food – Page 3 – Nourishing Wholeness

life practices: autumn equinox

My intention is to blog once a season about Life Practices in order to share what I am practicing in my life, and to suggest opportunities to join me, as well as ideas to use in your own practice.

Autumn Equinox occurs midway between the longest day of the year, at Summer Solstice, and the longest night of the year, at Winter Solstice. It is called an Equinox from the Latin “equal” and “night,” but in reality, the equality of day and night is only approximate. In 2013, the Autumn Equinox occurs at 3:44 pm CT on September 22nd.

Autumn Equinox marks the noticeable giving way of the full, abundant light and energy of Summer to a slower, simpler season. We have much to celebrate with the harvest that Summer has produced—dreams and projects have been accomplished, blossoming flowers, bushes, and trees have nourished us with their beauty, and life has grown fuller and more verdant, bearing fruit. Now is the time to gather in and take stock of our harvest. What flourished and what failed? What bore fruit and what did not? What can we celebrate and what needs to be reassessed? And most of all, can we give way to things being exactly as they are?

Writer Edward Hays, in his prayer to Autumn, says “As a child of my culture, I am seldom truly at peace with what I have. Teach me to take stock of what I have given and received, may I know that it’s enough, that my striving can cease …” As we take stock of our harvest and prepare for the slower, more inward time of Winter, can we be at peace with what we have? At peace with our efforts and their outcome, even if it’s not quite what we had hoped? At peace with the fruition or lack thereof of plants and ideas cultivated? At peace, knowing that the time for striving and intense productivity has passed?

This is a time to honor ourselves and our efforts as well as to let go of that which is passing. It is a time to know that what we have done, what we are, is enough. To explore this transition more deeply, you can write in a journal, or try a short ritual alone or with friends. You may want to include the following:

Decorate with yellow, gold, or autumn colors;
Light a candle and sit quietly. Breathe in yourself sitting there, breathe in the candle, breathe in your feelings of the moment, and with each breath, say inwardly, “This is enough.”
Nourish yourself with bread, apple cider, nuts, squash, corn, or any local, freshly harvested food;
Reflect on your harvest, naming or making a list of each undertaking, and with each one, regardless of how it turned out, say inwardly, “This is enough.”
When you are done, sit quietly, placing your hands over your heart, and say three times inwardly “I am enough.” Breathe that in.
Say thank you and blow out the candle.

After the Autumn Equinox, the days slowly become shorter and shorter, until at Winter Solstice, we’ll be back to the longest night. Local Minnesotans, there will be no Autumn Equinox Celebration at Unity Unitarian Church until 2014—please plan to join us for the Winter Solstice this year. May you welcome and find grace in this changing of the seasons.

Collage as a Practice. I finally found time and inspiration to collage again! Yay! Fresh Living is a collage to celebrate my decision to go back to school to become a Holistic Health and Wellness Coach. It feels like a fresh start and a continuation of a way of living that I have been exploring for a good 35 years. Coming to this decision has been an amazing process of learning to listen to and follow my desire, something that is still developing in me…

How do you relate to your desire? Do you listen? Do you follow what you hear? What do you learn from your desire?

Harvesting, Celebrating & Taking Stock: A Half-Day, Summer Women’s Retreat. Align yourself with the seasons, a Feminine form of spiritual practice. Autumn invites us to slow down, to gather in and take stock of our harvest, of our lives. What bore fruit and what did not? What can we celebrate and what needs to be reassessed? And how can we be satisfied with things just as they are? Listening to the wisdom of all three Centers—body, heart, and mind—we will engage in practices such as ritual, reflection, movement, and inquiry. No prior knowledge or experience is necessary.

Saturday, November 23rd from 1:00 to 5:00 pm in St. Paul. For more information, see our calendar.

Do you regularly take stock of your harvest? What does this look like in your daily life?

