A Fire in My Head

The Song of Wandering Aengus    
 W.B. Yeats

I WENT out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,	5
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.
When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,	10
But something rustled on the floor,
And someone called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran	15
And faded through the brightening air.
Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;	20
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun

Fire

from an email to a friend:

i am noticing with increasing sadness that my own fire is not nourished by the relationships i have here- no "fire friends" as it were- and missing those connections with friends from the states that were so often a specific and necessary nourishment to that part of me. and the landscape here is rather wet, and cold and in winter very dark, all of which does have a dampening effect on my spark. I have also realized that failing other opportunities,  i have been looking for fire-iness with [ ], which does not meet my needs, leaving me resentful and disappointed. i start things, bring spirit and soul and vision, have flare ups of creative fire and inspiration, am as ever passionate and 100percent about everything i am doing, and then unable to sustain it without the fuel i need, i fall back into a rather resigned sort of state where i think, ach, why bother...and then i am seized with such huge fear that my life will not be of use, that i will not realize my vision, that my fire will die. at which point,  i rally my reserves and throw myself into something else, which works short term, until i realize i am alone again and the fires cannot continue to burn without fuel. 

In my case, my fuel cannot only be self sustained or self created. i used to think that was a failure on my part, that if i could not be totally self sufficient in my creativity, passion and fire-iness, then i wasn't mature enough or productive enough or professional enough or too lazy or whatever. and i would bash myself about it, of course, and commit to being more disciplined and more accomplished and able to do more and finish more. and i am coming to see several things, first that my fire needs people, needs community in order to burn. that my fire is in the between spaces of relationship, co-creation and inspiration. cooking, yes, but for someone. learning herbs, yes, but out in the world with the plants rather than from books. my soul needs people, needs relationship, needs to fall in love over and over again every day with one small weed, or a friend, or a stranger, or my dog, or my wife, or whatever it is in that moment that brings me to life. 

and second my fire needs time without structure and if i am trying to be too structured, it will do everything to break out of it. This instinct for wildness and "ferality"- is that a word? feralness? anyway, you know what i mean is so strong. my soul needs to be in contact with the wild and if i cannot get to it in the outside world- because there isn't any or because i am physically unable to get there- which amounts to the same thing- then my fire takes over in her wild way and burns, sometimes destructively, because there is in me such a passionate longing and need in that moment to GET OUT of society, of my own thoughts, of physical and cultural structures, of whatever it is in that moment and i feel if i don't i will die. I wonder truly how i survived 8 years at a zen center!

It helps to have a dog with whom i get to go every day out for 1 or 2 hours to meadows and a bit of forest and a little brook. outside in every weather. and the water is always wild, the weeds, which i impulsively pick for food and medicine, are wild, the clouds and air are wild and the soil is wild. wild has become for me in the details of living here. even in the forests, there is no real wildness because, as i have written before, europe has no wilderness anymore. it is too small, and too lived in, people have used up and cut down and replanted the forests several times. the forest that now surrounds us is only several hundred years old, basically since the roman invasion and building of forts stopped. and it is still being logged and replanted, like a great farm. i miss bear and coyote and wolf. i miss being out on the land and not hearing cars and planes. i miss walking on small meandering paths through forests and not logging roads with restaurants at all points of overlook. the fire of the land has been reduced to a smolder. Freya, the old germanic name for the goddess here, has been completely forgotten in favor of Rome's "civilization" followed by her "christianization" of the peoples here. There were, once 700 years ago, native peoples here on this land. I miss them and i want them here, i want my own indigenousness awake and alive with others.

i feel like moving here has taught me and continues to teach me so much about myself, about how i am and accepting that and stopping on ever subtler levels trying to change myself. stop trying to put out my fire or get me to be more focused or accomplished or whatever and see what i am doing and am accomplishing and am bringing into the world. the bodywork is starting, i have roughly one session per week, and that feels really good and i am getting good feedback. and tai chi is good. and my spiritual practice flows with the land and the brook and the green plants and the ancestors and the wind and the holiness of this life energy coursing through it all. 

More to the theme...

From Lierre Keith's book The Vegetarian Myth

Defend the soil with your life, reader: there is no other organism that can touch the intelligence of what goes on beneath your feet.

So here are the questions you should ask, a new form of grace to say over your food. Does this food build or destroy topsoil? Does it use only ambient sun and rainfall, or does it require fossil soil, fossil fuel, fossil water, and drained wetlands, damaged rivers? Could you walk to where it grows, or does it come to you on a path slick with petroleum?

…We've all built this world of gift and need, birth and return. To repair this planet, we must take our sustenance as part of those relationships instead of destroying them. We can pull the forest down or we can eat the deer that live there…All flesh is grass, wrote someone named Isaiah in a book I don't usually quote. In Hebrew, the word translated as "Flesh" is baser, meaning meat, something one eats.Isaiah understood what is no longer physically visible to us, living at the end of the world: we are all a part of one another, made from grass, become meat.

…To save the world we must first stop destroying it. Cast your eyes down when you pray, not in fear of some god above, but in recognition: our only hope is in the soil, and in the trees, grasses, and wetlands that are its children and its protectors both.

Life must kill and we are all made possible by the dead body of another. It's not killing that's domination: it's agriculture. The foods the vegetarians say will save us are the foods that destroy the world. The vegetarian attempt to remove humans from a paradigmatically pinnacle is commendable. And it's crucial. We will never take our true place, one sibling amongst millions, sharing a common journey from carbon to consciousness, sacred and hungry, then back to carbon, without firmly and forever rejecting human dominion.

Personally, I eat no sugar, no flour (of any kind unless I made it myself), no gluten, no pork, no cow milk (and right now no sheep or goat either), vegetable oils, soy (except occasional miso and tamari), agave, all packaged/produced products, and i am in the middle of doing an elimination diet to see what else is causing my face to be such a reactive mess and my gut to not heal (thereby causing secondary food sensitivities to things which i am not normally allergic, like goat milk). What i do eat- meat, organ meats (i am working my way to the hard core stuff- right now sauteed liver once in a while and heart comes in stews), fish, coconut, olive, and palm oils, ghee, all vegetables and fruits (basically, except for this testing period), gluten free grains, beans and lentils. and chocolate. I soak, sprout, ferment, and so forth vegetables, grains, beans, lentils, nuts and dried fruits. And I am looking into the whole grain thing very seriously to figure out how i can buy grains that are ecologically just and sound- for example from biodynamic farms only that are, even in the grain fields more of a polyculture than most, plowing with draft horses, often.  The good thing in my case, is that my face tells me right away if i have eaten something not healthy for me. it itches, burns, turns red and makes pustules. not pretty, but handy. And I am noticing I have a similar reaction on the soul level when I eat something not handmade, even if the ingredients are all things I can eat, I will still have a reaction.

