Tag Archive | Mindful Life Program

Cherry Pie

Jun24

That old ditty Can she bake a cherry pie, Billy boy, Billy boy, can she bake a cherry pie charming Billy? has been running through my head since yesterday morning when I set out to do just that. Turns out yes she can.

I used a new crust recipe that included butter and cream cheese, and chose to par-bake it though the pie recipe didn’t call for that. It was a partly successful choice.

It made the lattice top harder to attach, but with the clever little tool the lattice was a lot easier to make. However, I think I’ll give away the tool. Though the top crust looked pretty, there wasn’t enough of it. Next time I’ll try a handmade lattice or just leave it solid.

The bulk of the cherries came from Deb’s freezer, from a local organic orchard. Those few little brighter red cherries? They’re from my baby tree. It was fun to throw all nine of them in, and the gesture was well-received at the ‘family dinner’ up the hill.

Little Wren had fun with her friends Josie and Oso, though Oso spent most of the evening challenging a ground squirrel under his mama’s car. I’m grateful for having good-hearted, like-minded friends in the neighborhood, and for spending a comfortable evening savoring seeming normalcy despite the rogue president’s unconstitutional bombing the night before.

Wren inspects my work finally planting one of the little willows Garden Buddy gave me last fall.

This week’s value in the Mindful Life Community is Action, and today’s guidance centered on this quote.

“Don’t spend your precious time asking ‘Why isn’t the world a better place?’ It will only be time wasted. The question to ask is ‘How can I make it better?’ To that there is an answer.” Leo Buscaglia

My challenge these days is finding the balance between these two questions. I wish this government’s policies weren’t rooted in the three poisons of Greed, Hatred, and Delusion; but they are. I wish I could do more to make the world a better place, and I suffer from feeling that I don’t do enough. Are my expectations, of myself and of human nature, unrealistic?

If you’re experiencing similar distress or confusion you might want to check out the free Mindful Living Skills webinar on Thursday online: Working with Expectations in a Time of Uncertainty. Click here to register or learn more.

Topaz lounges at the pond while Wren and I work.

Some days I just hate the lessons I learn! This evening I learned not to wear hearing aids to work in the garden. There aren’t a lot of mosquitoes, partly because I make sure there’s no water left standing long enough to breed them, even in the catch dishes under potted plants. But there are a few. One got caught between my ear and the hearing aid, and I couldn’t get it out. The buzz was strikingly loud, of course, but beyond that once I pulled out the hearing aid every effort I made just drove the killer insect deeper. There were no Q-tips downstairs so I had to hurry up the stairs as fast as I could, which still isn’t fast or graceful; the swab didn’t get it, so I hurried back down and grabbed garlic-mullein ear oil from the medicine cabinet and filled the ear to try to float it out; shook out the oil, swabbed inside, and could still feel it. After a hot shower and another Q-tip, my ear still doesn’t feel right. I pray that the damn mosquito didn’t bite my eardrum and send West Nile virus directly into my brain. Sigh. First world problems.

And a first world solution: sour cherries over chocolate chocolate chip ice cream, for a brief moment of forgetfulness. Savor the simple pleasures, while we have them.

No Buy New Year

Jan3

No Buy New Year got off to a rough start: I spent $500 at the vet yesterday. But that’s ok, veterinary and human health care is exempt, and so are absolute necessities. The goal of No Buy New Year is not deprivation, but it is a type of renunciation.

Now that I have this fine, manual bread (and other foods) slicer (bought in December), I can finally be happy!

Like many Americans, I have more stuff than I need. I’m getting older, death is certain, time of death uncertain, and I’ve been trying to pare nonessentials from all facets of my life for years with limited success. Why is it so hard to winnow things? Because our American culture (now, tragically exported to most of the world) insists that we need more things, and that having more things will make us happier.

Beautiful uniform slices without the effort or the danger of a dulling bread knife.

I know for certain that this is not true, after five years of dedicated mindfulness practice. If you want to know how you can also know this for certain, you’ll need to take the Mindfulness Foundations Course I teach online. It is so much more than can be summarized in a few paragraphs: but trust me, getting and having more things will not make you happier. Some things have uses, some carry important meaning, and many are not “just things”; but some of the things I have I don’t even remember where they are, and when I run across one I may not even be able to recall why I bought it.

This happened awhile ago with a kitchen tool. I couldn’t figure out what it was for, so I passed it on to another kitcheny friend, assuming she’d make some use of it. Only when I bought a new iteration of a corn cutter did I realize that was the purpose of the tool I had given away. I don’t cut that much corn off the cob, but on the rare occasions I do, I prefer to have the right tool for the job. This new one looks like it will be easier to use, but maybe I should label it anyway, summer corn is a long way off.

