Over the past few days the ‘bonsai’ rose has finally sprung its first flower of the year, only after I brought it inside to the sunroom. Oh the fragrance!
Your Local Epidemiologist does a great job of laying out how important it is to vote like your health depends on it in her article Politics is medicine on a large scale. She first tells the story of a doctor investigating Typhus in 1848, the offers a graphic showing which 29 states have some aspect of healthcare on the ballot. In between she writes:
“In his final report, he said treating individual sick people with medicine wasn’t necessarily the long-term solution; what was needed was education, jobs, better housing, fairer taxes, and “full and unlimited democracy.” He wrote: “Medicine is a social science, and politics is nothing but medicine at a large scale.” (The government thanked him with sanctions, including pay cuts and the loss of his hospital-provided housing.) ….Nearly 180 years later, his point still holds…. health is on the ballot or in campaign slogans in at least 29 states. Governors, state legislators, and attorneys general are the officials who pick personnel, run Medicaid, fund public health departments, and set state rules on everything from vaccines to abortion.”
What follows is a lucid description of how health is still on the ballot in between the lines, and concludes “Health is on almost every midterm ballot this year, whether you notice it or not. Go vote like your health depends on it. Because it does.”
It’s not just your health, our health, public health that depends on this election. This regime’s cuts to climate and weather science “have exposed US to ‘cascade’ of El Niño dangers,” reports The Guardian. And let’s not forget the horrors of ICE and the murders of American citizens like Alex Pretti. This video of his parents updates us on where the investigation into his unlawful killing stands now.
Wren made friends yesterday with a new yarden helper.
Some more encouraging things to listen to or watch for respite or inspiration over the next few tense days until the election include this long interview with Rep. Ilhan Omar calmly deconstructing the conspiracy theories that fueled a raid on her DC home; Joyce Vance talking with Pulitzer Prize winner Ami Fields-Meyer on how youth mobilization swung Brazil and Serbia; and Jess Craven talking with Oklahoma Senate candidate Jasmine Thomas.
The apricot tree is turning.
My friend Ted sums up the stakes in his post Beyond Tribalism: “The spiritual task underneath the political challenge is to move beyond loving one’s self, family, race, tribe or party. The real test is whether we can live with a spirit of universal love…. In the 21st Century, whether we can move beyond tribalism will determine the long-term existence of life on Planet Earth.”
Coffee at the library garden was a welcome respite for the three of us this morning. We sat together on a beautiful, warm sunny day on the south side overlooking the two-lane highway that runs through town. Conversation was so rich we hardly noticed traffic noise. Wren came too, of course, and moved from lap to lap, sun to shade, as her soft animal body dictated. I hadn’t been in the library for awhile, and stepped in for a quick tour and to get some photos to show it off. There was a bead-making class about to set up, a patron at one of the several computers in the tech room, comfortable furnishings, happy houseplants in every corner, a charming children’s room, and lots of books. I may not want to handle them, but I sure don’t want to see any of them banned or burned. You bettah vote.
A friend whose opinion I respect responded to my post last night in an email offering more perspective on Proposition 137, the allocation of sales tax on sporting goods for conservation and wildfire prevention. She works in the field of wildfire governance, and was concerned about the confusing messaging the public is exposed to on this ballot measure. Here are some resources she shared showing the extent of support for the measure from conservation groups and “organizations who are doing place-based, on the ground work in [affected] communities.” Wish I’d known this before I voted. Grateful, though, to know my ballot has been received.
In case you haven’t voted yet, these might be helpful in making your decision. Here is some myth-busting from Vote Yes on Prop 137, and here’s a press release announcing the support of more than 170 women leaders in Colorado. Western Resource Advocates also supports the measure. These groups represent “the scientific consensus … on the efficacy of thinning and prescribed burning for reducing the risk of impacts from extreme wildfire.”
A beautiful sight! Laundry hanging on the line again!
She said that this website opposing the proposition “erroneously applies science conducted in one geographic region to another (i.e. applies findings in the Pacific Northwest to Colorado forests), and intentionally misleads the public.” Her experience, having been personally affected by an extreme wildfire some years ago and doing extensive research on the phenomenon since then, leads her to question the person behind this website, as well as the choices of certain groups opposing it. Groups she’d like to trust, as I trusted the Center for Biological Diversity. She opined that “There may be reasons not to vote for prop 137, but expanded commercial logging and road building shouldn’t be one of them….”
I was so grateful to be able to do laundry this afternoon, and water the cherry tree, and take a long hot shower. The water situation is 90% resolved: the pump cuts on by itself now and the pressure tank appears to be fully functional. The plumber was sorry to leave without full resolution, but one of two caps on the pump “disintegrated” when he tried to remove it so he was unable to replace the brush on that side. A replacement cap has been ordered. I’m not recklessly running water, but I feel a lot more ease with what I am using. Lunch was a basic cheese sandwich, with a heaping side of gratitude.
An hour ago I received a Watch Duty alert that the air quality at my nearest station was above 100. When I opened the app I saw that everywhere else it looked fine, so I double checked on Paku, a dedicated air quality app, and was staggered to see it at 884. What could possibly cause such a spike? Now, at bedtime, it’s back down to 20. A fluke in the technology, perhaps. I’m grateful to head to bed tonight a little bit wiser and a lot more at ease.
