wood fire, the way famed chef Francis Mallman has perfected it. Yet, it's one step closer to actual fire cooking than cooking on an electric stove, which seems more abstract because the fire element is gone.  When I cook I actually look at the size of the flame when turning up or down.   Cooking on gas gives me the feeling that I have a more direct relationship with my heat source, more control.  I see the fire, and I see if the flame is big or small, and can gauge my heat source in a more direct, perhaps more primitive way.

We humans have a special relationship with fire.  Fire is something primal.  Staring into a fire is mesmerizing, whether in a fireplace, into a candle or outdoors.  Fire, just like other nature elements, can be destructive and constructive.  Maybe there is a bit of tension in managing a fire so it's safe, so it can warm us, so we can cook our food with it, so we feel in charge of it.

This past weekend we sat outside by a fire after dark. A friend was watching my husband, who has mastered the art of making a fire, tending to it, adding to it, managing it, reviving it, and finally letting it die down peacefully, and was in awe of the quiet, yet steady and ongoing process to keep it going gently.  Natalie Wolchover writes that indigenous people, in contrast to us Westerners, only retain their fire fascination until they have managed fire. We Westerners don't necessarily have a very close relationship with fire, especially not with open fire, as our friend realized.   I don't know either how to properly start a barbecue, how to make a fireplace fire, how to start and manage an outdoor fire.   Is that why I feel a closer relationship to cooking on gas?  Is that Western fire fascination due to my inability to manage an actual outdoor fire?  What do you prefer, gas or electric?  And why?

your WOW experience

A Wow Experience is when you are completely in the moment, enthralled, getting a sense that you're connected to something bigger, and experience utter joy and meaning.    We have all had Wow Experiences, and all we want is more Wow Experiences.

A few weeks ago I had a Wow Day.  The people I met that day, our mutual missions, what we did - all seemed to be in complete alignment with the universe and with me. The energy that day was just flowing, everything seemed easy and joyful, and as if things were exactly how they were meant to be.  I was on Cloud 9.  May I please have another one of those?

How about you? Have you had a Wow Experience or a Wow Day lately?

it's blowing

Now that our air-conditioning is finally back, the wind has shifted (that’s what Mary Poppins said - she was going to stay until the wind shifted). It's blowing outside and it's blustery, although day temperatures are still warmish, but the nights are all of a sudden much cooler, the days are noticeably shorter, and I switch the outside lights on much earlier now. The vibe is definitely shifting into fall.   Nice change to put something long-sleeved on.  

What I like so much about the seasonal weather differences is that it causes a change in the wardrobe (less white and bright, longer sleeves and tighter shoes), a change in cooking (less raw, more cooked), beverage (less rosé, more tea and cocoa) and food patterns (no more peaches and apricots, instead squash and late season tomatoes), a change in activities (done with beach and swimming, more hiking now), a change in overall mood (less bright and light, more melancholic and a bit dimmer).  And soon I won't have to protect my garbage can from the bears by strapping it shut, and the bird feeders can go back out, although that's still a bit away.

The seasonal weather changes make my life so much richer, so much more diverse, so much more interesting.   It’s like a new mini start, a bit of a new beginning, a creative impulse. I look forward to the winds blowing, pulling out my sweaters, cozying up with tea and a good book, or taking a long bath.  Here's to fall, which begins officially tomorrow.

stress help

We all lead busy lives, times are complex and even confusing - yet some people remain calm and deal with it, others not so much.  Do you get stressed or are you taking life in stride?  

Tieraona Low Dog, MD and herbalist, explained on Nick Polizzi's new nine-part series on herbalism, The Sacred Science that we all deal with busy lives but can only eliminate some, not all stressors.  Dealing with stress is instead mostly about resilience, the better way of adapting to the busyness of modern life.  Yet, some of us could use some gentle help, and not of the pharmaceutical kind.

We are discovering, or rediscovering, potent botanical remedies without side effects, that in some cases have been used for hundreds and even thousands of years, but have fallen by the wayside because they were supplanted by pharmaceuticals (that are costly and have side effects).  None of the botanicals have side effects, all of them can be taken long term, none of them are exorbitantly pricey, and you do not need a prescription, although it may pay to see an herbalist in more complex cases.

Adaptogens are herbs that promote resilience and reduce cortisol levels, the fight or flight response, over time.  The most well known adaptogen is perhaps ashwaganda, but there is also tulsi aka holy basil, ginseng, maca and some others.  Ashwaganda root can easily be taken in capsule or tincture form, and is slow acting, so takes effect over several weeks and months.

