Nov 16, 2013 – Journal of An Auspicious Day

What an auspicious day. We woke and the early-freeze was gone. The mercury jumped 20 degrees, sun shining like good fortune itself. The animals are thrilled. Birds and frogs are warming up for an orchestra in the forest. The cowherd over the fence is uncharacteristically gossipy. Roosters and dogs are relaying important news between the farms. Even a Red Tail hawk circled the property a few times screeching when we came outside as if to say “Hello Sabrina, the world salutes you with this good day, you glorious being you.” I know what you’re thinking. I’m not biased just because it’s my birthday.

In morning practice I hit my 144^th Qigong practice. (I’ve been tracking my progress towards this goal by making a beaded necklace, see “Bead by Bead”). Today I earned the final bead – a big piece of silvery flower-carved hippie bling. I tied it off, and ceremoniously put it around my neck, “Ooooh look at me! Well done, Sab!” Fearless, the stray cat who does sitting meditation with me each morning in the space-cabin, looked up at me and nodded his approval.

Fearless & I

Okay so I may’ve “accidently” overslept and skipped a few days of Qigong this week so that this momentous occasion could fall on my birthday. But as I explained to Fearless, sometimes you have to massage good fortune a little – you rub my back and I’ll rub yours kinda thing. Maybe I think fortune has feelings too.

 

Hungry from this eventful morning session, I went inside to find a display of crystals and little birthday gifts around a plate of French toast with real maple syrup, toasted walnuts and warm berries. Frankie had read my mind and made my most wished for birthday breakfast.

My beloved magic elf genie.

Okay so maybe my detailed list of birthday ‘wishes’ on the fridge helped. I could’ve enjoyed my meals with warm gratitude – to have a partner so lovingly meet my princessy request, but no. Instead I relished in the belief that my partner is a psychic genie and delighted in the ‘miracle’ so that every bite was taken with an ecstatic smile.

Thirty-five journeys around that beloved sun out there. 

In here, rather.

We’ve become so ‘rational’ that going inward in search of the sun almost seems like insanity, doesn’t it? Yesterday I finished reading Thich Nhat Hanh’s Love Letter to the Earth. Poetry and physics, compassion and chemistry - he basically repeats the same message of inter-being a hundred different ways until you suddenly realize you’ve been sucker punched in the gut chakra and feel the sun and the stars, the earth and the rain inside there. It happened for me a few days ago, at page 102:

"Dear Mother Earth, …Sometimes I forget . Lost in the confusions and worries of daily life, I forget that my body is your body, and sometimes even forget that I have a body at all. Unaware of the presence of my body and the beautiful planet around me and within me, I’m unable to cherish and celebrate the precious gift of life you have given me."

So here I am smack dab in the middle of my 9 month sabbatical and finally I’ve receive a succinct sentence to sum up my mission. Thank you Thich Nhat Hanh! Page 104:

“Dear Mother Earth,

My deep wish is to wake up to the miracle of life. I promise to train myself to be present for myself, my life, and for you in every moment.”

This ‘training’ is ideally something we can turn towards in the midst of ‘real life’:

academic study,

student debt,

career path,

earn cash,

think,

plan,

do

These have had the better part of me for… gosh, a good 30years now.

I’ve been slowly working other personal developments around the edges of my ‘normal’ life. But it's hard that way because most of this growth requires little daily habits done consistently over time. So now I’ve given myself this gift - to step out of the busy life for 9 months, to bring to the fore those heart-body-spirit aspects of myself that’ve been relegated to the backburner so long*. Time to:

write

awaken my soul

learn how to pray

learn an instrument

use my hands creatively

find my lost sense of wonder

cleanse & strengthen my body

practice theatre of the oppressed methods

deepen bonds with beloveds & community

develop and commit to a regular morning practice

& discern the trajectory of my destiny, to know where to go next.

The ‘self-training’ portion of my sabbatical is wrapping up. (See “Farm Wife Photo Essay”!) In two weeks I leave the sanctuary of Frankie’s farm to begin guided training on the more esoteric pursuits: Shalom Retreat leadership training, one week each month December until March; and a two-year program of Sufi Studies at Suluk Academy (eight intensive weeks spread out over the two years).

While this birthday marks the halfway point of my sabbatical on the calendar, the climax still lies ahead, with lots of psycho-spiritual climbing before me (not to mention traveling on a shoe-string budget). 