This thing of becoming more and more sensitive is that it means I am less "fit for human consumption" or at least civilised consumption, as it were. It means going out to a restaurant is really hard, going to people's houses for parties- unless we share the same views, is hard. It means I have even a hard time selling certain products to folks in my shop, because I find them not so healthful. It means I remove myself from the mainstream of shopping, consuming craziness and return to a slower, more handmade, certainly hand cooked and more labor intensive way of life. We are starting a garden this year- finally- to grow as much of our own food as possible. We'll share it with 2 other women, so we won't grow enough for us all to eat and store for the winter, but we hope to grow a large portion of what we eat. I spend a lot of time and money on what I eat and where it comes from and how it is prepared. I invite people over for lunch or dinner, often. And we intend to spend time every day gardening and growing food, to close the circle a little bit and know where the things on our plate come from. I am looking for a dairy to get raw goat or sheep's milk and cheeses and we get lamb form a shepherd not far from here twice a year and pack it in the freezer. We just need to find beef and chicken now until we can have chickens of our own. So, We are trying to do what we can to get out of the petroleum greased food- even though we eat organic, it is not enough. we need to eat regional and grow things ourselves. and we need to eat bioregional- what grows here, really? What thrives without labor intensive techniques, without massive amounts of water that must be hauled to the garden. What can live here in a polyculture of vegetables and provide for us during the growing season. 

And the most important question- where can we build a compost pile?! 

As inspiration and concrete examples of how to live well on a small amount of land, producing food for 2500 families, 10 restaurants and 25 stores (not that you'll want to grow that much, but he has done all that on 10 acres), here is Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms, the guru of the sustainable animal farm movement.

And a delicious recipe that is not difficult, it just needs to be started 2 days before you want to eat it for fermentation time.

Dosa (indian pancakes from fermented lentil and rice batter) from sally fallon's book.Yum.

1 Cup Lentils (Urad Dal, if you can find it)

2 Cups long grain Brown Rice

Warm filtered water

2 Tablespoons Whey or Lemon Juice

1 tsp Salt

about 1/3 Cup Ghee (clarified Butter)

wash lentils and rice separately and place them in separate bowls to soak. Cover each with warm water, add 1 T whey or lemon juice and leave overnight in a warm place. In the morning, drain the lentils and rice and puree them in the food processor with a little water until smooth. Mix lentils with warm water and salt, it should have the consistency of heavy cream. Cover and leave another 24 hours in a warm place. 

To cook, heat a heavy cast iron skillet and brush with ghee. Ladle about 1/4 cup batter into the pan and either tip the pan to spread the batter, or push the ladle in a spiral outwards to spread the batter. It should be relatively thin, like a crepe. Let the one side be completely brown and crispy before you try to turn it- about 5 minutes- or it will only stick to the pan and be very annoying. Flip and cook the other side not as long.

fill with either curried potatoes or vegetables and eat with chutney and yoghurt. yum.

Another reason why I am not a vegetarian

Please, please, please, read this book- this woman is on fire. She is so stunning, so alive, so right on. She makes me weep with such confirmation, the deep sadness of the truth, and such sisterhood. She says exactly what I think only better and with more facts. The Vegetarian Myth by Lierre Keith. And visit her website, full of talks and interviews, while you are waiting for the mail, it is also a great resource. Please, for your own health and for the planet, read this book. It is way uncomfortable and totally challenging, but it is accurate.

And then, if you have been a vegetarian especially, start thinking about or experimenting with eating like this or like this. I know, i am little bit on the bandwagon, the soapbox, all fired up and explosively alive with THE ANSWER. But, don't mind that part, just chock it up to my youthful idealism and let it go. Spend the energy instead on growing food or finding people who do in your area and volunteering time to make some serious changes in your watershed.

"What grows where you live? Ask it and you'll see. To answer you will have to know the place you live. And if your food, your survival, is dependent upon the place that starts at your beating heart and extends as far as your legs can walk in a day, you will have to learn about rivers and forests, soil and rain."Lierre Keith

Brigid's well

February 2, Candlemas, Brigid's day, Imbolc, Lichtmess. The day of the return of spring. In a quiet, unremarkable and often snow bedeckt way, the spring arrives. The sap begins to flow, the crocuses, daffodils and tulips, all begin to poke their green noses out of the earth smelling the change in daylight. Snowbells bloom suddenly when the snow melts, they are revealed in their perfect miniature whiteness, those daughters of snow.

The days are noticeably longer, light begins to return. And although, as I heard last night in my class on the sexual organs, Vitamin D is not available to folks at our latitude between October and April because the UV rays can't reach us due to the curve of the earth, still, the light begins to reach the eyes. Which does a lot for one's mood and general health.

Speaking of which, I just did a three day green smoothie cleanse with nic and a friend and am now embarking on a full on elimination diet to figure out what could still be causing my plethora of digestive and skin issues. At least 28 days long, we'll see by the end what I have learned. I am generally following the very good advice and mapped out plan for the elimination diet by Ali and Tom at Whole Food Nutrition. They have a great blog full of recipes too, not only for the elimination diet but also good gluten free, refined sugar free yumminess. Between that and Weston A Price, I am doing yet another layer of research into nutrition and health.

The ultimate intention, apart from healing my own issues, is to be able to offer guidance and support for others who want to do such a diet, heal their bellies, eat real food, and my newest interest, heal cavities.

Sugar

Hello dears, please, please, please watch this video. It is long- 1.5 hours, but vitally important. It is the anatomical/physiological reason why I do not eat sugar and you should not either. I did not know this when I stopped eating it a year ago, but I did know I was addicted to it and it made me fat and bloated and cranky. If you are not addicted to sugar (which i don't believe, but i'll give you the benefit of the doubt) then splurge once in a while(say, birthday cake), but otherwise don't eat it. Instead of sugar, I eat fresh, cooked, or dried fruit, honey, maple syrup, and rice syrup and I feel very different after eating these things than when I ate sugar. Here is why: Sugar:The Bitter Truth.