Laughter as a Happiness Practice! Come explore the art of laughter to invite more joy, play, and wellbeing into your life! Because of the deep pranayamic breathing exercises, this form of practice is also called Laughter Yoga, but it does not include any physical asanas and can be practiced by people of all ages who are willing to be a little bit silly. It was started in 1995 by a family physician in India and is now widely practiced in over 65 countries around the world. Medical research supports its physical and emotional health-giving effects.

I am a Certified Laughter Yoga leader, and I lead the Summit Hill Laughter Club, which meets the 3rd Wednesday October – December 2013 at St. Paul Yoga Center: 10/16, 11/20, and 12/18 from 7:30-8:30 pm. No registration required, donations for use of the space accepted.

I am also partnering with WomanWell to offer Laughter Yoga on a Tuesday each month, starting on September 24th, from 7:00-8:00 pm, for $5. They are at 1784 E. Lacrosse Avenue (White Bear Ave/Lacrosse). To make sure this Laughter Yoga session is held, you need to register two days ahead of time and you can find directions here.

Please contact me if you have any questions—I would love to laugh with you!

How often do you really laugh? How do you consciously bring more happiness and joy into your life?

The Enneagram. Dave and I embrace the wisdom of the Enneagram as one of our many life practices, both as individuals and in our relationship. We are especially happy to offer these teachings to others, too!

We will be offering an Authorized Riso-Hudson Workshop this Fall: Journey of Growth (Levels) Workshop: Using the Enneagram to Develop your Soul, October 18-20, Friday evening through Sunday afternoon, at WomanWell in St. Paul.

In this Workshop, we will explore how to use the Enneagram as a map for the growth and transformation of our souls. Harnessing the powerful transformational potential of the Levels of Development and the Direction of Growth for each type, we will learn to identify the triggers that send us into stronger type-reactivity, as well as how to “wake up” to greater Presence and freedom within our type. Includes presentation, meditation, music, poetry, experiential exercises, and practical recommendations for growth.

$250 earlybird or couple’s rate before September 30th, $295 after. Overnight rooms available onsite for an additional fee. For questions and registration, contact Katy. See our calendar for more offerings.

Reverending/Ceremony. I absolutely love performing ceremonies that bring more honoring of our intentions and love into the world! This picture and the above laughing picture are from a wedding I performed, and I facilitate the Seasonal Celebrations at Unity Unitarian Church.

On July 28th I served as Worship Leader for Unity Unitarian Church, offering a service entitled What’s Up With the Goddess?

I’ve performed two weddings this Summer and have two more to go—it’s such a blessing to help couples find a way to honor and celebrate their relationship! Let me know if I can assist you in honoring any transitions or special moments in your life—Weddings, Baby Blessings, Seasonal and Transitional Rituals, Memorial Services..

How do you nurture your connection with the sacred? How do you find blessing in your life?

Bountiful Harvest Blessings, Katy Taylor, Wholeness Mentor

Nourishing Wholeness — nourishing wholeness

fresh living

about a month ago, i was wandering around in my kitchen–
bringing fresh veggies in from the garden for my lunch,
fermented veggies in jars on the counter,
experimenting with new recipes for eating a raw diet,
doing some dishes,
planning a nutritious meal,
–and loving every minute of it!

all of a sudden i realized–this is my PASSION! this is what i LOVE!
maybe i could actually earn my living doing what i love!

so i started looking around and immediately found
the Institute for Integrative Nutrition.
one of my girlfriends back East is an IIN-trained health coach.
we always share recipes and excitement about healthy eating
and play in the kitchen together,
and quite a few other friends had been through or were in the program.

then one day, after calling IIN to get my questions answered,
i was consulting with a client, and the subject of food and cooking
wove itself so seamlessly into the Enneagram
and embodiment teachings we were exploring,
that i had no doubt that i could follow
what i really wanted to do with my life,
that it really was my own sacred choice–
that i could free myself from my own limited beliefs
and actually choose to live what i love!!

so, i am!

in a year i’ll officially be a practicing holistic health and wellness coach,
helping others make nourishing choices
to live a happier and more whole life.
looking back, i see that this is what my entire life has been about,
and i’m so excited to deepen my knowledge and be able to share it!

this is how i live brightly.
this is how i am awakening to love.
this is mindful, pleasurable, fresh living.

life practices: summer solstice

My intention is to blog once a season about Life Practices in order to share what I am practicing in my life, and to suggest opportunities to join me, as well as ideas to use in your own practice.

