I've fallen out of the habit of sharing the journey in writing. There is only one way to remedy that, start writing and see where it leads me.
It's been a full summer, between company and maintaining the gardens. While I haven't gotten out on the water this year I have sat almost daily at the end of the pier in the harbour communing with water, landscape and the myriad of lifeforms you'll find by the sea.
A decision I made this time last year has reaped more change than I could have foreseen then. I wanted food from the gardening work I do so I planted what I hoped would be year's worth of garlic in one of the flowerbeds. Sticking to the decision to grow food in flower beds required some flexibility in planting patterns...no more straight lines for this gardener. Last Fall and this Spring I moved perenial flowering stocks into pots or gave them away to make way for peas, beans, brocolli, potatoes, chard, beets, carrots, leeks, onion, lettuces, peppers, cucumbers, zuchini and tomatoes.
It had been almost twenty years since I had maintained a big vegetable patch. I had forgotten the satisfaction and what fun the work is. I had forgotten what a blessing the whole experience of growing and eating food you've grown is.
In the beginning of July a new to me Barbara Kingsolver book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle -A Year is the Life of Food literally jumped off the bookshelf into my hands at the bookstore. Before I was half way through the book I knew I would be making a commitment to make at least 25% of what we eat come from within 100 miles of where we live this year...next year 50%. With that commitment my food shopping shifted from the grocery store to the farmers market and local producers, which turns out to be another community adventure/blessing I had forgotten.
As the need to preserve more food for the year grew, so did a decision to invest in a food dehydrator. When my sons were in school (in the 80's) I dehydrated fruit and fruit leathers for snacks for their lunches. The 2008 model is a wonderful machine...turning out beautifully colored,(with no preservatives)highly nutritious strawberries, blueberries, apples to name a luscious few. I'm loving the peach fruit leather the most...and the spaghetti sauce leather...which is kind of like pemmican but instead of being berry based it's tomato based. I better stop talking food or we'll all be going for snacks soon.
One source of energy and joy that has been an integral part of this year is the weekly Kundalini Trance dance with facilitator Davina Bailey that happens in the living room or the front garden when possible. We are a small group, usually no more than five women, sometimes two. The dance is a glorious way of affirming life on so many levels. Trance Dance has returned me to my dreams of myself as a dancer from my child and young adulthood and in so returning I feel and see myself youthing rather than aging.
Another weekly source of feminine companionship in prayer and meditation are the Vessels of Peace Prayer Shawl teleconference meditations on Sunday night. With much guidance from Grandmother Spider a sense of connection, of peaceful intention and love that this container of women create for each other and the world at large can not be fathomed through words, only through experience. My need to feel of service to a world in such need is being met working in community with other Vessels of Peace. We share the facilitation of the meditations, each of us answering a personal call to facilitate whose subject matter inevitably works for the whole. Magic!
And the foundation of this wonderful blessed life...Court and I celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary on Sept. 15th with a feast from our gardens. Yummy!
It feels good to count blessings...they increase with every count.
May your blessings be countless too!
It's been a full summer, between company and maintaining the gardens. While I haven't gotten out on the water this year I have sat almost daily at the end of the pier in the harbour communing with water, landscape and the myriad of lifeforms you'll find by the sea.
A decision I made this time last year has reaped more change than I could have foreseen then. I wanted food from the gardening work I do so I planted what I hoped would be year's worth of garlic in one of the flowerbeds. Sticking to the decision to grow food in flower beds required some flexibility in planting patterns...no more straight lines for this gardener. Last Fall and this Spring I moved perenial flowering stocks into pots or gave them away to make way for peas, beans, brocolli, potatoes, chard, beets, carrots, leeks, onion, lettuces, peppers, cucumbers, zuchini and tomatoes.
It had been almost twenty years since I had maintained a big vegetable patch. I had forgotten the satisfaction and what fun the work is. I had forgotten what a blessing the whole experience of growing and eating food you've grown is.
In the beginning of July a new to me Barbara Kingsolver book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle -A Year is the Life of Food literally jumped off the bookshelf into my hands at the bookstore. Before I was half way through the book I knew I would be making a commitment to make at least 25% of what we eat come from within 100 miles of where we live this year...next year 50%. With that commitment my food shopping shifted from the grocery store to the farmers market and local producers, which turns out to be another community adventure/blessing I had forgotten.
As the need to preserve more food for the year grew, so did a decision to invest in a food dehydrator. When my sons were in school (in the 80's) I dehydrated fruit and fruit leathers for snacks for their lunches. The 2008 model is a wonderful machine...turning out beautifully colored,(with no preservatives)highly nutritious strawberries, blueberries, apples to name a luscious few. I'm loving the peach fruit leather the most...and the spaghetti sauce leather...which is kind of like pemmican but instead of being berry based it's tomato based. I better stop talking food or we'll all be going for snacks soon.
One source of energy and joy that has been an integral part of this year is the weekly Kundalini Trance dance with facilitator Davina Bailey that happens in the living room or the front garden when possible. We are a small group, usually no more than five women, sometimes two. The dance is a glorious way of affirming life on so many levels. Trance Dance has returned me to my dreams of myself as a dancer from my child and young adulthood and in so returning I feel and see myself youthing rather than aging.
Another weekly source of feminine companionship in prayer and meditation are the Vessels of Peace Prayer Shawl teleconference meditations on Sunday night. With much guidance from Grandmother Spider a sense of connection, of peaceful intention and love that this container of women create for each other and the world at large can not be fathomed through words, only through experience. My need to feel of service to a world in such need is being met working in community with other Vessels of Peace. We share the facilitation of the meditations, each of us answering a personal call to facilitate whose subject matter inevitably works for the whole. Magic!
And the foundation of this wonderful blessed life...Court and I celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary on Sept. 15th with a feast from our gardens. Yummy!
It feels good to count blessings...they increase with every count.
May your blessings be countless too!
1 comment:
Hello Anne,
Even though, I realize this your post here was written some time ago, I can certainly see from my set of eyes, you appear to have found a Soul Group which clearly resonates within your frame work and I feel that is awesome- something I am still searching for I suppose:)
:)
Tim
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