Snow

It is finally winter here in Germany after an early visit from Spring over Christmas. It has snowed several days in a row and things are looking decidedly wintry, which I am grateful for. I can hear the earth settling in finally for a rest and the trees and birds finally joining in the silence and deep waiting of winter. Somehow, with it being this cold and snowy, I allow myself the time to cook, to stay indoors, and to be quieter. because of last weeks unseasonally warm temperatures and the welcome visit of 5 days of sun (unbelievable!)we had such a fit of spring cleaning and cabin fever that everything whipped up into action around here- moving furniture, throwing papers away that have been piled up and not looked at for the entire year of 2012, the commitment- again- to consuming less and having less and overcoming both of our inheritances of "eclectic stuff piling up on every flat surface" and the "inability to throw things away for sentimental reasons" and keep the house devoid of said piles and extraneousness.

I have been cooking lots of buckwheat crepes, or Galette, filled with savory things like kale in a goat cheese sauce with green tomato chutney. And I received a Kitchen-Aid from my loving parents for my belated birthday present and plan on baking lots of gluten free, sugar free, cow dairy free cakes. Spanish almond tort, beet and chickpea cake (which I have already baked and is amazing) greek walnut cake, something with poppy seeds, and so forth.

And I thought I would include the recipe for the Dessert I made last night. YUM!
Apple Puree with Almond Butter Vanilla Sauce

For the apple puree:
4-8 (depending on size) apples of several different varieties-  If you can find old varieties from the farmer's market that would be best. Otherwise, Boskop, Macintosh, Braeburn, Fiji, whatever floats your boat.
Juice from one half a lemon
Nutmeg to taste

Peel and core the apples. Chop half of them and put them into a pan with a bit of water covering the bottom. Bring to a boil, cover, and let sit until cool. Grate the other half of the apples and leave them raw. When the cooked apples are cool, add the grated apple, lemon juice and Nutmeg and puree with desired implement.

For the sauce:
1/2 cup almond butter
1 cup water
Honey to taste
Vanilla to taste

Slowly add the water to the almond butter, stirring well to incorporate the water as you go. Add honey and vanilla and heat over low heat just until the sauce thickens but long before it boils.

Portion apple puree in bowls and pour over the warm almond butter sauce.

Tonight after dinner we are going to make hot apple cherry juice with mulling spices and watch a movie, perfect for a snowy evening.






 

Going Feral

Lost

Stand still.The trees ahead and bushes beside you

Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,

And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,

Must ask it permission to know it and be known.

The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,

I have made this place around you.

If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.

No two trees are the same to Raven.

No two branches are the same to Wren.

If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,

You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows

Where you are. You must let it find you.

David Wagoner

Renewing my commitment to spending time at least out of doors into whatever green I can, if not completely out of reach or out of ear shot of trains, cars, and people. Playing with the idea of  Friday Foray, in which I go out, regardless of weather, to be with the Ravens, Wrens, Trees and Bushes and further my knowing and being known. To harvest plants or to just spend time with the green ones and the brook and the sky and the Mouse Buzzard. And then maybe posting about it to keep me honest and to reflect on and report what I have heard and been touched by. And also longing desperately and deeply for mountains and wilderness and hatching plans for when and how as soon as possible to get out into them. Anyway, that is what is important for me at the start of the new year- spending more time outside, committing afresh to study and spiritual practice, and giving energy to my Tai Chi and bodywork practice. Blessings.

It is like this every year, isn't it, honey?

The end of the year closes in on us, as it does every year. I have had my usual holiday overwhelm from too much food and people and am now in a sort of half-retreat, studying plant medicine and walking in the meadows. However, this year I did not have the health crisis I did last year! Hooray! I have eaten no sugar for one year and I made it through Christmas in Germany without eating sugar, cow milk, gluten and pork.

At first, I had no intention of making cookies, not having eaten them for a year, but then about a week before Christmas I gave in and made Buckwheat gingerbread men, thank you to the fabulous simply sugar and gluten free website. And I made chocolate covered toasted almond haystacks with orange peel and cardamom and little balls of yumminess out of honey marzipan rolled with a mix  of dates, raisins, and apricots, spices, and cocoa. Yum. And my dear friends and family went along and cooked only things I can eat. So there was no sugar hangover and no weight gain and no having to say, i am sorry but I cannot eat that. What a relief. And I received as a belated birthday present from my beloved parents who came to visit for 12 days, a Kitchen-aid! Hooray! Now I can cook, bake, and later make ice cream from coconut milk once I buy the ice cream bowl. Life is good.

And I had my usual Christmas religious/spiritual confusion and Great Doubt, as it is called in Buddhism. After growing up the first 9 years of my life with no church of any kind and a secular Christmas, and then the next 7 years with weekly church visits (which I never found meaningful and would sit in the back of the church using sign language to talk with my friends) and then the years of my early twenties where I explored religion, spirituality and mysticism, practicing yoga, reading Joseph Campbell, moving to Santa Fe and finally moving into a Buddhist Center, it is all rather jumbled up. (Oh and we still had a secular Christmas complete with tree and presents in the Buddhist Center!) So, every year when Christmas comes around, the secular celebrations of feasting together and giving gifts, and the returning of the light as the days grow longer, still hold meaning for me. But I never know what to do with the religious overlay/underlay with the whole thing and end up feeling very confused why I celebrate anything in the first place on the 25th, because that doesn't have any spiritual meaning for me. There is always an underlying level of restlessness and questioning around this that doesn't have the time in stillness and meditation or walking in the forests that it needs to be with because of all of the cooking, shopping, eating etcetera.

But more will have to wait, because the sun is now shining for the first time in weeks there is a blue sky and I have to go out into it because it is truly the return of life at this latitude!
I promise, I'll write more soon.

Back

Writing again, a bit hesitantly, but also curious about what will come up out of this system that is me. My life is still full of the same components as 6 months ago- loving food and cooking it for people, spinning and knitting wool, learning about and from the plants around me, studying to be a naturopath, developing my bodywork practice of massage, Ortho-Bionomy®, energy work, practicing Chi Gong and Tai Chi, being with friends and making new ones, working at the little organic foods shop down the street, writing my plays (still the same one, it takes sooooo long), eating/healing with Rosacea and food allergies, giving time to my marriage with my wonderful wife, and moving with intention towards our vision of land and sheep and garden and working with girls who are victims of sex-trafficking.