Summer Solstice reminds us to notice and celebrate the full return of the light. The daylight hours have been growing since Winter Solstice, each day becoming slightly longer until the Spring Equinox in March, when the day and night were equal in length. Solstice comes from the Latin “sol” or sun and “sistere” or to stand still because, as seen from the North or South Poles, the sun reaches its highest position in the sky, coming to a stop, before reversing direction. In 2012, the Summer Solstice occurs at 6:09 pm CT on June 20th.

The abundant and radiant light of Summertime invites us into the outside world that is glorious, greening, bright, and rich with possibilities. It is often a time of play—and passion—and abandon. That which prepared itself in the mysterious darkness of our earthly bodysouls is now coming into creative expression in the full light of day!

Spiritual teacher and author Dawna Markova suggests in her book Wide Open: “If we only experienced passion, we would be bold beyond belief, but we would burn, burn, burn ourselves out in a rapturous relationship with the untamable within us. We also need the dark, the stillness, the quiet of the night for the stars and constellations to appear, the patterns of movement of the whole universe to be visible.”

We are at the peak of the sun’s passion. How can you enjoy your passion for being alive this Summer while remembering the need for the balancing embrace of the quiet and stillness? How do you build both into your days? Is there a way for the passion to lead to the stillness—and the stillness back to the passion? How do you allow both in your life? How does each feed you?

You may want to write in a journal, or try a short ritual alone or with friends that could include the following:
• Light a candle, red or orange in color;
• Name or make a list of all the vibrant, passionate, creative ideas, activities, and heart-journeys that you have or desire in your life.
• Now explore one or two of these and how they are supported by taking time for stillness, quiet, and rest.
• Sit quietly and breathe into your belly and heart, sensing the aliveness, passion, and juiciness there along with a solid, quiet, and restful sense of refuge.
• Continuing to breathe mindfully, allow a movement to arise and move your body in some way, big or small. And then allow that movement to settle back into the quiet stillness.
• When you are ready, say thank you and blow out the candle.

Remember that as this day comes to an end, the days will very slowly become shorter, until at Autumn Equinox, the day and night will be balanced, and by Winter Solstice, we’ll be back to the longest night. Savor and revel in the juicy passion of this Summer season! May you welcome and find grace in this changing of the seasons.

Summer Solstice Celebration, June 20th at 7:00 pm at Unity Unitarian Church! Join us in the Sanctuary for a contemplative, family-friendly, Celtic-inspired ritual to mark the turning of the year as the light reaches its peak and the seasons continue their cycle. This participatory ritual will include chanting, meditation, joys and sorrows, singing, and something special for the kids.

Due to the church renovation project, there are some important changes to be aware of: 1) There is no air conditioning, so dress lightly and bring a fan! 2) Enter through the door on Portland on the East side of the church or from the church parking lot (off Holly).

If you would like to participate as a ritual leader or in a facilitating capacity (greeter, set-up, etc.) for this June 20th ritual, please contact me!

Collage and Practice. This collage is an exploration of an image that came to me during an acupuncture session. My qi was low, so my acupuncturist invited me to imagine breathing in the sun and allowing its glow and strength to flow into me. As I was breathing, the image shifted: my heart was a sunflower, and I was breathing into that sunflower that was blossoming, radiant, full of light, strong, sturdy, and robust. On the exhale, that energy flowed through me to any place that needed healing, and I saw all the hands that support me with friendship, compassion, love, and gentleness surrounding and holding me.

