a light bulb

The other night I noticed that one of my headlights was out.  When I called our auto mechanic in the morning the recording said that they were closed for the week.  My mind went into a whirlwind of how not to drive after dark for a week to avoid getting a ticket.  Then my husband disappeared into the basement. When he came back 15 minutes later, he handed me a small lightbulb and asked me to buy a replacement at Autozone. It cost me a few dollars, and my car was back in business in minutes.  

We live in an age of information, transparency, do-it-yourself, and availability of just about anything that was previously only accessible to professionals. It’s empowering and puts us in the driver seat.  In the past I would have had to wait for the shop to reopen a week later to get the headlight fixed and it would have cost a lot more than a few dollars.  Whether it’s about purchasing specialty items or acquiring information – the availability of pretty much anything to pretty much everybody gives us agency and puts us in charge.  We’re no longer helpless, or at the mercy of a professional’s hocus pocus, and perhaps even price gauging.  We can find out for ourselves and direct a desired outcome like never before.   

In the wellness arena we’re becoming the project managers of our health with the help of publicly available information – no more Gods in the white coats. We can have a productive dialogue with the providers and jointly decide on the best course of action. When we built our house a few years ago we researched construction methods, mechanical systems, and renewable energy options, and were able to have a productive dialogue with the architect and contractor and make informed decisions.

Times have changed. You’ve been empowered.

your home, your sanctuary

Your home is your sanctuary and in our insane and crazy world needs to be your refuge.  When we moved to our new house a few years ago, my husband insisted on asking people to take their shoes off in the entrance foyer as a way to keep the street dirt out.  I resisted it, somewhat, for many years when having people over because for me the shoes complete the outfit.  A fine dress worn with slippers, or walking around on socks in a suit, looks unfinished and comical to me.  Moreover, I felt less comfortable asking people in a business setting to remove their shoes. But in lots of countries people take their shoes off before entering the home, and many repair people slip shoe protectors on when coming inside in order to keep the floors clean and unmarred by grit and rough soles.  

Times have become more informal.  We don’t have “silver”or a formal china set anymore for festive occasions.  It’s all the same, although the table setting can be more or less elaborate.  Along the lines of greater informality, I am slowly making friends with giving up the formal matching-shoes-look as an example to those who come visit – whether for business or pleasure.  

Our regulars already know the routine, and some of them even bring their own slippers.  Meanwhile, I have a drawer full of washable spa slippers to encourage new visitors to take their shoes off at the door - no pressure.  

Our home, our sanctuary.

too overwhelming?

Climate change can seem like such an overwhelming issue, and it’s easy to throw your arms up and believe that you can’t do anything about it.  It’s just so big.

Let’s begin then at the other end, with our relationship with nature.  Climate change is a result of our complete disconnection from the natural world.  But what, if not nature, is it that nourishes us and supports our life here on earth?  If our planet earth turned into a desert, into a swamp, into a flooded ocean, or the skies turned murky and gray with pollution, we would perish.  If, on the other hand, our soils are rich, the weather temperate and somewhat predictable, the air and our water are clean, then we can live a beautiful life.  And that has everything to do with each one of us.  With you!

Just refraining from throwing a paper cup out of the car window onto the road, just refraining from carelessly accepting a plastic straw and discarding it after one use, just refraining from idling your car while you bring out the trash or sit on the parking lot waiting for someone, just refraining from buying water in throw-away plastic bottles, just refraining from accepting another single use plastic bag  – makes a difference.  That tiny difference sends a signal that you care.  And maybe next time you’ll care a bit more, and then a bit more yet.  And that’s how you make a difference, and that’s how every movement begins.  When someone cares. 

We can all do something about working towards a more sacred relationship with nature, a relationship that honors and respects it. That’s where healing climate change begins.

so powerful, so freeing

Wesley became paralyzed from the waist down as a result of a shooting seven years ago.  Yet, today he comes across as joyful, with a sense of purpose and a sparkle in his eyes, and he has founded two organizations to empower people with disabilities.  No grudges, no blaming his attacker.

You can watch his story on the Netflix series Queer Eye S4E2, where the high point comes when he actually meets the guy who shot him.  Not only do they both admit their role in the episode, they both forgive each other and are freed of the trauma that has accompanied them for seven years.  Moreover, and amazingly, Wesley thanks his attacker for turning his life around.  Wow! Now that is karmic redemption at its most profound.  