I am touched, every day, by the beauty of this world, the fragility of it and of our species, overwhelmed, every day by our immense stupidity and the senseless destruction of our own environment and the non-sensical idea and therefore reality that we are separate from nature rather than an eating, sleeping, defecating, sexing animal, jus like all of the other mammals around us. Every day, I hunger for the remedy for this huge suffering , this gaping wound that we have inflicted upon ourselves and our world. I attempt to assuage this hunger with the above mentioned list, I attempt to feed beauty to this crack of despair always shining through whatever it is I am involved in. I practice every day, to remember, to not forget, the way it really is, where we really come from, and the real work of this lifetime. Maturation is not an easy task, soul level revolution is not easy to come by when living in this consumer plagued sleep of ours.

This is what hand made means- to remember, to always and again, remember. To remember that I am a part of this golden web of life- as all of us are, that my life- as everyone's is-, simply by the living of it and the struggle to stay awake and to offer beauty with each word, each meal, each conversation, each touch, is a part of the great work all of us have at this time to do. To allow this pain- the grief and despair at the "state of things" to pull me, as it always does, and as I always beg it to, to pull me down, into soul, into depth. Persephone-like, returning to the deeps, the dark, the ancestors, the dreams, the too-long-neglected parts of myself that are hungrily nipping at my feet, thighs, knees, for nourishment, for attention and recognition, for inclusion and integration. The call to go down and in must be answered, it is the only way for me to find wholeness, health, and heart in the face of such crushing mindless destruction (and the fight for the presidency).

So, here I am again, writing. Perhaps this next while will show the chronicle of my time through this part of the yearly cycle, Persephone's disappearance- her abduction, perhaps, but maybe also her answering of the call, of what is wild and dark and unseen and powerful in her. The call of renewal, of entering the cave of the Bear in hibernation- she who dreams the world again into life.

We are moving towards the darkest night of the year, moving towards the festivals of the light, moving towards the time of death, of cold, of white and gray and dark. We are moving towards the time of surviving the winter. The garlic is planted, the last Tomatoes hang on the plants, the snows are gathering, and the compost needs to be laid out on the gardens. I wonder, what will happen in this time of loss and renewal?

On Thriving

From an email to a friend

 I remember I said to you that I am lucky because I have this skin problem which forced me to eat this way to gain my health back. The korean buddhist teacher of my former teacher always used to say, bad karma is good karma, and this is a good example of it. Somehow, the human species just doesn't do things to take care of itself until things hurt or are sick- the same is true on the environmental level- it has to get to a crisis before we'll change our habits. And I think many women have the idea that they want to lose weight, usually first for vanity reasons (i know it always was with me, and i still check out my stomach every morning to see if it is bigger or smaller, some habits die hard, if at all). I always wanted to lose weight and be thinner and, in my mind, more beautiful. And I also wanted to be healthy, but not as much as I wanted to be beautiful, which in my idea meant thinner and in better shape. And interestingly, although I tortured myself with self incrimination, the longing to be thinner or in better shape and the hating of the fat on my body never, ever, got me to lose weight. I always just kept eating yummy food, enjoying it and continued along being miserable afterwards.

Now that I have done years of healing around my eating issues and worked with my own feelings of self-judgment and self-hate to the extent that I can honestly say that I love myself, I have the opportunity to work with this skin problem of mine on a "physical" level. (Though, of course, nothing is only physical.) But now coming from the physical health standpoint, in terms of digestion and assimilation, elimination, Liver, Kidney, and so on, and how that then shows itself on my skin as Rosacea. The more I do this way of eating, the more I see that it is not something I am doing "to get rid of the Rosacea" although that was definitely my idea at the beginning, but actually something I am doing for my wellbeing for the long term. That I have lost weight and my skin is getting better are important side effects, as it were, but they are becoming less the central focus. I am also lucky because I am curious about health and I want to be an herbalist and a naturopathic doctor and so forth, so I have the inspiration as well as the imperative to live what I learn and what I hope to impart to others. I look at why folks go to massage therapists or doctors or herbalists or whoever, and I see the same thing there is some discomfort and there is a wish for that discomfort to go away and we hope that those people will help us. And usually we want them to cure it without our having to change anything about our own lives.

However, we also know that prevention is the best medicine, right? and that actually we need to live a lifestyle that supports our life energy, that allows us to live the life we dream of, that helps us to achieve our goals while keeping our health, energy, vibrancy, and joy alive. And I believe it is really important to have an intention for "eating healthy" that is connected with who we really are and the expression of our unique voice, our gift in the world. Our wish does not have to be huge, or be about serving selflessly and saving the world or whatever. It can be simply the wish to live a life full of good friends, love, work that is fulfilling and the ability to be present with what is actually going on in our lives, to enjoy things while they are happening, to listen, to care and be cared about, and to live fully whatever it is we are dreaming of. Somehow, eating well, or being healthy needs to tie into that intention and be a part of realizing it and not to an intention based on losing weight so we'll look better, or be more acceptable to ourselves or society or whomever. Because that is yoking our energy and intention to that which is making us unwell, rather than what makes us thrive. And I can say only, I want to thrive.

Stinging Nettle Teachings

There is a place near here, next to a meadow and gardens, along a brook, across from a school, next to a high rise apartment building. This place has two strong beech trees, and a beautiful flowering I don't know what kind of tree, Elder trees, planties- Stinging nettle, Butterbur, Blackberry, Meadow Geranium, Cinquefoil, Giersch, wild garlic, and others I have not yet met on a first name basis. I have been going there every few days to visit, ti sit by the brook, to talk with the planties, especially one of them who is  becoming a particular friend.

Today, when I arrived, I saw that a person had been all through there ripping up the nettle for their garden (nettle makes an amazing green manure, it is as good for the garden as it is for us). The whole right side between the path and the brook was ravaged, stalks of nettle stuck nakedly up into the air, frayed at the ends from being ripped rather than cut or snapped. From the looks of it, it happened either early this morning or yesterday afternoon.  I was shocked, like the earth and plants there as well, and I started to sing and pray and put my hands on the earth to listen to what had happened and how the plant community there was feeling. And I felt an overall numbness of shock, which at first I thought was my inability to tune in because of my upset, but as my own thoughts settled, there seemed to be the familiar life energy pulse and then a feeling of cotton batting over the whole area. And then, I asked the tree next to me to tell me. I had some overall images that corroborated my feeling for how the events had "played out" and then I heard very clearly, "they will grow again".   Not as a "oh get over yourself girl" response, rather the regenerative, unstoppable, spring coming again power of the earth roaring her truth. There was sadness too in how it had happened, but there was a clear imperative to GROW, that even though I could only see the destruction, was already at work. I was a bit stunned. In my naivete and human-centric thinking, I expected from the tree a whole gamut of human emotions of outrage and anger and sadness to grief. But then again, this is not a new behavior of the human species to thoughtlessly rip out what we want from the earth and leave, whether we are thinking we are doing something good, or not (like feeding a garden that will feed us, like harvesting plants to sell or to make medicine from or to eat).