With that healing image in mind, this collage came into being. Different from the way my mind’s eye saw it, collaging helped me to discover other parts of the process. Read more about what I discovered in the original post, sunflower breathing.

What helps you to discover more about yourself, to dive deeper into your inner experience? What images represent your inner world and life path right now?

Body/Nourishment. During this time of healing, I have been much more in touch with my body’s needs for true nourishment. One of the really enjoyable things I’m rediscovering is just how yummy and nourishing food can be! I’ve always been a pretty healthy eater compared to most, but to build my immune system, I decided to try an even healthier diet, including no sugar other than fresh fruit, no alcohol, very low dairy, and lots more vegetables, espeically leafy greens.

Instead of approaching this as a deprivation—what no dark chocolate? no sip of that awesome ale?—I was able to find an inner bow, a sense of devotion to myself and my wellbeing. I have had a number of beautiful experiences in which I not only love the taste of my food, but really savor it, tasting and sensing its nourishment as I eat it.

Here’s a practice to try, Savoring:
• Choose a small piece of fresh fruit that you love.
• Prepare it for your savoring with mindfulness.
• Sit down and first look at it very carefully, noticing all its particularities of color, shape, texture…
• Smell it and really take all the aroma in.
• Then touch it slowly and sense its texture and temperature. You might want to close your eyes for a deeper experience.
• Now bring it to your mouth, and take a small bite. Roll it around a bit in your mouth and notice how it feels and tastes before chewing.
• When you’re totally ready, chew slowly and savor this amazing, sweet nourishment from the earth.
• What if we always got that much detailed, pleasureful information from our food? Don’t you think our bodies would know what they need to be healthy?

How do you listen to your body’s call for nourishment? How mindful are you when you eat?

Summit Hill Laughter Club! Come explore the art of laughter to invite more joy, play, and wellbeing into your life! Because of the deep pranayamic breathing exercises, this form of practice is also called Laughter Yoga, but it does not include any physical asanas and can be practiced by people of all ages who are willing to be a little bit silly. It was started in 1995 by a family physician in India and is now widely practiced in over 65 countries around the world. Medical research supports its physical and emotional health-giving effects. Children who come with their parents are welcome.

I am a Certified Laughter Yoga leader, offering a club every 2-3 weeks over the Summer at St. Paul Yoga Center at 1162 Selby Avenue. Please join us on Wednesdays June 27, July 11, August 8, and August 22 from 7:30-8:30 pm. No registration required and no fixed cost, by donation! Please contact me if you have any questions–I would love to laugh with you!

Reverending/Ceremony. I absolutely love performing ceremonies that bring more honoring of our intentions and love into the world! I recently performed a second Baby Blessing for a couple, and I’m preparing for two weddngs in July. This above laughing picture was from a wedding I performed last year. Let me know if I can assist you in honoring any transitions or special moments in your life. You can read more about my practice of ministry.

I am also leading worship at my church, Unity Unitarian, on Sunday, June 24th at 10:00 am. The topic is “Awakening Life.” The church is under renovation, so you can only enter from the parking lot handicapped entrance or the small door on the East side of the Sanctuary, up a few stairs. I’d love to see you there!

Summer Blessings, Katy

ancestors

my ancestors surround me
like walls of a canyon
quiet
stone hard
their ideas drift over me
like breezes at sunset

we gather sticks
and make settlements
what we do is only partly
our own
and partly continuation
down through the chromosomes

my daughter
my baby sleeps behind me
stirring in the night
for the touch
that lets her continue

she is arranging
in her small form the furniture
and windows of her home

it will be a lot like mine
it will be a lot like theirs

– “Ancestors” poem by Harvey Ellis (edited to be a female baby)

I’ve been working with a book called The Path of Practice by Bri. Maya Tiwari to help myself align more to the natural rhythms of myself as a woman, connected to the earth and moon, to the seasons, and to the cosmos. One of the practices Tiwari recommends is to explore your ancestral heritage and learn about yourself and your relationship to those who went before. Since I feel most connected to my matrilineal line, I thought I would start there, with my mom’s mom, “Gammy.”