There used to be a nice bird feeder hanging in this tree. I glanced at it from the patio this morning as I always do, and saw that it needed filling, but when I came down with a scoop of seeds the feeder was nowhere to be found! Obviously it hadn’t been there two minutes before: whatever I’d seen was an optical illusion or my imagination filling in a habitual expectation. Ironically, I had just gotten frustrated with it a few days ago because the handle had bent, making the lid hard to open. I thought maybe a squirrel had been worrying it. But to find the stout twig it hung from broken off and the feeder disappeared, my best guess is a bear ran off with it. Several thoughts clambered through my head. I hope he didn’t get a paw stuck in the handle, or worse a head… but no, it was too small an opening for a head… I’m sorry it was probably empty at the time so it wasn’t even worth her effort… do I buy a new one? …bears are having a rough season…
Climate chaos is affecting bears severely this year, report several sources including The Colorado Sun, and this one in The Guardian. “In Colorado, there have been more than 8,600 reports of bear sightings and incidents this year, more than twice as many as last year, according to the state parks and wildlife department. The agency has euthanized 294 bears, three times the 2025 amount.” This isn’t news to most of us living in the rural west, even in towns. A killing freeze in the spring plus extreme drought depleted their natural food supplies throughout the west, and they’ve been coming out of the woods desperate. My neighbor lost her gas grill to a bear last month. But I have not seen a bear yet this year, and I’ve never seen one in my yard. The article goes on to say that “there have been 10 confirmed bear attacks in Colorado, the highest number on record…. In August in New Mexico, which also has had more bear encounters this year, one killed a 67-year-old wildland firefighter inside his home.”
This much larger broken limb likely came down in a recent storm. The woods are so green right now. Another neighbor reported nearly an inch of rain since yesterday, starting shortly after the little ones and I took a nice long ramble. I knew we were in for a few wet days.
Verdure everywhere, mosses, grasses, weeds…
I’m grateful for the respite of the woods, and I’m keeping my eyes open for bears. I’m trying to keep up with the horrors happening and also keep things in perspective. It takes all my mindfulness skills to get through every day, and using them I’m cultivating resilience. Horrors have happened as long as there have been humans, near as anyone can tell. While I pray that they will one day cease when enough people wake up, I have no expectations. This week I read of this new film about the genocide in Gaza asking the question: How do human beings explain taking part in genocide? It was chilling and enlightening.
Then since my loins were already girded for horrors, I read this interview with Mirjana Spoljaric, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross – not your local disaster relief Red Cross. It’s a long read, but well worth spending the time with her compassion, wisdom, and insights. “Today you get the feeling that war becomes the means to an end itself, and wars continue because people want to stay in power. They have created an environment where war becomes the condition under which they can continue ruling, and that’s very dangerous. You ask me whether we are approaching a third world war. Honestly, history will judge that. History books will tell us whether today we were already in the beginning, or maybe already in the middle of such a situation. The I.C.R.C. didn’t know that we were in the Second World War when it was happening.”
On a potentially more comfortable note, I enjoyed this article exploring the four foundations of mindfulness in the garden, especially resonating with the first foundation, mindfulness of body in being aware of one’s movements and postures while gardening, as well as the sensory experience of working in soil, and the various facets of beauty in the garden, like these Sunfired Flare tomatoes which came on very late in summer, and came off the vine with a lot of skin damage I suspect was inflicted by insects. They sat on the counter a long time ripening after I picked them while I pondered the best way to use them. Finally I just cut and roasted them the other day, and squeezed them out of the skins easily. I used some in a batch of beans for burritos, which I like to make in bulk and freeze for a quick meal. I was glad to have some homegrown onions, too, and used up the last white and yellow onions along with a red one in the beans. The rest of the reds I’ll probably pickle.
An interview I listened to while cooking was with Dr. Jeremy Faust explaining what ER doctors are actually looking for when you show up there, and why he thinks the 1-10 pain scale is pretty much useless. I know I’ll now have a better sense of how to answer questions if I ever end up in an Emergency Room again, and also the next time I see my nice new primary care provider.
Walking in the woods, puttering or working in the garden, cooking and cleaning the kitchen, these activities ground me in what is real and true, help me see reality clearly. And even with the rich reality of my grounded life, I can feel my attention being subtly sucked by the insidious tendrils of algorithms. I’m sorry to admit that I spend more time playing NYT word games and scrolling Instagram now than I did a year ago. It’s a way to escape the horrors of the distillation of power and money to the oligarchs, but the escape itself is a delusion. Christopher Armitage explains the whys and hows in his article ‘Fracking Attention and Strip-Mining Mental Health’. It’s uncomfortable but it offers some small sense of agency going forward in how I spend my attention budget. And it’s been a mindfulness tenet for millennia that where we place our attention forms our world view.
In my house growing up, the only time sour cream ever showed up was when mom made beef stroganoff. I picked up a childish aversion to sour cream because my parents seemed to avoid it, and besides it just sounded all wrong. It’s one of many foods I developed a taste for years later. It’s been many years since I’ve had any kind of stroganoff, and when I saw this recipe for mushroom stroganoff I replenished my sour cream supply and whipped up a quick batch. So simple, so delicious!
And on a differently uncomfortable note speaking of food, this article ranging through the Dark Nutrition movement offers plenty of food for a flite of thoughts. Alexandra Petri once again skewers our times with her satire on ‘humanitarian’ and other words that have lost their meaning in the Trumpscape. And in other doublespeak news, Texas senate candidate Ken Paxton appears to be guilty of voter fraud.
Prickly pear pads plump and round with recent rains…
My practice is all about balancing external influences and internal knowing in an everchanging landscape of uncertainty day by day, minute by minute, breath by breath.
Insane rains the past two days. One deluge after another rolling through in waves, lightning and thunder, branches blown down, a large dead piñon toppled, and that’s just what I can see within and from the yard. Poor Wren’s heart may give out before the monsoons are through. But we are all so very grateful for the water, even though much of it is just running off the hardpan ground. Some of it’s penetrating. It will be interesting to see what kinds of flash floods emerge in this region with this unusual storm cycle.