Listening to this marvelous podcast with Noelle Oxenhandler on the drive home from the vet added yet another layer of meaning to No Buy New Year. Partly, I just want a more streamlined space to dwell in, but I also want less to clean, less to care for, less to care about. So I’m trying to thin my things, and at the same time let go of attachments. Noelle’s interview gives some insight into the cultural conundrum of continually buying more things while at the same time contending with clutter. You don’t have to believe that everything is Buddha, but her discussion around the true nature of things might help me let go of more of them.

I will, of course, still be buying flour.

Here are my No Buy New Year Rules:

1. Keep a box for things to take to the thrift store, and put something in it every day: clothing, kitchen tools, pantry items I’ll never eat or use, knickknacks frippery and ornaments I can bring myself to part with, anything I can let go of.

2. Letting go also includes cleaning out the three spice locations (turntable, rack, and drawer) and composting everything I haven’t used in two years; same rule applies to the pantry. I’ll check the freezer first before I make a grocery list, and buy groceries only twice a month, making sure to use up or compost as much as possible before buying more groceries.

Tonight’s zoom cooking with Amy is a great example of this strategy: instead of buying new onions or tomatoes, I dug through the freezer to find a bag of frozen roasted homegrown tomatoes and some of last year’s onions, and some pesto. We threw together a simple and delicious puréed tomato soup with white beans.

There was also puff pastry in the freezer, cheese in the fridge, and spices on the shelf. We each created our own version of a pull-apart flower. Mine was filled with pesto, cheddar, and Parmesan cheese, and brushed with egg white which I had in the fridge leftover from a custard I made the other day.

A simple supper with ingredients on hand that will provide several more meals.

3. No new clothes. I have enough clothes. I buy more because I covet a certain color or texture of sweater or pants, or style of shirt. I have enough clothes, enough hats, jackets, coats, gloves. Other people don’t. I have too many clothes. Unless an essential clothing item becomes unwearable from age I won’t replace it; and no succumbing to tactile temptations.

4. No new tools. I have enough tools. Any kitchen, household, or garden tool I ever imagined a use for, I have already. If a new use arises, I will make do with an inventive application of tools I already own.

Full disclosure, I did prepare in advance for No Buy New Year. I bought a couple of high-value items after the election. I don’t think the president-elect will be able to enact all his nefarious plans that will bolster the billionaires and create suffering for the rest of us, but I do think he’ll succeed with some of them. I certainly don’t expect the price of imports (or groceries, or gas, or taxes, or anything else) to go down in the coming year, and I personally prefer not to support whatever economic agenda comes out of the incoming regime.

I think that about covers it. At the moment, I can’t think of anything else I’d be liable to buy this year — oh wait! Plants! Seeds! But I firmly believe that I either have all the seeds and stock of plants to propagate any more plants I could desire or need, or I’ll be able to trade for them. So, I’m ready for No Buy New Year. Wish me luck!

A laugh for the day: the doe is fascinated by Wren pooping. Wren is wearing the donut of comfort to help her recover from an infected scratch.

Mindfulness Practice

Oct7

I’ve been pondering how to enjoy a BLT without the bacon, and am grateful that it finally occurred to me to order some vegetarian bacon bits and see if that could work. And more grateful that it did! Nothing equals bacon. But I haven’t been able to eat it for the past year; I simply lost my taste for eating pig. I’ve only eaten meat a couple of times this year, though I will continue to slowly cook up the few pieces that remain in my freezer, or eat meat if it’s served to me. It’s hard even to serve it to my cat and dog, though I will because I believe it’s the best option for them.

Meanwhile, I’ll explore substitutes like soy-based bacon bits and other options, as well as eat more legumes and pulses, and all the other vegetarian proteins available. I’m grateful I got some bacon bits in time to make some semi-BLTs with the last few garden tomatoes.

I’m grateful for mindfulness practice, and for the Mindful Life Program where I trained to be a mindfulness teacher. Their latest yearlong cohort graduates tomorrow, and I’ve participated in some sessions of their final online retreat this weekend. One of the sessions for teachers involved some outdoor mindfulness exercises, including a ‘mindful photography’ piece option: to take pictures representing the Four Keys of Living Mindfully. These are Attention, Values, Wisdom, and an Open Heart. For attention, I captured this lovely moth on a Maximilian sunflower, representing attention to detail, or to nature, or to beauty, your choice.