There are some interesting synchronicities that lead to a deeper exploration of this material now. My husband’s mom just passed away, and as an Interfaith Minister, I offered to help them put a Memorial Service together. I started with my Minister’s Manual and the Memorial Service I wrote as part of my seminary training, and found the service I had written for Gammy! It brought back many memories just as I was reading Tiwari’s book. As I was reading and making notes for myself, I remembered that not only did I have this collage, but also a beautiful photo album filled with stories about Gammy’s life that mom had given me for a recent birthday, almost as if I had been being prepared for this exploration.

* * *

I grew up hearing that I resembled my mom’s side of the family, and my sister resembled my dad’s. I never minded resembling the Tuck side in looks, as I always thought mom was pretty, but I wasn’t so sure I wanted to carry forth the opinionated and intense—some would say fanatic—energy that Gammy embodied. Turns out mom later found out that she was the wild, extreme one in her family, a role that then passed down to me in the matrilineal lineage…

As the collage portrays, Gammy’s bloodline included some percentage Native American (Cherokee or maybe Sioux), so I may have as much as 1/16 Native American blood in me, or much less…no-one seems to know for sure how far back that union took place. I like the idea of having some heritage that is much more deeply connected to the earth and her rhythms than the culture I grew up in. I like to think that connection is guiding me on this exploration as I deepen my awareness of my place within the natural rhythms of the earth.

As I reflect on the relationship between Gammy, mom and me, I see the many similarities as well as the ways my individual soul may be trying to bring my matrilineal line back into balance.

* * *

I come from a line of women who love to eat sweet things—Gammy ate so many that she ended up with diabetes in her old age, I had a binge eating disorder for many years, and mom has always tried to be careful not to overeat sweets. I remember how surprised I was to find out that mom and I both had the same taboo sweet treat: Oreos! Nowadays, sweet food isn’t calling me as much, but it makes me wonder what ancestral pattern was carried through to me that made us need to try to find the sweetness of life through treats instead of in our daily living?

What occurs immediately is the legacy I carry of being overly busy—until recently, too busy to savor and enjoy my life, which is where I am now finding that sweetness in abundance. This is a problem mom has complained about for years, commenting that I follow in her footsteps. Having learned more about Gammy’s life with nine children on a farm during the Great Depression, with very few amenities, I realize that she, too, must have been very busy.

However, Gammy was also known for indulging in pleasure, something I am still learning to embrace! Mom says she belonged to five book clubs, spending their sparse money on that instead of a flush toilet! She was also always willing to stop what she was doing and have fun. She never passed up a chance to turn a jump rope for any one of her nine kids, and she enjoyed jokes, and laughed, and really enjoyed her life. The best story I remember was when a bunch of the kids were home for Thanksgiving dinner with their friends. One of the boys asked Gammy to pass the butter and she picked it up and tossed it down the table!! The kids were pretty shocked, but all went on as normal, catching the butter, and not saying anything!

Gammy was also ahead of her time in her thinking about sex. She felt women had the right to be pleasured and in the mood before having sex with their husbands, and I imagine she practiced this, too! I also remember mom telling me that sex between two people who love each other is a beautiful and loving connection. I’m afraid my personality type combined with my teenage years of born-again Christianity got in the way of inheriting such an easy-going, forthright approach!