I have been gathering a post about 9/11 which I started on the 25th anniversary last Friday, and I just can’t seem to give it the time it needs. My attention touches then glances off it, but I’ll persist. Obviously, like so many, the day brought up a lot of emotions, primarily fear, dread, and grief. I was grateful for many thoughtful reflections and commemorations around the world that came to my screen, and I want to share some of them.
But mostly, in this moment, I want to offer thanks for the insane rain, and reflect on how unsettling it is after what seems like decades since I’ve experienced anything like it. A lot of these thunders have made me jump. It’s enervating enough for me: I can only imagine how unnerving it is for little Wren. I worry for her bladder as well as her heart, as I have to coax her out between storm bouts, with more forecast through the next week. Topaz was out in a thunderous gale for awhile tonight and I was so happy when she finally came bedraggled and mewing to the window.
Gathered at the strawberry patch in sunnier days, like Saturday. We’ve been getting two or three ripe berries a day, which naturally I have to share. I get one good bite, and one of them gets the stem end with a generous bit of berry left on.
A few more modest harvests from home, and some treats from the farmers’ market. It took awhile but I finally made bread and butter pickles with the cucumbers from the farmers’ market last time. Just two pints, so I didn’t bother canning them, just put them in the fridge. They won’t last long.
I was grateful for a gorgeous day today, and for the help of Good Tim in the garden. Here he’s cutting suckers from the wild plum with Wren’s help. She adores him and follows him around when he’s here like a—well, like a puppy dog.
I learned a new technique for bread scoring, where you do the decorative scoring only (wheatstalks, here) and bake for seven minutes, then you take the lid off and do the expansion score (straight lines) so the loaf can rise to its full potential, replace the lid and bake the rest of the covered time, then remove the lid as usual until done. Pretty pleased with my first attempt.
The shades are coming along, I spent hours this weekend on several panels in varying stages, and I’m happily absorbed in completing the appliqués. (I’ll iron out the wrinkles before assembly.) I’m grateful I’ve rediscovered the joy of sewing. I heard just this evening on Forrest Hanson’s ‘Being Well’ podcast that when you don’t find joy in things you used to it indicates depression.
While I was designing a trumpet flower on the lower section, little miss Topaz did her cat thing. These are impressionistic shades, not ecologically or geographically accurate, so I anchored this panel with a bunch of cypress knees, checking my memory of them against photos from an Ecosia search online. Yes, they really do look that strange and otherworldly.
I had a couple of errands to run, including swinging by the lumber yard to buy the 1×2 strips for mounting the shades, so I saved them for Farmers Market day. Paonia is an interesting town, with the strongest Blue streak in a Red county. As US politics gets ever more bizarre and divisive, I found this interesting piece on the right’s attacks on Jon Ossoff somewhat enlightening.
Wren came to town with me, and her day got very interesting. She met Huckleberry at the lumber yard. Then she heard fire engine sirens up close and personal at our next stop. Then she met Huckle at the Farmers Market, and she was so excited to see him that I think she must have spent some time with him before, at the Bad Dog Ranch where he’s a neighbor.
Today was an extra bright day for me after the rough week the world just finished. Losing Dolly Parton was the first blow. I know there are a lot of ‘good millionaires’ out there just living their lives and not being greedy; but it does seem that the wealthiest people on the planet are the hungriest ghosts. There are some notable exceptions, among them Dolly, who spent her wealth freely for humanitarian causes.
Thankfully many of the worst fires in the US West are under control or out, though fires in Washington State continue to create unhealthy air, new fires burn in California, and some fires remain in Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico. Colorado, which kicked off the season well ahead of other states, now, blessedly, remains almost fire-free. The Guardian published this article last week about Josephine County, Oregon, which has the highest rate of deaths from wildfire smoke of any place in the country. It’s a sad testament to the obvious effects of climate chaos, and at the same time it validates my experience of our smoky days here and their effect on my breathing.
I’m thankful that the COPD that afflicts me does so only moderately, not severely, but I understand that it’s an irreversible illness that, without adequate precautions, will worsen and could eventually kill me. Oh well! This is how it is. I’m taking the precautions I know of, and always open to more helpful measures. In so many ways, I’m more fortunate than most people on the planet.
Certainly my good fortune far exceeds that of those poor people living along the Trishuli River on the border of Tibet and Nepal. A dear friend has lived in Nepal, has friends there, and has been watching developments in this climate-fueled mega-disaster closely. She shared this link to a fascinating in-depth analysis of the geological and climatological conditions that factored into the seismic ‘debris flow’ or, as some are calling it, ‘inland tsunami’, the effects of which will be felt for a long time to come. A lot of survivors I’ve seen interviewed said there’s no reason left to live: they’ve lost so much that life has no meaning anymore. Many expressed survivors’ guilt. The grief and trauma the entire remaining population of those demolished communities are suffering is almost as unfathomable as the mind-boggling catastrophe itself.
Holding tragedy and grief in my heart, holding the world and all beings in compassion, how else can I live but by appreciating all the small joys as they arise? And every day they arise one after another after another, though some days I notice only a few, and for awhile there I couldn’t see any. Today overflowed with lovely moments.
I spent more money than I should have at the market, including $20 on a pizza to support The Learning Council, a community advocacy group who offers wood-fired pizza and an organic full meal each week for any donation. I enjoyed a couple of slices at a picnic table, listening to the lovely music, before heading home.
I also bought a couple of tomatoes, some pickling cucumbers, and three skeins of yarn. I only intended to buy two. I was entranced by the colors of these hand-dyed wools last time, but I can’t wear wool, it itches. So I pondered what I could do with some, and realized that Wren can wear wool! And I call her Wrenbow, so I planned to get some rainbow wool to knit her a new sweater.