For Values, I shot my clothesline, representing my value of living lightly on the planet: off the grid, entirely solar powered, my home doesn’t have a dryer. I’ve been enjoying drying clothes on this Irish-made Breezecatcher clothesline for many years. Clothes, and in this case, kitchen linens, the dish towels I use in abundance to reduce paper towel use, and the dish cloths I knitted for several years until arthritis stilled my knitting needles for awhile. I hope to get back to knitting more this winter. What a relief to knit long-lasting cotton wash-squares that clean as well as any disposable sponge and last for years with frequent hot water washes.

The last two keys, Wisdom and an Open Heart, are represented in the Contemplation Tree in the yarden, where skulls, antlers, horns and various other found artifacts of wild life surrender slowly to Impermanence. The tree itself, a skeleton of an old juniper, honors Impermanence. As I may have mentioned once or twice before, comprehending the truth of Impermanence is fundamental to Wisdom. The barbed wire heart, which has been hanging there for nearly thirty years, was something I hadn’t noticed in a long time and a perfect surprise representation of Open Heart.

Little Wren greets the notch-eared doe who is nibbling a few tomato scraps I put out for her in a patio pot. I think Wren was more interested in the tomatoes than in the doe, but the two of them peaceably nose to nose is also a sweet example of Open Heart.

My Job

Aug18

I play this game with Cousin Melinda where I send her a photo and ask Where’s Wren? She is usually able to find Wren. This is today’s photo. In this case, I was simply upstairs teaching ‘behind the curtain’ while Wren was napping in bed; later this evening she was no doubt buried in the covers as dramatic lightning and thunder cracked around the house. I’m grateful she’s so resilient. Once the storm passed, she trotted downstairs to chew on her rawhide, and beg me for treats. I’ve been giving her doggie CBD this past week when the monsoonal storms roll in, and I think it’s helping her terror trigger. I’m grateful we were nourished by a short cloudburst tonight.

During class break this afternoon we stepped out on the deck and spooked a northern flicker who’d been tapping on the house somewhere. I missed the resident flicker last summer; it feels like it’s been a long time without one around, so I’m grateful to have the companionship again. Also, I’m grateful as always for my job teaching mindfulness. Though class is only 2.5 hours a week, there’s plenty of time that goes into prep for each session, and time afterwards to review, and time during the week to support students and graduates. The work is so meaningful to me.

Despite all the pluses of the work, though, I’m taking the rest of the year off after I finish this course. I have two facial MOHS surgeries lined up this fall including an eyelid, and other neighbors are also scheduled for surgeries. I want to be able to focus on my healing, and be available to support others as needed this fall, as well as catch up on some personal projects. My next MLP Mindfulness Foundations Course is now scheduled to run from January 5 – February 23.

I’m grateful for Amy’s recommendation of this date bark. There’s no real recipe, just her vague instructions, which I adapted a little bit and now have further amendments to. Next time I’ll make it like this: Melt a dark chocolate candy bar and drizzle it over a piece of parchment paper on a 9×11 or smaller sheet pan. Press in a dozen chopped Medjool dates, sprinkle with chopped nuts (I used slivered almonds this time and would add chopped roasted/salted peanuts next time also), drizzle with a couple tablespoons peanut butter warmed to runny in the microwave, top with another melted chocolate bar (or two!) and sprinkle with salt (which I forgot tonight). I might even add a few tablespoons of dried shredded coconut. Then chill in the refrigerator until it’s hard, break it up, and enjoy. Because of an inadequate chocolate to date/peanut butter ratio, I’m storing mine in the fridge, but I think with a sufficient chocolate base it could be stored at room temperature in an airtight container. For a few days, which is all the longer it will last. I’m grateful for this healthier alternative to M&M’s for my lunch dessert. Honestly, I’m grateful more than anything else for a simple, meaningful life that affords me the opportunity to enjoy a lunch routine that includes dessert.

Adaptability

Aug31
Top to bottom in this great little silicone baggie, two jalapeño Tam peppers dancing with two Chimayos, resting on two Blot sweet peppers, with the first ripe Aji Crystal hot peppers on the bottom. I’m devising a strategy to get my fermented hot sauce accomplished even though all the peppers are not ripening at the same time, as I had ignorantly assumed they would! Why would they go against their nature just to meet my expectations? I’ll just ferment the peppers in batches as they ripen, and then mix them all together for the sauce. It’s comforting to go with the flow. I’m grateful for adaptability.

I’m grateful the little dog exercises caution at the rim, just like the catahoulas all did when they were puppies. I suppose eventually she’ll trot right up to the edge to look over, but for now she just leans her nose out as far as it will go without getting her feet too close. She’s adapting so well to her new life here that I sometimes wonder if she remembers her old life. And I often wish I knew more about it.