I walked away from there a bit stunned, but also grateful, as always, to have heard a small glimpse of what the plant world is humming about. And as I walked towards home, I came upon a huge stand of nettle that was larger and healthier looking than the one I had just left, and I thought, oh, I can harvest nettle here. (One of the things I had wanted to do at my place, like times before, was to fill a bag full of nettle tops for lunch tomorrow.) And I asked if I could harvest there, and heard no strong answer either way, but a general openness, and I started to harvest. And to sing the song I usually sing to the planties when I harvest- Returning, returning, returning, to the mother of us all- very mindfully harvesting stinging nettle with my bare hands, which I should say, is not usually a problem, I know how to hold the leaves without getting stung. However, this time, I got a huge sting on my middle finger, when I came in contact with the plant. I can still feel it. And I kept harvesting. And moved through the stand of nettle to another place to get fresh tips and without taking all of the tips from one area, like I learned from my grandmother.

As I looked around to see where I would go next, it struck me like a bolt of lightening in the heart- I'm not doing anything different than the man who ripped the nettle out at my place. Plants were knocked down as I had made my way through the stand, big gaps in foliage were left behind. From the path later on, I would see no trace of having been there, a trick of perspective, but the fact was, I was exactly the same kind of perpetrator, only I was taking the plants to feed my belly directly rather than my garden. I heard suddenly the voice of Paul Bergner, who I had listened to in an interview on herbmentor.com, saying," You cannot take a plant from its home, and ask the spirit of that being to move somewhere else without explaining to the plant and to the creator why you need it and how much you want to take". And then you have to receive a yes. I had asked, but not explained, I had treated the plant as my servant, expecting it to give itself to me for my health without the dignity of explaining what I wanted to do and asking for permission. When I had asked,  I had taken general non-disagreement as perfunctory permission. But the nettle people had no idea what they were supposed to agree or not agree to, so of course there was no clear response! All of these thoughts went rapid fire through my consciousness and I began to cry and to speak to the nettle people.

I apologized, and asked for their pardon, for doing exactly what I had been so outraged about a moment before. I thanked them for the lesson, for stinging me with the truth, and for helping me to wake up. I shared my appreciation for them and I began to elucidate my request, to explain why I wanted to take a part of these beings from their home, attached to the rest of the plant, with me. And I got to the words, "and I want to bring you with me because....." and there was nothing more there to say. I could not say why I wanted to bring nettle with me other than, "because I want to eat you", which seemed rather paltry and somehow obvious and needed no stating. Why did I really want to bring nettle home with me and eat her into my belly? To bring wildness, to bring wakefulness, to heal my liver and kidneys and my skin problem. To learn about nettle from nettle and to learn what it is to have my food be my medicine and my medicine, my food. To eat all of these things into my belly along with my commitment not to make this mistake again. And to not just go randomly harvesting something- through joy and excitement and appreciation and love, for sure- but without explaining to the plant and the creator why I wanted to take this plant away from where she was and what I would do with her. And to wait until I had received an unequivocal yes, and only then would I harvest the amount I was given permission to harvest.

As I made my way back to the path, still weepy and sensitive, I felt the whole circle of the process come together. And as I continued along the path a little ways, I saw that there was another stand of nettle, bigger and healthier looking, right along the path! And I heard the words, "let us come to you, do not take what you have to go and get, but let us come to you". And I thought, oh no, I can't harvest more nettle after all of that. I stood there, on the path not knowing what to do. And I felt that the words I heard were truly an acceptance of my apology and intention and explanation and an invitation to harvest a little more. So I did, but only from those plants along the path that were facing in my direction and close enough to reach. The others I left there, and I thanked the nettle people for their offering.

Crossing the brook and turning away from her around the corner, I saw the nettle plants on the left hand side of the path had been mown down with a hand scythe and had been left there. And of course, this is the worst that can happen, cutting down a plant and leaving it there for no reason, without any relationship or use. The lesson was complete and I walked home to eat, to read, and to take a nap. Tomorrow, when I eat nettle lasagne, I will eat the Beauty, the viriditas, the vital force, the chi of the nettle people into my belly, becoming one with my blood, liver, kidneys, lymph, and hormones, and the minerals becoming a part of every cell in my body.

Thank you, nettle people, for the teaching. (And to soul flower farm for the photo)

Vitalism

Vitalism and herbal medicine 
Vitalism in healing is a clinical strategy based on the principle that Life, Nature, and the Great Spirit from which they arise are fully present in all the tissues of the body, and also in the psyche, the spiritual heart, and the soul, sustaining life and health, providing momentum for personal evolution on all levels, and for the fulfillment of the highest purpose in social and spiritual life. Vitalist practitioners employ clinical strategies and methods which support this life power through encouragement of nourishment, digestion, rest, and appropriate activity, identification of purpose in personal life, connection with nature, an active spiritual life, identification and removal of obstacles to cure on all levels, and avoidance of methods which suppress or distort life processes. The Vitalist incorporates all aspects of science, especially physiology and pathophysiology, but equally values knowledge from traditional medicine, empirical observation, instinct and intuition, and is not confined to the narrow materialistic world view that dominates much of modern science, medicine, and social life. Vitalist herbal medicine is the use of herbs in support of this approach and these processes. 


From the North American Institute of Medical Herbalism Website, founded by Paul Berger, Boulder Colorado

Folk Herbalism

“Folk herbalism is the people’s medicine, tried and true, shaped by the land,  driven by the healthcare needs of its inhabitants, and handed down through the generations by mouth and pen. Its vocabulary is that of geography, the plants, the elements, the earth and the sky. At its most glorious, folk herbalism heals the people and the land in one motion, because we really can’t separate the two. What happens to the land is reflected in health of our bodies, minds and spirits and folk herbalism acknowledges this interdependence. Without folk herbalism, we would be lost in a vast sea of corporate, pharmaceutical care. Lost without the herbal traditions that bring balance to this one-sided form of medicine, and lost without the understanding of the inter-connectiveness of the human body.

Folk herbalism is the yin to conventional medicine yang. It’s roots are deep, feminine and, and intuitive. And though it’s form may change over time and within cultures, its roots stay strong, viable and hardy. It will never die.” –Phyllis Light

Two great blogs

Check out the folks and recipes as The Perennial Plate, they are dedicated to sustainable and adventurous eating, traveling around gathering recipes and talking to folks who fish, hunt, pick tomatoes, and learning from them about where food comes from and how it is prepared.