I was grateful to snag the last two skeins of the most rainbow yarn. Then I had a lovely chat with Tonya of Wooly Colorado as I perused the rest of her wares, and she pointed out “Those two are cotton, I spun them. Dyed with indigo.” Something happened. I picked one up and teared up. Emotion overcame common sense, rationalization reared its lovely head, I can wear cotton, and I bought one. Just holding it, carrying it to the car, telling someone about it on the phone later, tears and tingles kept coming. My heart is open again.
Sunset the other night was gorgeous. The woodshed is full before autumn. And the desert 4 o’clocks are blooming their psychedelic purple.
Another delightful thing was an illusion the other morning: a scrub jay perched on the peach trunk that looked azure-teal, an amazing color that I first thought for a split second was a genetic anomaly, until it flew off and I realized the color was an effect of the light shining through something green onto the tree, transforming the blue jay into an astonishing teal jay.
Im glad I took the garbage out late tonight, around 10. I stumbled upon a lunar eclipse. For just a second I experienced the confusion that must have struck early humans before they knew what it was. I was grateful for science and that I understood quickly what was happening. I’d had no idea there was a near total lunar eclipse—96.2% according to space.com, and the best one anywhere on earth until the last day of 2028. I wonder what our world will be like then? After I drove the garbage up the driveway I made a cup of chamomile tea and sat out on the deck with a happy pup on my lap and stars in my eyes, watching the earth’s shadow melt away revealing the bright full moon, meditating on the miracles of this universe.
Today’s post is a little different. It’s the transcript, essentially, of my final podcast, “Suffer Less with Mindfulness,” which aired last week. You can listen to all episodes for a few more weeks wherever you get your podcasts or on my website, before I cancel my subscription to the Captivate platform at which point it disappears forever from everywhere, except possibly Apple Podcasts, and maybe Insight Timer.
What’s your understanding of equanimity? Mine includes the idea that we can find balance under any conditions, and we aren’t constantly being jerked by our emotions or external circumstances or our own thoughts or other people’s actions from one extreme of joy and excitement and positivity to the other extreme of despair or rage or negativity; maintaining an even keel. It includes the idea of seeing all humans as having equal value, not judging people until we know them, and then using discernment, not snap judging. It includes the idea of not labeling, of being open to seeing, to understanding that each person is who they are, and they bring to each encounter all the causes and conditions of their life up to that moment, just like we do. It’s embodied in the idea that I’ve mentioned before, and we’ll swap out mindfulness for equanimity: “Equanimity is not about feeling better, it’s about getting better at not making things worse.” And it’s so much more than all these things.
One rich ground for equanimity practice is the fact that Death is certain, time of death uncertain. In some ways my whole life, my whole mindfulness practice since I began it 20 years ago, has been about learning to die. I’ve been afraid of death, afraid of dying, since I was a child and first learned of death. For the past year, I’ve been preparing to die. This last month, as part of that, I’ve been doing a life review, reading my old journals starting from the first one in high school. Partly so that I can burn them or send them to the dump so that they’re out of my house when I die; and partly to shift my perspective. I’m getting some resolution, some equanimity with who I was in the past. Who I am right now is not who I was even yesterday. I’m making peace with the process of growing and changing, and remembering that every moment I’m choosing ‘how do I wanna be?’ Equanimity can really help us make those choices with wisdom and compassion.
I’ve dipped into some of these journals through the years. Occasionally I’ve looked back at a certain event or a certain timeframe, and I’ve read it and been disgusted with myself, judging harshly: Same old patterns, same old complaints, same old, same old. This time I’m looking back on my life systematically with a different lens: the lens of compassion, which I’ve never used before.
‘How was it for younger Rita?’ Can I offer her kindness instead of judgment? Can I bring curiosity to reading these journals, to see what she might have been going through, get a healthier perspective on the conditions around her, and bring a sense of acceptance, equanimity, even gratitude, to the life I’ve lived so far?
I’ve found some tragically silly little love poems. I’ve read of my aspiration to be loving and kind repeatedly, yet also how I remained in vicious and constant judgement of others. I’ve recognized my tendencies of projection, labeling, exaggeration, and many more afflictions that mindfulness practice diminishes with awareness. I’ve seen myself back then from morning to night, bouncing from absolute giddiness to utter despair, from feeling really good about myself because some boy thought I was cute, to feeling worthless, to feeling high as a kite because of some fun party I went to or ice skating or a kiss, to feeling total confusion and contempt. External influences, mostly boys, swung me from one extreme to another emotionally with zero equanimity, though there were occasional insightful moments of awareness. I now recognize this as the condition of adolescence, puberty, being a hormone-addled teenager; I see my past self with tenderness instead of scorn, and see all teenagers now with compassion.
I’ve come across a few striking instances that illustrate the malleable nature of memory. I was stunned to read that I got the part of the pregnant girl in the local TV station PSA in sophomore year. All I’ve remembered for as long as I can remember was the humiliation of the audition. I sat in an empty classroom with my head on my arms pretending to cry. The scout team wanted actual tears. I went to great lengths to generate tears, pinching myself, recalling my cat’s death, even asking for a slice of raw onion from the cafeteria and breaking that up under my face. I didn’t get the part. Shame. Yet in my journal, I read that I got the part! I got my current crush to play my boyfriend, kids in the halls called me ‘movie star’ for weeks afterward, and I felt respected by the cool kids for awhile. Why did I take away, or reconstruct, a memory of failure?
I’ve been surprised also that through those years I found three instances where I describe almost verbatim a terrible pit in my stomach, a gnawing emptiness, a burning hole in my gut, clearly physical. What was that about?
