slowness

Which is not my strong suit, in case any of you have noticed. Although, after living in a schedule of someone else's making for 7 years, the result is, i am looking for my own rhythm and speed, like water searches its own level. And, surprise, surprise, I find I am actually slower than I thought. Or was. And, I am still speedy too. Patience, for example, I still don't have, although the entire universe and the country of Germany are conspiring to teach me this one. But moving so fast for 7 years has paradoxically produced in me the capacity and wish for slowness. And the hand made life, whatever that turns out to be, requires time. Spinning, weaving, bead making, everything that is real and made of real things has a story and a life and is embedded in a world that I am a part of. Learning how to weave a basket out of cattails means, I have to harvest them, dry them, soak them, and then I can try to weave them. I harvested them almost 2 weeks ago and they are still drying, in all of this rainy weather, in our bathroom. I find that I have many projects all in a flow of process and in different stages of creation or destruction. And everything moves at its own rhythm. And each thing I work with "out there" has its resonance "in here". Slowness means letting everything take the time it takes, not pushing or forcing. Letting loose whatever bonds I discover, again and again, within my own belly.

I am reading David Suzuki's The Sacred Balance right now, in which he talks about how we got so far from connected- to the earth, to each other, to ourselves- through our culture of science and consumerism. He talks about recovering a worldview that is made up of the realization of practical interconnectedness with the 4 elements plus biodiversity as the 5th. A worldview is defined by anthropologists as "a story whose subject for each group is the world and everything in it, a world in which human beings are deeply and inextricably immersed. Each worldview was tied to a unique locale and people with spirits and gods...Stars, clouds, forests, oceans, and human beings are interconnected components of a single system in which nothing can exist in isolation." He points out that once we have disconnected ourselves from the sources we need to make a life- clean air, water, soil, our own capacity for the hand made, "we imagine a world under our control and will risk or sacrifice almost anything to make sure our way of life continues." But, "the challenge now is to use these techniques (of computers, science, engineering and technology) to rediscover our conections to time and space, our place in the biosphere."

To quote another blogspot blogger, Bill Shefel, "I first heard the term "the handmade life" from Clarissa Pinkola Estes' telling of the Hans Christian Anderson fairly tale The Red Shoes. In brief, the red shoes represent the glamor of the careerism, consumerism, acquisition and ambition. The wearer of the red shoes, though beginning with good intentions, is eventually "worn" by the shoes, swept into a life of speed one cannot control. Taking up the handmade life means taking off the shoes - an initially uncomfortable, disarming, confusing, lonely and very vulnerable process. It means saying "no" to a lot of things and saying "yes" to... slowness. Perhaps the foundation of recovering our connection to the "indigenous mind" is slowness...

We often ask what we can do in the face of war, environmental catastrophe, personal depression or even simple stress. The handmade life is always available to us as remedy and creative opportunity." (Check out his blog on my list to the right.)

My home base, ground level, hand made activity is cooking. It is always available, no matter where I am- I always ask to help in the kitchen while someone is cooking if I don't have access to one of my own. Cooking connects me not only to my own body, but the body of the human community and the more than human world as well as the regional tastes of what I cook and the soil, water, and sunlight from where the food grows. When I don't have a garden, can't find wool to spin, or don't take the time to sing, I can cook. And it takes time to cook. And I practice making something real and edible and nourishing out of some idea in my head or a book. Which I always need help with.

 Here is my friend, R's, recipe for dal. I think it is the best dal I have ever had. And, I got to watch her make it! She, of course, doesn't have a curry mix from the grocery store like most folks usually do, she just makes the curry in the pan while she is cooking. We used moong dal, the little yellow split mung beans. 


Cook the lentils separately in a pot or pressure cooker. We had maybe 2 cups uncooked lentils. All measurements are by your hand, meaning, you can put in however much your taste buds enjoy. However, as a comparison, when R was putting them into the pot she put not more than 1 tablespoon of anything. Between each addition of the spice mixture, saute for about 1 minute before going to the next ingredient (so, between sentences). Cook on quite a high heat, the oil should be very hot but not smoking.


For the spice mixture:
Melt the olive oil and ghee in the pot. When hot, add mustard seeds- they should sizzle and fry a bit in the oil. Add maybe 1 tsp hing (asafoetida).Then, add finely chopped green chili, 1 medium onion, small dice, and some curry leaves (maybe 15?) and stir. Add 2 cloves fresh pressed garlic and 1 Tablespoon finely chopped ginger. Add salt to bring out the juices from the onion. Add 1 Tablespoon turmeric. Add the amount of 1 tomato, crushed (from a can) or finely chopped (fresh) and saute 2 minutes. Add 1-2 tsp garam masala, 1 tsp dried ground red chili, 1 tsp ground coriander seed. Saute for 2 minutes. 


For the Dal:
Add the dal by large spoonfuls to incorporate into the spice mixture alternating with water. (Dal should be neither too thin nor too thick, it is supposed to go over the rice and not have water sitting at the bottom of the plate.) After all of the dal is added, taste for salt and correct. Lastly, add either fresh lemon juice or tamarind mixed with a bit of water and lots of fresh coarsely chopped coriander leaves. Allow to cook on very low heat until the dal is evenly warm and the flavors have had time to "marry"- about 10 minutes. Spoon over fresh cooked basmati rice and enjoy. Feeds maybe 4-6 people, depending on what else you have on the table.


R says that in India, when you eat at someone's house, you are fed and fed and fed- your plate always refilled and the host and hostess are always saying- eat! After the main meal, when the adults are talking, children are sent in to place snacks on the tables so that there will always be food available.


When did we forget the basic practices of hospitality? When did speed become more important than depth? When did quantity become more important than quality? When did we lose the holy responsibility of feeding one another and the ritual of slowing down to talk and share stories together, from our own lives and the Big Stories from our life as humans? When did spice mixes become preferred to the traditions of cooking? When talking with R she said that the food is different in every region of India and that each family has slightly different ways of making the food. She learned, of course, in her family how to make the food from her region. Literally, her mother tongue was her language and the tastes of her region. She has now learned how to make the food from her husband's region of Kerala and she is learning to speak the language. Dialects and customs change from region to region according to history, geography, geology, climate, what grows there to eat, and how it is prepared. It is the same here in Germany. Everyone speaks Hoch Deutsch, or high German, but each region has its own dialect and vernacular. The state of Hessen has its own dialect and each town has its particular pronunciation and words. There is, for eaxmple, "Krotzebojerisch" (that is how people from here call the dialect from Grosskrotzenburg- "Krotzeborsch"). I am learning not only the language of German, but also the regional dialect, cooking, and stories that come from this place. The fairy tales and Brother's Grimm are the old stories that come out of the wisdom of this very place.