I tried to adapt to the inhaler medication, but it was producing some uncomfortable effects including paradoxically more difficulty breathing. Also, it didn’t substantially raise my oxygen saturation. This reading is from this morning about four hours before my next dose was due. In town a thousand feet lower a couple hours later the reading was 96. This afternoon it hovered around 90. It’s a mystery to me, but I’ve quit the drug and committed to alternative techniques to improve my oxygen. Also, a portable concentrator is due to arrive tomorrow. I’ll adapt to having a small plastic tube stuck in my nose for some hours each day and/or night. A little bit more oxygen is better than none at all.

Shameless self-promotion: I’ll be teaching the MLP Foundations Course again starting in October, sharing immeasurably valuable mindfulness skills with people looking to reduce mental and emotional suffering, increase genuine happiness and contentment, and improve their overall quality of life. Email me if you’re interested in learning more about this transformative course.

And while I’m shamelessly promoting myself, let me also joyfully promote Hillery, who has a big weekend coming up. Tomorrow, an interview on KVNF (90.9, 89.1 and elsewhere on the south end of the FM dial locally, or kvnf.org worldwide), then performances Friday and Saturday at the Blue Sage in Paonia and the Creamery in Hotchkiss respectively. Give yourself a sweet treat by going to hear this up and coming Indi-pop star!

Resurrection

Apr17
Male and female evening grosbeaks and house finches flocking together rested in the top of the birch tree the other morning.

It’s been a long, cold, lonely winter, did I mention that before? I had a lot of recovering to do from the drawn-out demise of Stellar, which was physically and emotionally grueling; and actually quite a bit of settling into a new normal without some of my closest friends who also died over the past two summers, from Ojo to Auntie to Michael and more. This spring does feel a bit like a resurrection for me, and what better day to acknowledge that than Easter Sunday?

Looming larger these days in the back of my mind is how will Topaz receive a new addition to the household? I am pretty much ready for a dog!

I pulled out the new husband-camera which has also lain dormant all winter, and realized I had no idea how to use it, so I also pulled out the manual and spent some hours today figuring out all the knobs and buttons — most of the bells and whistles will have to wait for another day. I haven’t even attached the ‘good’ lens yet but still got some pretty pictures. The two nights of deep freeze last week did not destroy all chance of apricots this year, at least up on this mesa. The tree was loaded with buds, and while most of them had just opened before the freeze and are now toast, it seems that many unopened buds survived and are blooming in this next round of balmy weather. I hope that the valley orchards fared as well.

It was this Mourning Cloak who arrived yesterday that inspired me to bring out the big camera and get ready to wallow in my favorite pastime again. Last year, the ‘good’ lens lost its auto-focus and would have cost a lot to repair. So I dove in headfirst and sprung for a camera upgrade and two new lenses. It helped a lot that I could trade in the old husband and all his lenses at B&H Photo, my go-to AV store in NYC. They offer great help over the phone, and reliable goods and shipping.
While I waited for the butterfly to come in range of my seat on the bench, I missed a bumblebee but got a mediocre snap of a honeybee. There were just a few other small native bees buzzing around; maybe because it was windy, and is still kind of cold at night… or maybe because there are fewer bees even than last year. The loss of the almond tree last year has cut their spring smorgasbord sadly in half.
Not many native pollinators seem to care for forsythia, but this western yellow-jacket was enjoying having it all to itself.

“At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.”

Albert Schweitzer

The Mindful Life Community daily guidance this morning brought suddenly and vividly to mind the journalism teacher in high school, Dottie Olin, who became a lifelong friend. She inspired me then, and I became editor of the paper. For three decades we stayed in touch, visited when I was in town, and her joie de vivre and boundless joy in life grounded me in unstable times. I was grateful to visit her often during the months I lived in Virginia while my mother was dying, and we became even closer. She continued to inspire and support me well into her 80s. Shortly after my mom died and I moved back home to Colorado, I got a note that she was dying of lung cancer. She said, “It’s nobody’s fault but my own,” as she had smoked all her life. She was at peace because she had lived fully and with so much love. I was devastated to lose her as well as my mom in the same year, 2004. I hadn’t thought about her recently, and love that she came to mind so vibrantly as someone who lighted a fire in me and rekindled it through the years. Just the thought of her this morning lifted my energy and got me outside and moving around in the garden, motivated to make the most of this beautiful spring day, this precious day that will never come again.