Please watch Episode Lupe Gonzalo, tomato picker and activist with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) in Florida. As Barry Estabrook wrote in his book, Tomatoland: “Any American who has eaten a winter tomato, either purchased at a supermarket or on top of a fast food salad, has eaten a fruit picked by the hand of a slave. That is not an assumption, it is a fact (Douglas Molloy, US Attorney for Florida’s Middle District).” “Immokalee,” as Estabrook continues. “Is the town that tomatoes built.” Florida supplies 1/3 of America's tomatoes.

From the article that accompanies the 5 minute film, "...each bucket of tomatoes a worker fills (roughly 32-35 lbs) still gets them around only $0.45. Forty Five Cents. And they are picking green tomatoes — as in, tomatoes that are not ripe. If you live in Florida and ever find yourself behind a tomato truck, you probably wouldn’t know it as the fruit is completely unrecognizable. The tomatoes are picked green so that they can be gassed with chemicals to turn red and then shipped to other areas of the country." One question: Why do we want to eat tomatoes in winter that taste like styrofoam?

And for another kind of activism, check out  The International Supper Club, two folks riding their bikes 15,000 miles across Eurasia, documenting people and what they eat.

Food as Medicine

One of the problems with posting on this blog, is that I often don't have the time or patience to take a picture of whatever it is i am cooking or describing to post on the blog, so therefore i don't write at all. strange, but there you have it. For example, I just made Baerlauch (wild garlic or ramps) butter and pesto in my beautiful mortar and pestle which i received for my birthday last year. In the pesto I put Wild garlic, basil olive oil leftover from a bottle I made last year that I had put greek basil from my garden into for two months of steeping before storing, an aged goat's cheese called Geissenpeter that is made about half an hour from here, salt, pepper, walnuts from an Abbey near Bamberg that we bought last December, and some anchovies that I brought back from the states last year when we visited in October. We'll eat with pasta this week- either spinach pasta that i make or store bought- and sun-dried tomatoes from a friend's garden. Beautiful dark green, a small jar of gold full of things connected to place or memory or person. And I did not take any pictures to give you. Maybe I will of the meal that I make later on in the week.

Food is becoming not only an art medium and creative outlet, but also a medicine over the last two months. Another reason I have not been writing is because I have been reading so much and learning so much and cooking in new ways, or in ways I already knew but did not do too much of. Having Rosacea and a bunch of digestive issues, food allergies, and probably some adrenal exhaustion from the 8 years at the Buddhist center and the move to another country, I finally decided to stop the eating whatever I want diet, although I have really enjoyed it, and move to the eating what is good for my body so I can thrive diet. Which, except for holidays and social events, I enjoy more. And it is a slow process, figuring out what is good for me and what isn't, what will heal my gut and my face and what won't. And I would say I am only about a third of the way there. As a part of my herbal studies, food as medicine, as a friend wrote to me this morning, is becoming a large part of how I work with plants. It is for sure the way in which I am the most competent. And slowly incorporating plants into food, tea, vinegar and oil, is a way that I can easily pass on information and learnings to others. ANd it is always an individual process of what works and what doesn't, what feeds and what challenges beyond capability.

Most of the herbal teachers I have read so far (about 20) agree that food and diet are a huge aspect of working with herbs and a traditional method of healing. That in fact, if a person has a diet that is not nourishing them, and even more so if it is a diet that is actually harming them, herbs will be little if no use in healing whatever it is that a person sees as "wrong" about them. Which is, of course, a whole other topic for another time. Food is a spiritual experience, a connection and communion with plant, animal, place and people. That is why the image, for example, of the last supper or of the weekly church ritual of sharing bread and wine is so powerful for people. That is why every feast day is called exactly that, a day of a feast. It is difficult to go to an easter meal and say, no, I don't eat sugar, chocolate (unless it is raw), bread, gluten, cow's millk, processed foods, oils except for olive and animal fats, and could I please have a big bowl of vegetables? Which is why I only have problems with my "diet" when I am with people who don't eat the way I do. Culture is steeped in the history, ritual, tradition, and practice of preparing and eating certain foods and avoiding others. And I am, yet again, out of the box of the (German) culture. Which is not new. And it is a challenge to explain, no I am not dieting, I am eating for my health. I know it is probably delicious, but I choose not to eat it. I am happy to smell it and I take pleasure from your enjoying it. I know that I am giving up hundreds of recipes from Julia Child's cookbook. I know that I am cleaving whole sections of european cuisine out of my repetoire. I know. and I'll live. In fact, the whole point is to live better, live healthier, live whole in my own being.

It is a strange act of courage to stand apart from the tidal wave of a culture's eating traditions. No bread? WHAT do you eat? And there is a also a small amount of ego in there who thinks she knows better, it is true, but mostly it is the willingness to finally take care of my own self and my own body and my own me, which seems to be the next onion layer in the ever ongoing lesson of how-to-be-a-grown-up-and-get-over-my-etc. SO, in celebrating that when we were in Italy last week, I bought myself two dresses (i have never done that before) one for the spring/fall made of wool and silk, designed and hand sewn by an italian woman in a little shop that I was in, and one for summer- with huge prints of red poppies all over a white background, marilyn monroe style with a tie in the back of the neck. and that one i will definitely post a picture of!

The return

A month later, and I finally publish another post. Not that I haven't started once or twice, they just seem not to get finished. I seem to always have too many things to do, which keeps me away from the computer. And I go through increasingly restless bouts of "how do I keep living in this century/world with all of these technological gadgets- like cars and computers, high rise buildings and shopping malls" and want to move out somewhere in the wildernesses and have sheep and be with the planties and make a life from and with the earth and pray and have access to trees and forest and water and not only city. I really do think sometimes that I was born in the wrong century. On the other hand, if I were not born in this century, I would have to do things like wear a corset, be married to a man, have to go to church, or be burned at the stake for being a witch. It is amazing to have the freedom I do, and heartbreaking to see where all of our "freedom" has gotten us. Which is to say, in a mess. I have to think of that bumper sticker that goes something like, " where are we going, and why am I in this handbasket?".