Gammy also felt the pull for deeper meaning through spirituality as I do. She spoke of past-lives and had an interesting theory about the soul that is actually very similar to the Diamond Approach path I follow. She felt the soul was like a many-faceted lantern, and each facet was a window into another person. She felt this explained why we feel connected to some people as soon as we meet them, as we are sharing the same soul. In the Diamond Approach each individual soul is the part of True Nature / God / Truth / the Divine embodied in a human being. And the diamond metaphor also feels related, as the diamond represents the many different facets of True Nature (Love, Joy, Will, etc.), some of which we have easier access to than others. Gammy believed that when she died, she was going to a good place and would be reincarnated—she even viewed death as another exciting part of life to learn about and enjoy!

Like mom and me, Gammy also loved beauty. She’d cry seeing a beautiful sunset and loved the fog lying low in the valleys. She also sketched, painted, and wrote whimsical poetry that celebrated her love and enjoyment of life. Beauty is imperative in my life—from the gardens, to collage and poetry, to music and singing, to color, texture, and the way a room is laid out—beauty soothes, delights, guides, and nourishes me.

We also share a love of dogs. Gammy had many—chihuahuas, dachshunds, st. bernards, and all manner of terriers! My life, thankfully, has been blessed by the sweet companionship of dogs, too—from Heidi the dachshund when I was a baby to Moppet the cocker-poo, to Bart the airedale terrier to Jake, Gammy’s toy poodle/terrier mix, to my own dogs Finnegan, a lab mix, and Teddybear, a lhasa apso, and many other dog friends in between!

Poverty has also influenced my life through Gammy, even though I have been lucky enough not to have to live through it myself. Having nine children, whose births overlapped the Great Depression, Gammy knew how to make ends meet through such practices as scraping out the last of the eggwhite from the shell and carefully using all left-overs. Mom was careful, too, passing this along to me. I can’t stand to waste food, always using a rubber spatula to get the last bit out, trying to get the most out of any meal, avoiding expensive items, and not wasting left-overs…

I wonder about my jaw—I have Gammy’s jaw, as does mom—the wide, square look of Native American ancestry. And this is also a key place that I hold tension. Is this related to unprocessed ancestral linkages? I wonder if I incarnated as an Enneagram type One to balance out mom and Gammy as Sevens. In Gammy, the Seven energy expressed as imbalanced pleasure-seeking, playing and joking around, as well as being outspoken, uninhibited, and crass at times. In mom, while there’s always a willingness to play and experiment and follow her curiosity, it’s more a matter of having her fingers in too many pots, not wanting to miss out on anything, being overly busy, and not able to rest.

Being a rigid, constricted, nothing-is-ever-right type One, has not been a very fun or relaxing way to live! So now my task is to learn to balance this One-Seven energy. Can I be responsible, conscientious and orderly, playful and happy, and enjoy my life all at the same time? It’s about sacred balance—perhaps my role is to find this, not just for myself, but for the ancestral lineage. To learn not to reject pleasure and the desire to take in and experience life, but to balance it with discernment, devotion, and right action. As Br. Stendl Rast says: to be “playfully serious and seriously playful,” enjoying a life-affirming life.

I see how my involvement in Laughter Yoga is related to this attempt to find balance! After experiencing a period of openness to Joy last year, I felt drawn to try Laughter Yoga. I’ve never been much of a laugher as an adult, being a rather serious and disciplined person. I did laugh socially, but not so much pure laughter just for the enjoyment of it, so Laughter Yoga was a stretch. I found I had so much fun being silly and playing and inviting a younger, less-inhibited, less self-conscious part of me to show up, that I decided to become a Laughter Yoga leader and create a club in St. Paul! This practice is about opening up to play, pleasure, and lightness, and breaking up my Oneish patterns of being serious, disciplined, and rigid, and I see now how it’s also about allowing access to my ancestral heritage through Gammy!

And this last few months of learning to rest, savor, and relax are also related to breaking up this pattern. More and more, I find pleasure in not doing anything, in simply being with myself, in seeing the beauty around me, in appreciating life. I feel so much gratefulness for this shift in my orientation—again, imbibing the lessons of my ancestry and my line of growth in the healthier side of type Seven.