Maybe I will suck at leading the Shalom retreat process. Maybe I won’t find god. Maybe I will end up in debt, lost and disillusioned with myself. Maybe people will say I was being lazy all year and no one will ever hire me again… But I won’t follow the river of these fears. This is the day I blow wind into the sails of my own heart leaping after what it wants.

I can feel the full moon rising up towards the horizon to meet me. Soon it will dazzle the whole farm, a final portent for a good year ahead. To top it off, my blood started an hour ago, lending a sense of moon-earth-tide-me attunement that I choose to believe will make my full moon birthday wishes even more powerful. Maybe success will only be as true as I make it by the force of my own believing.

So say it again Sab.

What an auspicious day!

~me

In a space-cabin on Frankie’s farm, somewhere North of Siler City, NC

*Medicine Wheel teachings I have been exposed to and Integral Theory (especially related to lines of development) both instruct that healing and growth require some degree of balance between development of various aspects of self. My sabbatical is also following Steven Covey’s advice to ‘put first things first’ and prioritize what is ‘not urgent but most import

Bead by Bead

When my nephew was getting trained to use the toilet my sister hung a piece of construction paper in the bathroom. He loves stickers, so he got a little happy face sticker for a pee and a big sparkly happy face or a fire truck sticker for a poop. My grown up, productivity oriented mind first saw this and thought – well you’re tricking him! There’s no cumulative value in it! Shouldn’t he get an actual firetruck after 100 stickers or something?

I was ready to start union negotiations for him when my wise younger sister explained to me that at two and a half years old he was so ‘in the now’ that a delighted ‘now’ was the best thing he could think of. The promise of something tomorrow held little interest.

This teaching stuck with me a few months, and became the answer to my own problem. Last spring when I was in full workaholic swing, I was struggling to maintain a 15-minute morning practice of Qigong, to cleanse my energy flow. I was convinced this 15 minutes would over time change the quality of my days but I couldn’t seem to consistently find the motivation or discipline.

Borrowing the sticker idea, I asked myself, “What small, cheap but precious thing would genuinely give me a rush of excitement and bring some celebration to each session of practice?...” From what I knew of learning theories, I felt it needed to be something small enough not to become an external reward. It needed that ‘sticker’ not ‘firetruck’ quality, since intrinsic rewards stick better in the long run.

The next day I stopped in the window of the bead shop on my block in Montreal. I’d eyed the pretty displays every day, but with no time for an active crafting habit I’d had no excuses to buy any. I walked in and dropped $40 on an assortment of shiny blingy things including a strand of turquoise, one big special final bead to work towards and some red thread that seemed… auspicious.

I placed the basket of little beads and the big bead on my altar as shiny motivation to my inner raven, an offering prayer to help me with discipline instead of tricking me away from my goal. I’d heard that after 100, or some say 120 times, doing something new it becomes a habit. I like round numbers and decided to overshoot just to be sure, so I vowed to get to 12 x 12 beads (with every twelfth bead being an extra special one.)

Slowly but surely, some weeks more than others, bead by bead I’ve been doing my Qigong practice. Finally on my birthday November 16^th 2013, I hit my 144th Qigong practice goal!

The 144 beads, strung one by one, remind me of every tiny moment of discipline. It just occured to me looking back that this is at least 2160 minutes spent dong Qigong! The final necklace is heavy and sparkly, just like the grounded delight of my beloved practice. These days when I skip Qigong something feels missing in my day.

I’ve especially noticed in the last few days since I finished the necklace, that the practice seems more intimately connected to me now. As if when I tied the necklace off my relationship with Qigong was sealed.

Now there is no shiny bead at the end of the practice, but we’re beyond that. At this point it’s almost as natural as sitting on a porcelain bowl instead of pooping my pants. Sure I could skip it and wait for somebody else to come along and clean me up, but I don’t really want to anymore.

~sab

my space-cabin, NC

Farm Wife Photo Essay

Some folks have been asking for pictures, 

so let me offer you a little voyeurism into my sabbatical life here 

on Frankie's farm in North Carolina. 

My day starts with Qigong on the hill in the centre of the property.

Then meditatiooooooooooooon.