One thing that helps us cultivate equanimity and also feeds equanimity is this idea of perspective, and the more we can exercise a flexible open mind, the more we gain a broader, more open-hearted perspective. Now, as I’m learning about the influences of being raised by immature parents, of growing up in a home with constant bickering, a father who was power hungry and a broken-hearted mother, and nervous system development, I have a lot more perspective. I’ve already found some closure, some resolution, some equanimity and compassion with who I was then. I just wanted to be seen and loved.
There are those whose opinions differ, but it seems painfully clear that the human species over the past 400 years or perhaps our entire evolution has set in motion the collapse of our planetary systems. Climate collapse is a no-brainer. I live in the US west where for the past decade average temperatures have been rising in all seasons, and concurrently wildfire season has grown from a few months in late summer to encompass more than half the year. There is really no time of year, where I live, that a random lightning strike couldn’t provoke a cataclysmic fire, except a few months in deep winter if there is adequate snow cover, which is no longer guaranteed.
The Gold Mountain fire 60 miles south of here that burned 38,000 acres, now they’re having flash floods as a result of the monsoon storms coming through and washing down the burnt bare hillsides, carrying rocks and mud and wiping away houses at the bottom that survived the fire. The Elk fire just a few miles east of that continues to grow, making it unhealthy or impossible to spend time outside. Spokane, Canada, Oregon, France, Spain, whoever is next… The planet is burning.
The planet is burning because of people’s choices. It’s largely been the choices of people in power in corporations and in certain countries. It’s systemic. We can’t solve this individually. They led us to believe that recycling would fix it, that solar panels would fix it. None of those things ever worked because they were intentionally deluding us all along, and we were letting ourselves be deluded. Meanwhile, they can’t quit blowing shit up.
Seeing reality clearly, can we acknowledge that this is a really hard time? The planet is burning. Cultural collapse seems imminent as evidenced in the decline in reading, the inability of younger generations to write in cursive, and measurably shorter attention spans in students. Loss of human contact is prevalent in the ascendance of AI, in the proliferation of self-checkout, in the tacit permission to be cruel in online trolling, in person now, and in our institutions. Loneliness is pandemic. Societal collapse is underway and all you need do to see it is look around you. These days I experience more and more moments where I feel compassion for the tragedy of the human condition rather than anger and resistance to the way we are as a species. What a seething mass of parasites we are on this planet, and the sad part is — we simply couldn’t help it.
Yes, it’s true that at other times in human history, in other parts of the world, there have been civilization collapses and ecological collapses, and it’s also true that there are many good people around the globe working hard in many ways to stem the tide, to improve conditions in very many ways. But this current poly-crisis planetary collapse is different in scale and in momentum.
How do we live in such a world? How do we bring equanimity, compassion, and kindness out into the world? It doesn’t hurt to start with a healthy comparison of myself with those suffering worse than I, like climate refugees, brutalized immigrants, all manner of oppressed people from BIPOC to trans and queer people to people living in poverty or without homes. This leads to a healthy appreciation of the current conditions of my life, despite its challenges. Next, remember to be kind. “It’s so easy to be nice,” said my friend Kathleen as we discussed this the other day. Why expend the energy to be hateful?
It is hard to have equanimity in this time that we find ourselves. It takes conscious effort. It takes intention, and it takes choosing where we place our attention. And this is why these four heart qualities, the Four Boundless Attitudes of Equanimity, Compassion, Kindness, and Appreciative Joy, are so important: because life on earth is just gonna get harder. The more we can find peace, equanimity, compassion, and wisdom in ourselves, the more we can be islands of strength and resilience in our lives and for the people around us. And then we can turn our strengths into actions in our groups and our communities, and make our voices heard, and vote right.
We can do all those things and more; but can we also practice equanimity in this very dicey time? Well, what are our options? We can suffer and be miserable and be scared, and every emotion is contagious. So if we are going around angry and scared, we’re gonna make other people angry and scared. If we can have even moments of peace in any situation, we can share that peace. We can calm and soothe others.
We find this capacity in ourselves through our mindfulness practice, and in whatever spiritual grounding we each have. We find equanimity not only internally, but also in the groups of people where we can share in this ‘seeing reality clearly,’ share our broken hearts, share the anger and fear, and share the commitment and the intention to keep practicing. Keep practicing.
I don’t expect to die any time soon, but … death is certain, time of death uncertain. In the past year I’ve experienced an unusual number of health challenges, some of which can be managed with medications or lifestyle adjustments, and the rest I can adapt to. These actually started piling on after I set the intention to prepare to die, and for awhile they eclipsed that aspiration. Now as I’ve tamed some of them, they serve as motivation to accelerate my preparation.
There are so many things I’ve left undone in my life, and it’s winding down. At best I’ll have another twenty or so productive years. At worst, I could go tomorrow. If I only get a few good years before my lungs are too compromised to remain at this elevation, I’d like to at least finish some of the domestic projects here at Mirador, like the series of five quilted, tropical-themed warm-window drapes begun twenty years ago to keep the sunroom warmer in winter, and now more essential to keep it cooler in climate-intensified summer heat.
That’s just one of dozens of undone creative projects. Not to mention PG&D: personal growth and development. I’m finally acknowledging that being raised by parents with narrow, rigid minds, functional alcoholics who were exemplary products of the military-industrial colonization culture, wasn’t just a mismatch for my sensitive temperament, it was a constant low-grade trauma to my nervous system. As a result, there’s a lot of healing to do before I die, so that I can live more fully in alignment with my values, bring more meaning to this fleeting existence, in the time left to me. I’m on the right track. In some ways I’ve always been on the right track. Because it’s always been the path that has opened before me, each remarkable step of the way. Now, navigating that path involves withdrawing some of my externally-oriented energies and turning inward even more deeply.