In any event, there have been big changes afoot. As usual, filled with vision and inspiration and hopefully making something of beauty to offer the holy. We have to decided to go back to school for the "Naturheilpraktikerpruefung" which means, the naturopathic practitioner license. The system is a bit different here in Germany, but what it boils down to is that for any therapeutic modality that involves touch therapy, diagnosis, treatment using hands on techniques (osteopathy, cranial sacral, massage for specific ailments rather than "feel good", etc.), nutrition, herbal medicine, homeopathy, and so on, a person needs this license in order to practice. Basically anything other than being a doctor or a midwife (they have different licensure). The only things we will not be allowed to do are deliver babies, treat highly infectious diseases, and write prescriptions. From a legal perspective, if we can find an anesthesiologist who would work with us and an operating room to us, we could even perform operations. Anyway, it is a twenty two month process and we begin in April, which means in March 2014 we will take the licensing exam. Anatomy, Physiology, Pathology, injections, blood taking, reading lab reports, physical exams, everything we need to know for medical practice. All therapy specific training is extra, so nic is doing homeopathy courses, I am studying herbal medicine and nutrition (in addition to my bodywork), and we'll see what else unfolds.

I have begun to ask myself, what is actually the underlying idea behind all of this for me. What is healing? What am I trying to accomplish? What do I want to offer? I am clear that I do not want to "be of service" which, noble as it may sound, is so full of rhetoric and dogma that it cannot possibly be separated from the ego of the "seeker" or "spiritual" person. I have heard it too many times before and it sounds so pure and unselfish, but I know from experience and observation, it is never the case. When it is unselfish and pure, there is no thought of being "of service", there is only the work to be done and the offering made to the holy, not from one person to another. Like the Tao, that which can be spoken about is not the true Tao. People, I am afraid, are always beautifully egoic, and that is just how we are made. Freud knew that.

A friend wrote me an email about the "mysterious wobble" at the heart of all of life, that imperfect-ness that is our exact beauty, or gift, that we can bring to the world. We strivers tend to think that is something to be cured, healed, ripped out, avoided, bettered, or gotten rid of. Which is only internal violence, rather than love, which produces only more violence, not more love, I don't care how spiritual one is. I know because I used to hate myself and I would send so much time criticizing and correcting everyone around me. I was full of violence and poison, and though I tried to be loving, tried so hard to be good, I just couldn't do it, because I hated myself. It is true, what they say about loving oneself before loving others. It is not just a platitude, it is actually impossible. We need to love our total humanness, and not try to change something about ourselves because it is not "whatever" enough. Our gifts come from our shadow, maybe even more than our light. And the more we try to push the shadow away, the more it will come back to haunt us. We make the monsters that live in our darkness out of the pearls that are there, rubbing us the wrong way, the dark way, the feminine way, calling for our attention to see the lustre, the shine, the beauty of the gift hidden there. The beauty of the gift hidden within us, that when we ignore, becomes the source of discomfort, pain, aggression, depression, maybe even illness and disease within.

So, the question, what is healing? Is not about getting rid of something. Not getting rid of whatever it is that is bothering us so that we can feel better, be better. Every illness is a messenger, a symptom of something long out of ear shot, out of time, something long since forgotten, or suppressed or missed, calling us to remember, to re-member. Healing is a process of inclusiveness, or wholeness, of holiness. Each person must discover their own way. I hope to be a person who can be a friend along the path, helping to offer support, encouragement, ease, a mirror, friendship in the darkness, a space to hear the call from within. I do not want to be, nor do I think it is possible to be, a healer for someone else. I may at some point have more information about certain plants, or the body, or techniques that can help, but the person must bring all of these things together in their own psyche and soul and make a healing potion of them. The alchemical process of lead into gold, of seeing that within us as a treasure, of treasuring ourselves. Of bringing forth our unique never before seen beauty as a gift to the holy, to what nourishes us in our lives, so that we may continue living. Call that whatever you will, it is the source of all of us. This great mystery that we still cannot understand that is this life. This source that we can come close to, come to know, in our hearts.

This same source, this same process, is exactly what brings the return of Spring each year. The seeds, the potential, sleeping, waiting in the darkness, is finally freed by the right conditions, to sprout. Coaxed out into the light of life, birth into this world. Spring has returned here, just barely, but the snowdrops and crocuses are blooming, the roses are beginning to leaf, the smells are different in the air, the birds are singing and the first broods are hatched. life has returned. Light has returned, we have more than 8 hours of light per day and it grows ever more. What a gift that the Spring returns and bestows her blessings of growth and warmth each year.The trees are filled with buds and the energy of the season moves in all of us as the sap rises.

I quit my job!!!!

AND I AM SO HAPPY ABOUT IT!!!!! Well, one of my jobs. The other, the job in the little natural health food store that I love, I kept. The one I quit was the one cooking for a person who did not at all have an appreciation for how, what, who or why I cook. And therefore, it was a match made in hell. For both of us. When I was quitting, in German by the way, I barely got my sentence out before she said, I agree. and Yes. and Well, we tried. And then, it was over and I was jumping up and down celebrating and being wonderfully happy and free! For example, right now I am taking care of things in my life that I need to care for, and receiving herb books in the mail, and writing a blog post instead of being there. How wonderful!

Things I am doing instead of working there:
-Returning to my studies of Herbal Medicine including Chinese 5 Element Theory(totally interesting)
-Cooking for myself and my wife and friends- for which I had no interest while cooking there in that kitchen
-Massage and bodywork practice- like actually hanging up posters and earning money doing the work I want to be doing
-Cleaning my house and keeping my practice room clean and ready for clients
-Reading books
-Healing my Rosacea with herbs and aforementioned 5 Element Theory
-Making herbal remedies
-Practicing Tai chi and chi gong
-Beginning courses in preparation for being a Naturopath (I have to learn how to take blood and give injections!)
-Smiling
-Standing in my power

not bad, eh?

Going off to cook dinner- Stir fried brown rice, baked squash with spices, beet and hijiki sautee.

The Epiphany or "when the three kings finally get to the baby jesus who is still laying in the hay trough"

The star, apparently, led the three kings, or wise men, to the christ-child. Which, if we see the story as a metaphor, means, in order for us to be enlightened, or awake to our own christ consciousness, we must know how to follow the signs. We must be awake to what the world around us is saying and know how to interpret it and how to act. Now, living in Germany, as the light returns to this part of the earth, at the beginning of 2012, this great year of possibility and portend, I find the way that has led me here, keeps leading on. Though not following some external star, there is, yet, an internal listening and knowing at work.