Meet the Ruckus Pack - 4 great bitches.
(L to R: Bean, Sophie, Mishkami, Pearl)  

After breakfast we take them for training in the play yard.

Who is training who is often the question.

Then I head to work in the space-cabin. I try to write 1000 words a day.

The desk easily converts to a reading backrest. Here I am studying up on theatre games for an upcoming Theatre of the Oppressed workshop.

Everyday I improve at 'rural chic' fashion.

At least once a day Jacquie, one of the rescued cats, gets a massage.

It took several weeks to get over my fear of the chickens. Now sometimes I even help tend to them a bit! Here I am holding Millie the Mighty.

About once every week or two we go driving into town for errands.
 I like to stop and chat with the locals as much as possible.

A few times we've taken the ruckus pack on longer outings.
This was on our camping trip to the South Carolina coast, pretty, long beaches.

I've experimented with tons of new recipes, aiming to use as few processed foods as possible. I've been falling even more in love with my slow cooker.
 I usually cook four big meals from scratch each week and a dip and salad dressing. Most fun is getting to include Frankie's garden produce now that's it's all getting big.

I'd love to say I run everyday, but I haven't done as well with this goal. Some weeks I'll go a few times, then other weeks zip. Better some than none though!

Pretty hard to beat this trail, often it's my main motivation. Frankie inspired me by making creative trails through the fields. Around sunset these west facing trees are always a beautiful glow, and check out that moon!

In the late afternoon or evening I practice my new instrument - the recorder.

Sometimes I'll do another session of writing at night when I'm feeling inspired. 
Or I'll do crafts in the house, (sorry no pic) - I'm learning felting and zine-making right now. 

These photos serve to paint my idealized day for you, of course the actual path is up and down, explorations in self-will, reprogramming some desires and following others into their depths. It's amazing how much stress and resistance can emerge when you remove the external barriers and there are no excuses left. There are no pictures of the conflicts inner and outer... but this vision for the backbone of a day is what has been guiding me through the fall.

Peace to you in your days,

~sab

Learning to See Where I Am: my crash course on the Civil Rights Movement & slavery in the USA

An hour up the highway from where I sit writing this in my space-cabin, four college students walked into the Woolworth lunch cafeteria in Greensboro, North Carolina, sat at the counter and asked for coffee and pie. The coffee was five cents, and the cherry pie was ten cents. Being young black men, they were refused counter service and instructed to order from the carry-out counter. They politely refused to leave, and thus sparked a wildfire of sit-ins in public restaurants around the south. That was February 1, 1960.

Things have changed so much in such a short time, that time itself gets tricky. Fifty-three years later coffee will run you between two and six dollars and an African-American man is President of the United States. In some ways this change is notable advancement – there is some evidence of a new generation of children who literally do not see things the same way. I like to think I am one of them. And yet, the old hatreds still dance behind new stories of racial equality and desegregation. Systems of oppression take a long time to truly change and the great harms done will take generations to heal.

In the spirit of learning how to be in solidarity with such healing Frankie and I are visitors at the International Civil Rights Museum, built around the very site of the old Woolworth's cafeteria. Our tour guide Anita Johnson is telling us with hands thrown in the air, “Look! Look around you. Right here it happened!” Dramatically she walks us over to the lunch counter, “You see these four chairs? These right here, these are the very seats they sat in.” She goes on to tell us how she remembers coming to this very cafeteria herself as a little girl with her mother, after shopping. She jokes, “Nowadays everybody wants take-out, but back then it was an insult!”

Getting more personal, Anita explains how her mother would make them drink water and go to the washroom twice before leaving home, because she refused to let them use the segregated washrooms and water fountains at the department store – not just on principal, but because they were rarely cleaned and grossly unhygienic. Now here she is, all grown up and telling the story in a museum.

But backing up, our lesson actually began in a field in 1926. For Frankie’s birthday a couple weeks before the museum visit, I said “Let’s go to the city and see a movie. Your choice!”. They chose The Butler. I had no idea what it was even about, but within a few minutes of the fade-to-black we were standing amongst a group of indentured servants in a cotton field, in the southern USA. Therein we witnessed some of the harsh injustices of the day, in this case at the hands of the white antagonist – a drunken plantation owner’s son who rapes the mama of the butler-to-be and kills his father when he tries to intervene. “Oh,” I whispered grabbing Frankie’s arm, “This is it, this is the feeling.”