Then there are the nervines, botanicals such as valerian, hops, skullcap and kava kava that quiet the monkey mind. Kava has been made into a milky beverage in the South Pacific islands for ceremonial purposes for hundreds of years.  Now that people are discovering the beneficial and calming effects of it, kava bars are sprouting up in many places.  Its preparation in tea form is a bit lengthy, hence better suited for get togethers than perhaps everyday supplementation. But it’s also available in capsule form.

The new darling CBD Oil or cannabidiol, which doesn’t have the psychoactive substance of cannabis, besides relaxing, is also used for many other ailments from anxiety to epilepsy, pain management and more.  For those more complex ailments, dosage should be prescribed by a knowledgeable healthcare professional.  However, to take the edge off stress or anxiety, CBD Oil can safely be taken, in order of effectiveness, vaped, under the tongue, or rubbed on the skin.

Homeopathy is another gentle and effective way to help with stress, but self-medication is not recommended. Determination of the best remedy is more complicated and should be prescribed by an experienced homeopathic practitioner, and taken in the proper dosage.

the elephant in the room

Recently, I was not only asked to do some writing for producer Dena Barnett's upcoming documentary, Spiritual Healing: A New Frontier, but also to contribute a statement regarding the elephant in the room.

Which elephant, you may ask.  Well, if Spiritual Healing promises such good results why does it have such difficulty finding acceptance, credibility and traction?  The answer is two-fold and lies in the elephant so to speak.  

First, Spiritual Healing is low-tech and low cost - it costs nothing beyond the practitioner’s time, and requires no technology or other salable “props.”  Hence, if Spiritual Healing became widely accepted and gained traction, it would dismantle parts of the medical-industrial complex, which relies on people being ill, and the enormous reoccurring revenues from doctor’s visits, procedures, and pharmaceuticals that come with it.  Our culture is more profit than wellness driven, and there is enormous resistance to this shift from a financial perspective. 

Second, Spiritual Healing operates within the unseen aspect of our earthly existence, that of consciousness, and consciousness has thus far been science's, and our general cultural underpinning’s, "elephant in the room.”  Science, and the medical establishment in particular, has as yet not been willing to openly investigate the connection between consciousness and illness, and how the mind influences the body’s well or ill being.  Consciousness is the elephant in the room that scientists don't dare to mention for fear of being discredited.  

When we turn this tide, when the scientific and medical establishments openly acknowledge that consciousness influences matter, and not the other way around, that healing and ill being happen on the mental plane, it will be a momentous paradigm shift in human consciousness evolution so big we can't even predict all the implications to our way of life.

Here a related earlier post on healing eras and energy medicine.

an agricultural act

What you eat is of course closely linked to your health because your body transforms what you eat into energy, and the better the quality of the food (less pesticides and nutrient rich soil), the better your energy and your body's ability to repair its cells and self-heal.

But eating, as Wendell Berry, the great environmental activist and poet, said, is also an agricultural act.  As such it is just as closely linked to the health of our environment through the way we practice agriculture, as it is to your own health.  So what you eat has vast implications.  

You may think that on an individual level eating a conventional versus a sprayed pear may not make much of a difference.  But think about the implications of what 325 million people, the current US population, eat. It makes a difference if you grow your own pears, buy conventional (sprayed with pesticides and artificially fertilized) or organic pears (more natural ways to prevent pests and enrich the soil).  Last year the US produced 737,500 tons of pears.  Growing all of those pears is a huge agricultural act.  And even if less than 10% of those pears are not sprayed with poison, not subject to chemical fertilizer, it does make a difference.  And if the percentage of organic pears produced and purchased each years keeps growing, it makes the world a healthier place. And you are part of that difference.

the kindness virus

My heart melts and I so want to help when someone is kind and comes to me with a big smile and open eyes.  Kindness, that great companion to compassion, is what we need lots more of.  We need kindness to each other, kindness to our Earth, kindness for people we don't know, kindness to animals, all of it. Kindness is uplifting and even healing. 

If love is the ultimate healing energy, then kindness is the little healer. Kindness promotes expansion, brakes down barriers, makes things easier, facilitates communication, fosters cooperation. The great thing about kindness is that it's contagious, as CNN reported recently.  Wouldn't it be great if we all got infected by this lovely virus?