So, this is the last episode of this podcast for the foreseeable future. Mirador Eco-retreat is essentially a single-person business without much capital, and I can no longer afford to produce a podcast. The cost isn’t sustainable either financially or energetically. Thank you for listening, and I hope that you have derived some benefit from the lessons and meditations I’ve shared over the past four years. You can support my ongoing mindfulness work or join the Suffer Less with Mindfulness virtual sangha at this membership page: miradorecoretreat.org.
I’ve been delighted and horrified and everything in between as I read through my journals from the first one I started writing when I was fifteen. So far I’m up to age twenty-two, and reacquainting myself with me during those seven years a key finding is how unreliable my memory is. It’s comforting to know from memory science that it’s not just mine. Studies indicate that each time we recall a memory we overlay it with something of our current conditions, gradually shaping and shifting it into something that can be very different from the actual situation we think we remember. The journals are a gift as I unpack this phenomenon. I have written proof that I did not, in fact, do something that I years later memory-guilted myself over doing.
I was raised by republicans in the suburbs of DC and didn’t know any better. That’s my excuse for what my friend Wayne and I planned when candidate Jimmy Carter came to town. I was editor of the school newspaper, he was photo editor. We pinned Gerald Ford buttons inside our blazer lapels, and intended to flash them at Carter from our place in the front row as he came along greeting people.
I think of his smile now, which must have dazzled us back then but I don’t remember that. Some years after his legacy of compassionate integrity was cemented, I recalled with shame that youthful prank. It haunted me from time to time, popping up out of the blue when I heard his name as he built Habitat houses, unobtrusively and tirelessly worked for world peace, modeled a healthy marriage, and so much more. Imagine my delight to read that though we had intended to do it, we had restrained ourselves! I misremembered, colored my recollection of the event over time with the dark brush of the inner critic, the habit of creeping negativity bias.
It was a good week in the sandwich department. This one included farmstand tomato, smoked Gouda, refrigerator pickles, and pickled red onions. Dinners were also nourishing, which doesn’t happen every day. I got another three meals from the Aphid Kale, cutting the heat by serving with fried leftover parmesan-polenta, with or without cheese.
I notice ‘negativity bias’ more clearly in reviewing my life than I do in the present moment. It’s become habitual. Negativity bias is an evolutionary adaptation for survival which seems to make danger and aversion create stronger memories than pleasure. But we rarely need the protection from predators now as when we emerged from the forests onto the open plains, and most foods at our disposal we already know aren’t going to poison us. (Most, depending on where you get them.) I look forward to trying this malabar spinach when it grows a bit bigger, and thanks to Garden Buddy for the seeds of this edible leafy vine.
If this shift toward memory loss with aging is built in by evolution (and I’m not saying it is but these new studies may suggest it), then maybe it’s not all bad. Maybe it’s only our Type A-Grasping-Doing culture that sees forgetting with age as a flaw. Personally I’m thankful for some memory loss. Life gets easier with just a little bit of a blur. I’ve forgotten a lot of good things and people from my life, but as I age I am forgetting more and faster the unhappy, prickly, afflictive things that happen, and have happened. I used to be the queen of grudges, and I’m softer now. It could be that forgetting some things with age allows us to open in other ways, to become more compassionate and wise.
The week’s good sandwiches have also included tuna fish. ‘Tuna fish’, thinking about that redundant name, short for tuna fish salad, but why not just ‘tuna sandwich’? Because it could be confused with tuna prepared some other way than the standard mayo mush? I love it with celery, red onion, mayo, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, Penzeys Wauwatosa Village seasoning, and some pickle relish. It’s an infinitely versatile staple, and now that I’ve found Thrive Market sustainably caught skipjack tuna, I indulge in a couple of cans a month and get three servings per can. Next week I plan to branch out from the humble tuna fish sandwich to try a Gourmet tuna-noodle casserole. I used to love tuna fish casserole growing up (no, haven’t found it referred to yet in the journals) but it always seemed to suffer from an unjust stigma as ‘cheap’ food. I don’t remember the last time I had a good tuna fish casserole.
It’s been a joy to be able to eat outside again now that the smoke has dissipated, the nearby fires are largely under control, and it’s cooler than 98 degrees in the shade. We’re getting to enjoy sitting by the pond at either end of the day again, and sometimes even catch the lilies as they open. The summer chugs on by with its highs and lows, its holdings and releasings, and I’m grateful for awareness of Impermanence: When we’re in the midst of scalding, desiccating heat and my lungs burn with every breath, it can be hard to remember that this too shall pass. Whatever comes next, it won’t be like this someday. At least for awhile.
These two are not kissing. It’s a rare moment of domestic bliss when I can get them both in the same frame so I take it when I can get it. Wren is in her thunder shirt, which she half thinks brings the thunder but she actually does freak out a bit less if I can get it on her before a storm. This article on ‘The Death of the Kiss‘ makes me grateful I got so much kissing in as a youth. So much kissing! I don’t remember half the boys I kissed in high school but I’m glad I mentioned them in those journals. And oh, the giddiness of kissing. No wonder my mother called me “boy crazy” more than once. I’m surprised, too, by how little supervision I must have actually had, even though it felt oppressive at the time and created a crippling adult aversion to being scrutinized. I kissed a lot of men after high school, too, but it’s been a long time since I’ve experienced that particularly blissful physical surrender, since well before Covid. I wonder if the Covid Shift away from proximity and contact led to this tragic reported youthful self-consciousness, aversion to, and denial of the pleasures of kissing.