‘The feeling’ had been discomforting me since I facilitated a workshop at the ReWeaving conference a few weeks earlier. I had noticed that the tone and norms around race relations felt different somehow to me here in the southern USA than I was used to facilitating in Canada. I had the growing awareness that my ‘whiteness’ feels different here. And there it was on the screen, a potent and horrific mirror showing me – this is the legacy you wear when you walk the south in white skin.

Growing up in Canada, and specifically on the West Coast, I realize I didn’t actually learn that much about African-American history. Of course, I stand witness to other atrocious histories, e.g. confronting my settler identity as I learned the true history of the theft of British Columbia from Indigenous peoples. But there were no monuments to a civil war against slavery, no historic settlements of freed slaves, no cafeteria’s preserved where a wildfire of non-violent civil disobedience erupted and helped to change the attitudes of a nation.

It was as if I had to be here on this land before I could truly begin to feel the stories. I slunk down in my plush theatre chair an inch, recalling how I had walked into the conference so very 'white woman' to lead an embodied discussion on economy, with only cursory awareness of the history on this land before me. I recalled the potent moment at the conference when an African-American woman had beseeched a presenter speaking about the history of banking, “How can you talk about the old economy without talking about slavery?!" I walked away from the conference with discomfort tugging at my guts. After the movie, the discomfort became louder and more clear. It whispered me onwards -  Learn the stories. Go beyond fact finding. You need to see it, hear it, feel it. 

Thus, I spent the better part of October ravenously following one link to the next, listening to speeches and interviews on youtube and planned our visit to the Civil Rights museum. Through this research I would hear the names and learn the details of many key events but in the movie they roll by quickly - jumping states and events, an unending, shape-shifting assault against the African-American peoples… Jim Crow laws and lynch mobs, segregation and then violent attacks against peaceful sit-ins, a right-to-vote granted but with impossible criteria in practice, fire-bombings of the freedom rides, police dogs and fire hoses turned on unarmed protesters, the military holding back mobs while a tiny little girl climbs the steps to her new school…And the myriad ways and tactics that people serve(d) as warriors against all this brutal injustice.

My crash course in trans-Atlantic slavery and the American Civil Rights Movement has honed my social justice lens just a little bit more, making me perhaps slightly less blind than I was before, to where I am, who is around me and who I am as I stand here. I hope this will help my facilitation, being more aware of some of the histories carried into the room; and certainly it has called me to do more research on Canadian civil rights history.

In the end I am reminded how much learning and change can come when I pull uncomfortable feelings around privilege and oppression closer rather than push them away; and I wonder now if that discomfort is not the voice of grace itself guiding our hearts along the path of co-liberation.

~sab

from my space-cabin on a farm in the southern USA

A Post-Script on Peacefire

One interesting storyline I followed in my research through several sources started with the question, where did Martin Luther King Jr.’s non-violent principles come from? The answer caused not only time, but space to shrink before me. First stop - a port in South Africa in 1893.

Gandhi had landed as a new lawyer fresh from Britain to work for the rights of indentured Indians. However, almost immediately after he disembarked the boat, Gandhi encountered the dehumanizing treatment of apartheid by the authorities who considered him ‘black’. It was far worse than he had experienced as a wellborn Indian man, even under colonial rule. While in South Africa, Gandhi devised his Satygraha (non-violence) philosophy based on his inherited religious background, in particular teachings of Jainism, Hinduism and Buddhism. Of course we know Gandhi went on to lead his country to independence with almost brutal moral conviction (known to fast for weeks in repentance when mobs would resort to direct violence against the British!)

A few years after Gandhi’s assassination King was exposed to these eastern concepts by a teacher in his seminary college. He was so taken with Gandhi’s writing he began translating them to the language of the Christian faith, and finding alignments with biblical teachings. Not long after, fresh from seminary school, he was thus ready to seize upon Rosa Parks’ moment of truth in 1955, and mobilize the Montgomery bus boycott, another great spark in the Civil Rights movement.

So from Africa to India to Montgomery to Greensboro, from Jainism to Christianity to a Woolworth’s lunchroom… change spreads truly like sparks from the wildfire burning from one bold heart to the next to the next. May that fire continue to spread until we are all free.