We are still looking for a house, and it would surely be nice to have a star hanging over its eaves saying- here, here, this is the place where the light lives! We have only our own hearts and instincts and ability to read the signs. We come ever closer, but have not, shall we say, fallen on our knees in wonderment. That said, it is always a question of willingness, of patience, heart, trust, and courage. To take the journey in the first place, risking everything- our vision, our marriage, renewable energy sources and the end of the world- in the search of the place where our vision can take root. And it is then just as courageous to actually settle on something, and be willing to jump in and buy it. And then to every day to live with the choice we have made...wouldn't anyone cringe in fear at such a possibility? How do we as a species get anything done and make all of the miraculous and sometimes horrible innovations that we have?

The poem I have heard since childhood, when my grandmother- also a poet- first read it to me, has come up several times in the last week from various sources. I find it still both an inspiration, and an accurate description of my life.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth; 



Then took the other, as just as fair, 

And having perhaps the better claim, 

Because it was grassy and wanted wear; 

Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same, 



And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day! 

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh 

Somewhere ages and ages hence: 

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
 
And that has made all the difference

...
Robert Frost

I never imagined that I would end up in Germany, married, looking for a house to buy and longing for sheep. Bodywork, healing herbs, and performance are still my companions, although now I work to translate them into another language and culture. I could not have chosen this life if I had tried, but clearly each choice has led me to it. And it is good so, as it is. I have learned how to read the signs and am still learning how to decipher them, and the even greater task, to act upon them with an open heart. I am reminded of the story of the prince who is sent by his father to learn the language of the birds. After 10 years, the boy comes back and, when questioned by his father about what he has learned, he answers, " I think I have begun to hear something." The father is, of course, irate that after 10 years of good money spent on an education, the boy is only just beginning to hear something,and sends the boy back. After 10 more years, the boy comes home and is asked again what he has learned. He replies, " I think I have begun to understand something." The father sends the boy away again. After 10 more years, the same scene is repeated, but this time the boy says, " Now, although I have begun to be able to speak the language of the birds, i have nothing more to say."

Such a long, forgetful, rememberful practice of praying, listening, feeding and offering, living each day full of thankfulness and gratitude and then forgetting and remembering everything all over again, this life is. Merciless in its beauty, when we once, through the struggle of our daily lives, come into contact with what is holy, we either know enough to keep our mouths shut about it, or the trickster comes along and steals it out of our memories. I have always longed for the road less travelled. Weird, my sister would say. But I am happy with its weirdness, its signs and languages and people and places that I happen through. I am happy with the gift of this life, on the road less travelled. Happy 2012, may we bless the gods with beauty this year.

The Rauhnaechte, or, the pagan bardo between Christmas and The Epiphany

New Grange, Ireland, and the Winter Solstice dagger of light. As  a dear friend of mine said, one may know what lies within only by going in, otherwise, there is little to talk about. Talking about such things trivializes them and renders them obsolete. The invitation is to experience them, to enter the darkness with a full heart and a willingness to be emptied. The unknown gift of the return of the light and the ability to read the signs in our lives. Here is the opening to the womb of the dark, in which the birth of light is participated in, celebrated, known.

 The spiral brings us also back in on our selves, back into the center point, the dark point, the, as my tai chi teacher said, apparent closure, and leads us out again into openness, light, and birth. Sunwise, moonwise, earthwise, turning, turning, turning. Celebrating the wheel of the year, the ever spiralling time of a year's cycle through the seasons, through the dark and into the light.

Being here in Germany at this time, I notice two things very strongly. Firstly, because my childhood memories are not from this place of food, family, traditions of gift giving and time spent together, and because I am not christian in belief or practice, I am left rather empty about the experience of christmas going on around me. Which is not to say that I do not value the traditions of my German family and the time spent together. I do value those experiences very much. But, I am aware that underneath the current enjoyment, there is a rather large space of non-meaning, a hole of dark, which is absolutely in order for the season. And, I notice myself also searching, reaching, longing, as always, for depth of meaning, ancient knowing, human truth hidden in mindless rituals that stay on the surface. From an email with a friend: christmas is such an interesting thing. i agree with a- about the commercialism, and i know you actually do too (though you love shopping!). it doesn't have anything to do with the meaning of christmas. i am not a practicing christian, but i was raised from the time i was 8 to 16 going to church, so i know the traditions and the meaning. It is just that it is lost on me. i think of the return of the light with the solstice and the birth of the sun as the natural reality of this time that is seen through the lense of the christian story of jesus. But every religion and faith has some winter time festival of light. The darkest days of the year are upon us and we as humans always celebrate the return of the light, the movement towards spring, the rebirth of our life for one more year. and i think coming together, and feasting, and lighting candles and cooking traditional foods and sharing time together is really important. And the symbols of the time are important- christmas trees, stars, if one is religious the creche and the story of jesus. And it is a time for looking back at the year and being grateful for what we have and looking ahead with possibility. just because there is also a commercial buying overlay doesn't mean we have to give up the deeper meaning.


The second thing I notice very strongly, is the dark. It is very very dark here. We have for 3 months about 8 hours of light per day. And most of those days are rainy. And this year, there is very little snow, a lot of rain, and it is weirdly warm for the season of year. This darkness explains why in this western/northern hemisphere culture, the big stories are based on the fight of the light, or good, and the dark, or evil. Because it is such a tangible thing to be submersed in darkness. And while the darkness is, as a former teacher said, fruitful, it is also, at a survival level, untenable. We are, like plants, built to seek the light and the warmth. We know in our bones and guts that light means life and dark means death. Why else would we think of intentionally built archeoastronomical mounds/caves as graves rather than ceremonial places of great transformation? We confuse transformation with death all of the time. And the great possibility and hope of the return of the light, the promise of warmth and new life, is as powerful an image as we humans can recognize.


Having just passed through the darkest night and the great pageant of christmas, now between the Rauhnaechten- the 12 days "of christmas" or the 12 days between december 25 and january 6, (which the church has overlaid with christian symbolism), are the days when spirits move along the earth. It is important to stay home, to stay warm and careful during these 12 days and nights. Fights, sicknesses, strange weather, are all signs of the spirits afoot. Each day is said to be a portend for the month for which it stands- the first day being january, the second day, february, and so on. Much to think about in these times and days. So much to integrate, signs to read and understand, the new life to welcome and the old one to let go of. I suppose, as they do every year, these days between Christmas and New Year's cause me to grow philosophical, to look for meaning and depth, to "go inward" as we used to say at the Zen center. There truly is a lot of darkness here- so little daylight and so many grey clouds. And it causes me to reflect on the darkness within us as a species, and the light within us. The ability to make meaning, to tell stories, to make beauty, to love.