Sometimes your deepest trauma can also carry your biggest message of wisdom  – of forgiveness or otherwise.  Here a previous post on forgiveness.

our holographic existence

“Supernormal aspects of human consciousness are far too important to be marginalized, derided, deliberately misinterpreted, attacked unfairly, or dismissed out of hand,” writes British physicist, author, cosmologist and visionary Jude Currivan in her most recent book The Cosmic Hologram.  

For too long science got the better of us and we shoved the whole invisible aspect of our existence basically under the rug.  But it’s making a comeback – indigenous people never lost it, and prior to the 1700s we had it as well.  Ultimately our unseen reality is so much more important than we realize.   Whether you are interested in meditation, creative visualization, energy healing, telepathy, your own emotional life and psychology, or actually the new physics, we begin to open up to the idea that we are so much more than a body with a brain.  As a matter of fact, scientists still can’t find the spirit in the brain.  Phenomena such as distance healing, spontaneous remission, synchronicity, premonitions, near death experiences all create a scientific headache because they can’t be explained within the rigid parameters we have set for science, nor can they be researched and tested with conventional Newtonian methods.

Shakti Gawain’s New Age classic Creative Visualization from 1978 was probably the first bestselling book on how to conjure up what you want to manifest in your life.   Meanwhile, so many newer authors are all writing about the same thing, whether Rhonda Byrne ( The Secret), Mike Dooley (Infinite Possibilities) , Jennifer Grace (Directing Your Destiny) and many others.

Dr. Currivan’s book ends with the statement that “consciousness isn’t something we have, but that it’s something we and the whole world are,”  while French philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin said that we are spiritual beings in a physical body.  Once we remove the wool from over our eyes and make this shift in our minds that thought creates matter, the possibilities become endless.  See a previous related post here. 

eating clean?

Clean Eating?  As we become more interested in how we eat, and the implications on our body and health, we also begin to understand that

·     Food that is not made for immediate consumption, whether canned, packaged, frozen, or processed in some way or another, has to be treated and made differently from food that is made fresh from scratch in order to last and be tasty.  

·     Restaurant and take-out foods are also prepared differently from homemade food.  We seem to expect more intense flavors, hence more salt, sugar and fat are often used, and sometimes even MSG as a flavor enhancer. Recently a restaurant and take-out place opened in NYC that advertised offering “Clean Chinese,” inferring that Chinese food in general may be sugary and MSG laced.  Sure enough, Chinese restaurateurs were in uproar over the generalized inference.  

Clean eating has become a term for unadulterated food made without stabilizers, preservatives, flavor enhancers, added vitamins, food coloring, or other additives – food without side effects. If you don’t buy processed foods to use in your home cooking (remember the recipes from the 60s that called for canned mushroom soup as a casserole ingredient?)  you eat clean by default.   Clean eating is easier on your body and the liver, our filter, in particular.  Clean eating assures a better distribution between calories and actual nutritional value since many ingredients in processed foods of any kind have no intrinsic nutritional value (such as minerals, trace elements, vitamins, chlorophyll, or fiber) but are there to create flavor and maintain shelf life.  Clean eating provides a more authentic and direct taste simply with the primary ingredients of a dish. Is it surprising that clean eating is more colorful as well?

In short, clean eating gives you more bang, meaning health, for the buck.  

empty nesting testing

Our son went off to college four years ago, our daughter just flew off for a 3-week vacation, and we are now practicing empty nesting ahead of next month when she leaves for college as well.

Prior to retirement from the corporate world some companies offer retirement rehearsal and practice retirement.   While we are a long way from retirement, this is a bit similar in that we will have more time for our own activities, whether business, personal or relationship wise. And now, while our daughter is away for the next three weeks we get to rehearse empty nesting. No more making school breakfasts and school lunches, no more school concerts, college info sessions or visits, or any of the other activities that went with having high schoolers at home. No more wondering whether they’ll be here for dinner or not, and if the cats have been fed and their litter boxes cleaned (I get to do that part now).   Less laundry and less food shopping.  Less silly texting with my daughter, and less nerve ringing when the text tone chimes, wondering what’s going on now.  Freeeeeeeeeee…………. to do other stuff. 

I hope to change my morning routine to incorporate a short meditation practice before getting ready for work.  I hope to have a bit more mid-week fun, as we did before children when we regularly had people over, went out with friends right after work, or did a free museum night.  And I already know that I will appreciate the children even more when I see them again after a longer absence. 

summertiiiiiime…..