Economy Re-Imagined

I stood at the doorway to the large conference room, greeting latecomers trickling back into the ReWeaving NC convergence. I tried to look as reassuring as possible, as many individuals hesitated for a moment in confusion. Over lunch the room had been converted from a discussion room, chairs were stacked against the walls, and fifty grown ups were walking around the room in bent-over elephant impersonations. This became explicable to newcomers as Alyzza May, my co-facilitator / wonderful new friend would shout the next invitation, “Now walk like your shoes are too big for you. Yes, good! Fill up the room; keep moving towards open spaces.”

Laughter began to shake off the discomfort as serious conference participants one by one gave themselves permission to be playful. “Okay, walk like you’re late for a very important meeting about the New Economy!” Now a shared sense of familiarity and a certain self-effacing irony washed through the room, more laughter and lots of rushing. One man, who remained stationed in a chair on the periphery, began to smile.

Warning. This paragraph contains a ranty not that well articulated political aside. It doesn't feel quite right in the story, and yet I didn't have the heart to take it out. Maybe it's a great example of how words can get in the way of sharing an idea... 
It’s easy in Canada to sit in cynicism of the entire American economic system – the sell out of homes and retirement funds by wall street executives, the endless powers of these fictional invented persons – corporations - that have no eyes or hearts for the masses without medical care, for the beauty of the Earth, only an insatiable hunger to profit. Of course Canada is generally complicit in this system that functions according to one fundamental false-premise of the modern-industrial era (a logic that is already collapsing upon itself) – the idea that the environment is a set of inputs within the economy.  I.e. A tree has no worth until it is cut and counted. The great truth is that our economy (like all human-made concepts) is contained within the precious system of the living earth. Whether we ‘know’ it or not, we feel deep within our lungs the unquantifiable value of standing, breathing trees.

It’s easy to feel doomed. But here was a mass of people, each bearing stories of engagement in creative and compelling change projects. Some target various institutions – welfare, banks, and government. Others are growing up new systems in the cracks of the old – worker cooperatives buying out abandoned businesses, mothers on welfare starting day care coops, private micro-loans helping small organic farmers stay on the land. We were gathered at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro to share inspiration about the transition to new economic systems, to network and weave these strategies together. Listening to their stories and their “yes we can” attitudes, I started to become truly inspired. I started to believe that they (we) could actually succeed.

After some further warm ups to get people into their bodies, and in gentle contact with others in the room, we began the Image Theatre work (one branch of Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed methodology which Alyzza and I studied with Marc Weinblatt). 

Rather than diving right into images of a desired future, we thought it important to give space for the stories of suffering interwoven with the desire for change. As people sculpted each other into still images from their own struggles within the old /collapsing economy we saw several people, backs to each other typing, while a standing person points behind one’s back.

In another image several people lie splayed out on the floor around a figure that stood with their fists in the air, eyes dead set ahead, and a cold expression.

Before the end we would start to ‘dynamize’ the images to begin revealing the participants own instincts and desires around steps needed to move from these images into the transitional space, leading towards a ‘new economy’. One theme that clearly emerged was the need to be wary of repeating past injustices in the urgency of change.

To be honest though, themes weren’t that well discussed. Though I’d used TO activities in workshops before, this was my first start-to-finish TO workshop. It's fairly new to Alyzza too. We were so interested in working with the images and embodied aspects; we may have neglected the dialogue and meaning making somewhat. This is an important learning curve with TO for me, to find the proper balance of activity and reflection. Part of the intention of the work is to ground our analyses in embodied wisdom.

I’ve spent many years walking the long road between my mind and the rest of me. Along this quest I was exposed to Image Theatre at a workshop and within minutes I had fallen in love with the graceful power of the method. Just as a 2D picture is ‘worth a thousand words’, human sculptures reach between the veils of words that so often obscure human communication. Truth gets pulled right out into the shared space. There are moments when the crowd viscerally senses itself as the people ‘see together’ suddenly emerge in an image. You can feel it resonate, (and sense where there is discord) very quickly. Often it is something everyone already knew without being able to say directly. Usually there is an effect, something like – we all just became more ‘human’ together.