I have decided to take a new middle name to represent this heritage. Mom originally wanted to name me after Gammy’s younger sister, Khyva, but my more conventional dad nixed naming me Kimberly Khyva Taylor (Katy is my nickname). It’s too bad as it would have been very appropriate! Khyva was a performing violin player, and I have been the only one in the extended Tuck clan to actively pursue music through singing professionally. Another interesting connection is that during my seminary training, when we did a meditation on taking a spiritual name, I received the name [kiva]. Researching the meaning of the word, I found that a kiva is an underground room used for spiritual ceremonies by certain Native American tribes. I was unwittingly connecting not only to my matrilineal, but also to my Native American, heritage, in this name! It is also amazingly synchronous to be connected with this now when we are learning about the Citadel in our Diamond Approach Work. The Citadel is experienced as a solid, stone-like structure that supports and provides shelter on the Path as we learn to live in alignment with our current realization of the Truth. I never felt connected to or liked my middle name, Kay—now I know why!

This exploration helps me to understand more deeply that I am not just Kimberly, aka Katy, Taylor, an individual doing her spiritual work. I am also part of this genetic and psycho-spiritual lineage. Who I am now continues to be informed and guided by those who have gone before me. I can learn from this heritage that lives on through me. I can embrace the gifts of my ancestors and find balance in the way I embody this lineage in the world. By incorporating Khyva’s name into my own, I more formally link myself to my matrilineal line. In so doing, I feel more connected to the earth-boundedness of being a human, born of a mother who was born of a mother…as part of this earth. I, too, am part of this rhythm of birth and life and death, intimately intertwined with those who have gone before and will come after me.

When I finished this collage on Thanksgiving Day 2009, it inspired me to also finish the collage in which I was exploring my pain around not having my own child. I saw the relationship very clearly—in not having my own child, I don’t get to continue my bloodline. What came before and created me will not get passed down by me through my physical flesh and blood. It will have to be in some other form. I hope that I can be a psycho-spiritual ancestor for some other woman as she discovers her connection to herself and the earth.

***

How do you see yourself connected to your ancestors? Are you aware of the heritage your life is carrying forward and / or trying to heal?

living now

i’ve been so busy recently that i keep finding myself thinking over and over, i don’t have time…for talking to friends, to lie down and take a rest, to try a new recipe, to blog, to sit quietly with my man…but thinking about my life that way doesn’t help me to live in my life now. it’s a story that makes it hard to live now.

right now i can smell the onions i’m caramelizing in the crockpot–that’s a new fun kitchen adventure! right now, i notice my jaw is tight and i am sitting in my cozy nook with a heating pad, surrounded by books and projects and flowers. the christmas cactus has been blooming for about a week now and it’s gorgeous! dusk is falling. i sense myself here, embodied, here, right now. right now there is time. time is now.

and this weekend, being more aware of the moment, of now, i have enjoyed the kitchen bounty–the tomatoes i harvested green from the garden last month are ripening, i just picked the last of the chard out from under the snow, and there’s still lots of kale. i don’t have to do anything more right now. right now i am writing this and that is all i need to pay attention to. my fingers on the keypad, still tension in my jaw, my body settled, supported. here, now. here, now. herenowherenowhwerenowherenow. here now.

so, here’s what’s cooking in the crockpot: carmelized onions (just chop them up and put them in with some butter, salt, and pepper. mine have been cooking about 2.5 hours on high and they are getting there.). and i just threw some of that garden chard in, chopped up to finish cooking wtih the onions. i’m planning to make a tomato tart with the onion/chard on the bottom and slices of fresh tomatos with feta, perhaps cheese on the top. but that’s later. right now, i’m here, typing, munching on cheese curds and crackers.

where are you now? are you here? what is the texture of your here now?

bye now, katy