.…and the livin’ is easy, goes the first line of Gershwin’s famous song from Porgy and Bess.  After a cool and rainy spring, and a slow start to the summer (all fine for my Northern constitution) real summer is finally here.

Summer energy is so different from the other seasonal energies, and I am so glad to be living in a place where I get to experience these four distinct energies every year again.  Summer energy is light.  Summer energy is carefree.  Summer energy is joyful.  Summer energy is abundant.  Summer energy is vibrant.  Whether swimming and being at the beach, whether wearing bright and light colors, whether enjoying lighter foods and drinks, or nature’s abundance in flowers and produce, there is something exuberant about summer energy.

May you feel it, may it pervade your life, may you enjoy it to the fullest for the next two months.

Since summer invites a lesser workload, this will also serve as an abbreviated substitute newsletter to let you know that July and August food workshops are up on my website in case you need a joyful infusion of creative cooking and food inspiration in the next two months.

no name dinners

“What’s for dinner tonight?” Oftentimes the answer in my house in the early evening is, “I don’t know yet.”  Once I’ll take stock of fridge and pantry, and if I’m really desperate also the freezer, I’ll see what’s there and decide what I can make of it.  Often what I cook and put together doesn’t have a name, such as eggplant or chicken parm,  stuffed zucchini, or perhaps salmon on a bed of leeks.  As a matter of fact, what I mostly make is no-name dishes, something you can’t look up in a cookbook because I just made it up from what I had.

You see, I usually work backwards.  Instead of making a list of dishes for the week ahead and shopping for the ingredients, I shop for what’s in season, on sale, available, fresh, or what tickles my fancy and inspiration, then fill my fridge, pantry and freezer with possibilities.  

Last night I was in a pickle working late and having to put dinner on the table fast.  My trick is always to have meal building blocks at the ready.  I had a portion size baggie of cooked and thawed sorghum, some leftover sautéed red and yellow peppers from the previous night’s dinner, and a wedge of a Mexican fresh cheese they called Mexican Parmesan (ahem – not the same, more like Feta cheese without the sheep’s zing) to play with.  Thinking quinoa salad, which you can really make with just about anything, I made a sorghum/cubed cheese/sautéed peppers/diced shallots meal salad with a simple vinaigrette.  No name, made up on the spot, very healthy, very nourishing and satisfying.  With a few basic building blocks, a few basic techniques, and the dare to throw some things together, you’re on your way to making no-name dinners in a jiffy.  Add some fruit for dessert, add a piece of fish, some sautéed tofu or a piece of meat if you like, and you have full meal. Some no-name dinners will be better than others, but hey, they’re fun, fun, fun and so easy to make - and you won’t have to buy take-out.

sacred sleep therapy

My husband was quite unhappy with our daughter’s explanation that her teenage biorhythms prevented her from being able to sleep before midnight, resulting in about 6 hours of sleep on school nights.  I need my 8 hours of sleep, or something close to it.  I simply don’t function well with much less, while my husband does ok when he works late a few nights in a row.  

We all have different sleep needs and different biorhythms our culture suffers from sleep deprivation in general.  Due to cultural pressures and false role models we simply try to stuff too much into a 24 hour day, and our mental and physical wellbeing suffer.  Sleep is not a waste of time even though it consumes about a third of your life.  Sleep is actually productive even though passive. Sleep is therapy, physical and mental. Physically, it is during sleep that our cells heal and regenerate.  Mentally, we digest in our subconscious what we experienced during the day.  

Arianna Huffington, founder and editor of the Huffington Post, researched and wrote theThe Sleep Revolution “after collapsing from exhaustion” a few years ago. Huffington writes: “Sleep is a time of intense neurological activity—a rich time of renewal, memory consolidation, brain and neurochemical cleansing, and cognitive maintenance. Properly appraised, our sleeping time is as valuable a commodity as the time we are awake. In fact, getting the right amount of sleep enhances the quality of every minute we spend with our eyes open. Here are links to her sleep-quality questionnaire, and to her 12 tips for better sleep.  How do you fare?  

Sleep is restoration time, make it sacred.  Make your bedroom your sanctuary that feels peaceful and protected, quiet and calm.  No TVs and tablets, but rather tisane and fresh air, a good book, and a mechanical alarm clock so you can leave your phone outside.