Everyone I know is grateful this week for cooler temperatures and more humidity. From Wednesday morning humidity in the single digits it was up to 42 by midday and 80 by evening. It never quite rained until after dark, but brought soothing clouds and a strong breeze. The house cooled down enough to finally bake granola, one of my favorite all-purpose anytime foods to keep on hand. So simple, so delicious!
I used a cup of raw pecans which I toasted with the oats and dressing to bake, then added a half cup each of roasted-salted pepitas and mini-chocolate chips, and even more craisins on top after the grain cooled. It was so satisfying to break up the sheet of toasted oats and crumble everything together before scooping it all into a half-gallon mason jar. In the morning, with a big dollop of Greek yogurt and a splash of organic milk I started the day right.
But before breakfast, the morning too cool and dewy to resist, Wren and I walked to the rim for the first time in more than a month. Piñon needles and juniper leaves sparkled with raindrops and the sagebrush smelled crisp and medicinal.
I practiced a lot of deep breathing at stops along the trail, and also while walking. I’ve been practicing several techniques to open my lungs, along with using the new COPD inhaler twice a day. But yesterday I may have ended up with too much of a good thing.
Lots of exercise, lots of deep breathing, lots of energy. I was also halfway through a ten day course of prednisone to finally knock out once and for all this ear condition that’s plagued me since March. I was warned that the prednisone might give me jitters like too much caffeine, and I was feeling some of that, but was more than compensated by feeling so much better than I have in over a year in so many other ways. No more mouth-face-ear-jaw pain, plenty of motivation and stamina, and a sense of awakening. That movie came to mind, a miracle drug drawing me out of a deep haze. I enjoyed a mindful supper on the patio, not a book in sight, just dinner with the hummingbirds, and a half-glass of wine mixed with cold sparkling water.
Another cool evening, another oven bake, this time a recipe off a King Arthur flour bag for Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars. I blame Philip for everything that happened afterward. Not saying any of it was his fault, just that I blame him. I wanted a special trade for him when he brought me groceries today and he loves this brownie-blondie kind of treat. Timing was perfect, baked to perfection early enough to let the house cool again before bedtime, and the bars cool overnight before cutting. “You might initially think these bars are underbaked, but once you let them cool completely (overnight is best), they’re wonderfully chewy and moist.” So concludes the recipe. About ten o’clock I took the last activated charcoal capsule in my dental-mercury-cleanse protocol. They’re big and hard to swallow, so I cut off a little corner of the cookie bars to help wash it down.
Within minutes, as I watched TV and knitted, my heart started racing. I wasn’t worried, considering all the aforementioned conditions. But it went on. So I made a cup of chamomile-mint tea, and sipping that over the next hour failed to settle it. I checked in with my pulse oximeter to see just how fast my heart was racing, and was not surprised to see it peaking around 142 bpm. What shocked me was that it skittered rapidly up and down, bottoming out occasionally at 48. Then I got a little worried. I checked it a couple more times over the next half hour, before deciding I should just go to bed. But I thought of Philip saying how he always checks out medical stuff with AI, and thought, Why not? Maybe it’s something serious since it’s not stopping. AI advised me to immediately go to the hospital. I was grateful for the equanimity that comes of practice. I didn’t panic, I calmly called 911 and told the calm, kind dispatcher “the nature of” my emergency. He sent an ambulance to check me out.
It took about half an hour. Waiting, I calmly put on more clothes than I’d been wearing, and settled Wren in her little nest in the laundry nook since dispatch had asked me to shut any pets in another room. But they didn’t even come in. I met them outside and they kindly took me into their tiny space, hooked me up, spoke calmly, did the things. A few minutes in another EMT arrived, a few questions later, they let me go. My heart was fine, BP a little high, pulse a little high but regular. I had already felt much better by the time they arrived than I had for the two hours before they came. Wren was a mess when I got in. She’d shredded the lower rubber door jamb and was bouncing off the door when I opened it. I cuddled and consoled her, swept up the mess, and calmly we wandered up to bed. I lay still, spent but not sleepy, meditated for half an hour, and eventually drifted off, floating on awareness of gratitude for Christopher, Caden, and the third EMT whose name I didn’t catch, compassionate volunteers who showed up to reassure me at midnight. Christopher explained the form I signed this way: “You’re saying you’ve refused transport to the hospital, but you’re also promising that if anything happens after we leave you’ll call again, any time. We’re here for you, and there’s no charge for us to come out, it doesn’t cost you a thing.”
Causes and conditions. Everything is causes and conditions that arise, come together, and change. Nothing ever remains the same, whether we want it to or not. I woke well rested and sublimely grateful for a new day in which to start living all over again. I confess that I took it easier today, practicing moderation in all things. I’ll finish off the prednisone but hold off on the inhaler which also contains a steroid until I’m not double dosing. I trained my energy on some light housecleaning instead of a brisk hike. Lunch was a simple plate with pickles, tomatoes, and a piece of toast lightly spread with a quick fromage fort I whipped up with four different cheese ends, garlic, salt&pepper, and a splash of dry vermouth. I had to get back on the horse, so for dessert I ate a small cookie bar just so I wouldn’t be afraid of them. Hours later and I’m feeling fine, kind of like a fever broke: calm, steady, good O2 saturation, a steady pulse, and a distinct pleasure in simply being alive.
A rare morning rainbow in the western sky last week.
With its apparent resilience, the monarch butterfly provides another apt metaphor. After a precipitous decline in population and a decades-long international collaboration to save the species, monarch numbers have increased in the past few years. They’ve followed more or less the same migratory pathways for 20 millennia, the science of tracking and protecting them has been going on for .0025% of that time by my calculation, and they could go extinct in the next fifty years.