As the conference progressed, I continued to have a strange feeling… something felt different. There was a vague sense of uncomfortable…loneliness…hesitancy, creeping through me. At first I thought it was simply nerves about leading TO, or just my being new to the scene here. It was subtle; things seemed similar enough on the surface - the scene of a conference at a university - that it was hard to see at first. But shortly I realized that there was actually a different cultural reality here than I’m used to, duh right?! Definitely the tone and norms around race relations felt different somehow to me. 

Tracking into this feeling led me on a rapid self-education over the last couple weeks on civil rights, slavery and the history of the world – and helped me to better see the place I am standing in, and re-understand myself, and my ‘whiteness’ in this new setting. I will share about this in my next post.

Alyzza and I really enjoyed working together so we decided to do more before I leave the area. We’re going to run a two part Theatre of the Oppressed series. Without the frame of a conference, we will be free to explore whatever the burning issues come from the people, whatever they struggle with in their lives. In the first session we will explore these themes with image work, much as we did at the conference. In the second session we will create Forum Theatre plays on these themes, another branch of TO in which a play shows a microcosm moment of a social justice issue and then the audience becomes spect-actors, trying out different ideas for resolutions that people could actually take back out into their lives with them.

New economies of co-liberation,

~Sab

Still on Frankie’s farm!...somewhere North of Siler City, NC

On the Vindication of Puttering

Yesterday I finally gave my spaceship a good deep clean, and decorated a meditation/work station platform. This morning when I came out to drop my computer & smoothie (before heading up the hill to do qi gong) I found myself puttering for a few minutes. I was aware that I didn’t want to become distracted from my morning practice, but it felt nice to put a few touches on the work of yesterday.

Puttering sounds at first like a nothing sort of thing - something next to idleness… or distracted movement, something vague, a bit purposeless, filling time, not truly productive. At least these are my associations with it. But when I’m honest with myself, puttering is one of the most enjoyable actions in my days.

I had found a few thumbtacks in the utility drawer in the house, so I hung up the calendar I love on one of the tall cabinets. I hung a thin white scarf as a curtain over the refrigerator alcove turned boot tray-broom closet. I spread a batik sheet over the new meditation / writing platform. I rearranged a few of my icons so they felt precisely perfect and set out my smoothie & computer for when my meditation would be done. All of this flowed together, one thing into the next, as if I were painting a little wave of feng shui through the space.

I realized walking up to the hill how pleasurable those few minutes of time had been. I recalled other typical puttering times, like in the morning when the water for lemon tea is coming to a boil; I often move slowly about setting things right for the day - tidy the table, put some dishes away from the dish rack, chat with the cat for a moment. I realized suddenly that these little tendings, cumulatively, are an essential element of maintaining a pleasing and energy-flowing space. But how often do we think of puttering as a worthwhile activity? Or even notice that we are doing it, or better yet - slow down and enjoy it?

It occurred to me as I reached my qi gong spot on the hill, and stood staring into the sun with closed eyes for a moment, that puttering and cleaning might be lumped together sometimes, but are quite different. Cleaning is a big task, like yesterday I lugged a small shop-vac out to the ship. Then made a second trip hauling a bucket of hot soapy water and a bag of rags and a citrus spray. I got my head geared up for the job, rolled up my sleeves and pant legs, put on DCX and my best farm wife handkerchief and dove in. Three and a half hours later I was filthy, dehydrated, shaky and very pleased.

But I love how puttering is more of an adventure than a task. It can start at any moment, with one tiny action. I see the dish soap is still in the bathtub where I filled the cleaning bucket, so I walk it back towards the kitchen. On the way I recall that post-cleaning-frenzy I left wet rags hanging on the truck, so I retrieve them, put the soap at the sink and head out the back porch to hang the rags on the line. On the way I see the dogs’ outdoor water dish is low, so I refill it which prompts a happy response from Pearl, so I pet her for a moment while she slurps and wags her tail. Back inside I realize it’s almost time to start cooking dinner so I wipe down the counters and turn the radio on to NPR, pour myself a big glass of water, add a lemon balm leaf and decide to sit for a moment and listen to the show, vowing to start cooking in 5 minutes…

The magic formula, ‘this, so that’ can go on and on until the moment you decide to stop. Since each action is small there is no protracted denouement, just a gentle sense of accomplishment that things are a little more right than they were a few moments ago.