Opportunity

Dec2

Opportunity knocked, and I opened the door. I accepted the invitation to create an online Introduction to Mindfulness course for a large group of educators. It will be a cursory overview, a tip of the tip of the iceberg, that may entice people to try meditation and some basic mindfulness practices. My hope is that it will give teachers who opt to take it a glimpse of the possibilities that meditation and mindfulness practice offer to find mental and emotional balance in a complicated and stressful work environment. During this pandemic educators, like health workers, face increasing anxiety, overwhelm, and burnout due to short-staffing, higher workload, traumatized students, and conservative pushback against the science of masks and vaccines.

Mindfulness changed my life. I’m grateful for the opportunity I stumbled upon early in the pandemic to learn simple and effective skills to manage my own anxiety, fear, and depression, and transform my life into one of gratitude and contentment. I’m grateful for a decade of meditation practice, a year of intense mindfulness training, and the opportunity to teach these skills online, helping people explore their own potential for less mental suffering and more genuine happiness. I’m grateful for the decades of adventure I’ve had exploring fun, creative, interesting, and varied ways of making a living; for all the lessons, influences, and conditions that led me to discover my true calling and right livelihood at long last. I’m grateful for opportunities to share the gifts of meditation and mindfulness with this new custom course for Oregon educators; and with anyone who is interested in a more thorough exploration, through the Mindful Life Program’s Foundations Course offered online quarterly, with the next class starting in January.

Mind Training

Nov12

I’m grateful that I found mindfulness practice. The world we inhabit is complex and often confounding. Learning a few simple skills, starting with meditation, has helped me find more joy and contentment in life, and experience less mental and emotional suffering. I still get frustrated, annoyed, jealous, suspicious–just, not so much as I used to, and those afflictive states don’t last as long. I still hurt. In fact, I’m going through a pretty tough time right now, I won’t deny it. Sometimes I feel so empty it aches. But not all the time, and other times I feel profound gratitude just to be alive. To be able to share the skills and benefits of mind training with others, as I did this afternoon, is icing on the cake. Today, among other things and people, I’m grateful for the students in the Mindfulness Foundations Course I’m teaching now, and those I’ve taught before: when they tell me how the lessons and practices have helped them handle a challenging situation, or find more peace of mind or happiness, my heart sings. So even though I’m sad today, a week after Stellar’s death, I’m also happy. I’m grateful for all my teachers through the years, and for my constantly deepening understanding of life’s endless lessons.

Mindfulness

Aug20

I’m grateful today and every day for having spent the past year in the Mindful Life Program teacher training, and to now be certified to teach mindfulness and meditation, sharing the benefits of skills that have transformed me from an anxious, angry person, into one who dwells largely in gratitude, acceptance, wisdom and contentment. I’m excited to announce that I’ll be teaching the MLP Mindfulness Foundations Course quarterly starting October 1. Please feel free to share this poster and this link to the full course description with anyone you think might be interested in learning how to choose which thoughts to follow and which to ignore, how to respond wisely to emotional triggers rather than react habitually, and much more. Please comment or email me if you would like more information.

Meanwhile, back in the garden… a beautiful harvest. Fewer green beans now, as they’re getting hard to reach, and also I’m letting many pods mature so I’ll have dried beans for winter. The first few tomatoes are beginning to ripen, and to split after the 1.4″ of rain we received in the past two days. How grateful we all are for that! Also in today’s basket, parsley, cherry tomatoes, lettuce leaf basil, and radish seedpods, as well as a handful of fat carrots.

Lettuce leaf basil is my new favorite basil. It’s flourishing in a large pot, and some leaves are literally the size of my whole hand.

With the carrots come carrot tops, and I couldn’t bear to just compost them, having read that they’re edible too. So I made a batch of carrot top pesto with them and some basil, following the note at the bottom of the recipe for an Italian twist.

Two packed cups of trimmed carrot tops, one cup of basil, fresh oregano, a handful of pecans, lemon zest and juice, and more, all zapped down to less than a pint of pesto, which went right into the freezer. I licked the spatula, of course, and the bowl, and it was delicious. Plenty more where that came from! I’m grateful for the garden, for bountiful harvest, for water, for making the most of carrots, for a food processor, for a fridge and freezer, for electricity to power them… Gratitude for any one thing in any given day ripples out to encompass gratitude for so much more.

Sunrise

Jul11
Grateful to wake up to this view from my bed.

Literally (I don’t see enough of them, as a night owl) and metaphorically: sunrise on the next phase of this unpredictable journey through life. I’m grateful for another amazing day of retreat, and for the accomplishment of certification as a mindfulness teacher. So much gratitude!

And always grateful for the big Stardog, and the glory of the garden.