I’m grateful that I got to visit Rosario in the late 80s as a guest of a research team under the direction of Dr. Lincoln Brower. The sanctuary had just been designated. During my week at the field camp, the weather was unseasonably cold and the last few days were blanketed in a rare snow. We drove down from the mountaintop to El Rosario and walked the dusty paths, but even there the monarchs were largely dormant. Nevertheless, I remember the miracle of being among their stunning multitude. I’m grateful they seem to be adapting to habitat loss.
But if we as a species don’t slam the brakes on climate chaos, those amazing butterflies don’t stand a chance. The world has “junked 45 climate pledges.” Under the current US regime, public lands including irreplaceable wilderness and cultural sites are being torn open to fossil fuel extraction. This is unconscionable. Killing two birds with one stone and the planet in the mix, destroying our public lands protected by our tax dollars for their value to our American lives, AND accelerating the climate catastrophe. We stand to lose not only the butterflies, but so many other natural wonders and cultural treasures. Call your representatives now.
As a society, we’re going to need all the resilience we can cultivate, given the insidious influences trying to shape the way we think, feel, and interact with our world. The Patriarchy may be in its death throes but it’s pulled out all the stops, as this insightful piece from The Atlantic illustrates. Can we support the men in our lives, young or old, in resisting this toxic masculinity scam? Can we help each other see reality clearly? Your wellbeing and happiness depend upon my wellbeing and happiness, as mine depend upon yours. We are interdependent. Can we hold on to this certainty in some way as nefarious forces continue trying to fracture us, both individually and collectively? Daily mindfulness practice helps me feel more resilient.
Doing my best most days to eat in a way that supports my health, I made a delicious golden mushroom soup last week, with portobellos, orzo, turmeric, and turkey stock. And a pat of butter, per the recipe.
And it’s not just the natural world this Republican regime is assaulting. Our health as individuals, communities, and a nation is at risk from the boneheads in charge of public health. This 23 minute talk Joyce Vance had with Dr. Vin Gupta lays out the threats pretty clearly, and offers us some resources since we can no longer count on the government websites to provide science.
The once bountiful garden is struggling with the heat, though it’s still providing about as many leafy greens as I can stomach. The ‘Mickey Maters’ started from Dog World seeds are not thriving. I don’t think they’re meant to be quite this small. I’m grateful for the few strawberries that have survived the chipmunks.
A friend brought me a nice organic zucchini a couple weeks ago, and the only thing I wanted to do with it was try again to make zucchini fries. This time I used a batter recipe Amy had sent, since the last time it was too thick and took so long to fry to golden that the zukes were just utter mush.
With this tempura-like batter they fried quickly and remained beautifully firm, almost crunchy. Maybe next time, with the oil a little hotter, they’ll do even better. It’s a great way to get a fried fix. For sauce this time, nothing fancy, just mayo, mustard, a squeeze of tomato paste because I had no ketchup, and a spoonful of sweet pickle relish.
Morning at the Bombay Wall. I did NOT empty all these bottles by myself, it was a community effort over two decades. They were just too pretty to throw away.
Speaking of blue beauty, the lazuli bunting has been a regular at the feeder and I was happy to get some good shots. I thought at first glance that he was wet from a rare rain, but on closer inspection recognized the tips of new feathers all over his head. He didn’t show up while he was molting—it might have alarmed me to see a bald-headed bunting, but I’d have remembered what I learned when Cousin Mel had a bald cardinal at her feeder. It’s not unusual to see bald songbirds occasionally during molting season.
This is my first ever journal, covering the last six weeks of freshman high school through the summer and the first few months of sophomore year. As part of my preparing-to-die work (no rush, don’t worry, just want to leave a little less stuff for others to deal with whenever it does happen) I’ve gathered all my old journals and am reading them in order, with several goals. One is to review my life with compassion for a change. Oh! The Drama! Also some good insights: I was more resilient then than I remember. And some perspective: Doodles and I pooled our money after a bike ride to town, and had to choose between buying a coke or a slurpee with our 16 cents!
Back then, I was only dimly aware of worldly concerns, but I do remember thinking that the grownups would save the ozone layer and solve global warming and tighten the growing income gap, so I ignored all those things for a few decades. Turns out, they all just kept getting worse.
Thanks to an infusion of new sourdough starter from the Bad Dogs, I got a proper rise to my boule last week.
Also in baking news, it was time for another birthday cake. I chose for Rosie a 7-Up cake, a retro Southern recipe which uses the lemon-lime pop as both liquid and leavening. The flavor is enhanced with lime zest and juice, but my limes were not organic and I won’t zest sprayed fruit. So I used lemons instead. It calls for a lemon glaze, but I knew she likes frosting so I made a lemon cream cheese buttercream—yum! I also tried to candy lemon slices for decoration, but I lost track of the process (twice!) resulting in a burnt mess. Oh well. I’ll try again some day.
Coffee at the pond this morning with a gentle doe.
Wren (like all my dogs) has always gotten last bite of everything I eat. I’ve found only a few things she won’t eat: raw celery, zucchini, and mushrooms. The other day I thought to offer her a spoonful of cinnamon foam after I finished my latté. She was so excited to try it! And she loved it, so now it’s another regular last bite treat.
Just a shout out to the Crawford Volunteer Fire Department: There was a spine jolting lightning strike in the neighborhood this evening. The ‘brave fire laddies’ (as the Colonel used to say) (and lassies, which he never said) were out in several vehicles in no time. I don’t know if there was a fire they put out, but they apparently patrolled the area for the duration of the dry lightning storm.
Our What’s App fire watch group responded to the strike over the next hour with observations from various perspectives. Some could track the patrol vehicles from their vantage points, at least one scouted the woods, one smelled smoke briefly, and I climbed the tower with binoculars. I know at least one person will sleep easier tonight for our community’s vigilance. I’m very grateful.