This lends itself to a whole territory of action where my beloved to-do lists don’t apply because, besides the fact that it took longer to write then to do all that, I wouldn’t have even thought of it all ahead of time anyway. Each step indicated the next. It’s more like a tuning in to one’s immediate environment and following a breadcrumb trail through the space of little things that need attending to.

Now that’s puttering.

Upon my epiphany that I love puttering, I quickly moved on to consider scheduling puttering into my day. But something inside me recoiled at the thought. One of the best things about puttering is how it can slip in between the bigger, planned activities of life.

I will also need to guard against my tendency to get over-excited and ruin a good idea. I don’t want to putter for 3 hours, turning it into some kind of OCD episode, which runs in my family… Puttering, I believe, is meant to be a temporary thing, in little bursts.

A bluebird singing called my attention back to myself standing on the hill. So, as I began my qi gong on the hill, I concluded that I wouldn’t schedule puttering or turn it into another thing on my daily list. But I vowed to notice this little action that heretofore had gained no credibility or attention in my days.

From now on when I realize, ‘Oh I’m puttering’, or ‘Hey now would be a perfect moment to putter for a little while’ I’m going to open my heart and body to the experience, thinking “Yes, you putter girl. Enjoy it! Feel the big impact of these tiny actions! Ah ha there’s the next little thing calling for attention…” And henceforth this worthy activity will hold a more noble title – spontaneous daily feng shui meditation.  ;)

So putter on people,

~sab

Tears and Green Poop

Sniffling, I walked out the front door past the 3 foot high Autumn Joy Sedum perpetually covered in beautiful blue butterflies, fat bumblebees and other pollinators. Across the driveway and into the forest, my breath started to catch and ache in my throat. Dodging large sparkling spider webs up the short trail to the garden, I went in search of Frankie. They weren’t in the garden. Tears finally began to fall as I went on, stumble-stomping in my rubber boots down the inner lane of the property, past the dog play yard and my space shuttle. Finally I spotted Frankie through the miniature waterfalls of my eyes. Did I mention we’re doing a cleanse? This was Day 3.

Down at the chicken coop, Frankie was wrestling with 50 yards of wire fence. When I sneak up on them doing these farmer things I always think they look exceptionally hot, but common lust drifted aside as I reminded myself to stay with the depth of rising emotions. At the sight of safe harbour I started to bawl loudly. Frankie looked up and gave that warm, knowing, consoling smile. A couple minutes later we are back inside, I am lying on the bed, on my back while Frankie perched on one corner commanded “Say it all, and kick your legs. Yes, yes.”

They warn in the book that the release of toxins can show up in many forms, physical symptoms and emotional. Needless to say, we’ve had both. Overall we’re both less irritable, but there are many moments of seemingly toxic release. You know, those outbursts that are clearly about more than whatever they seem to be about “No I don’t want to grate that beet! YOU do it.” But then there are also these subtle highs that happen, deeper connection is growing, a mutual self-respect dawning – believing that we have the power, proving our commitment to help each other heal.

With the help of my loving witness I pounded the bed with my legs and wailed out all of my miserable thoughts. “Why? Why is this so hard? I’m overwhelmed… There have been farm wives all over the place with lots of kids and endless chores, like I was just in the bathroom reading in that Mother Earth News about homesteaders, and I need a tissue, and there’s one woman who runs acafé’-bakery off the family's organic farm and raises kids too. She would probably laugh at my troubles.” I am sobbing, “I can’t even keep the two of us in prepared whole food without spending the whole day in the kitchen.”

Today is Day 8 of 14. Well, technically it’s about a month long process that we are half way through. See, there were 5 ‘Transition Days” first, then after these two weeks of focused cleanse there is the opportunity to use the clean body state to do sensitivity testing. Reintroducing allergens one by one – soy, gluten, sugar, dairy, eggs, yeast, nightshade veggies, beer… oh my long lost porter how I dream of the day we are reunited to savour one another.

We chose the Conscious Cleanse because of its emphasis on mind-body, not just diet. We are following their suggestion to write each morning and evening for 15 minutes. And there are enjoyable action assignments, to try on each day: Day 3 – dance or enjoy some light fun activity for 30minutes; Day 7 - detox your environment, ditch the nasty cleaning substances, make your own window cleaner!

Like lifestyle homeopathy or something these little actions seem to create positive ripple effects. The other day I put a Buddha above the toilet and the next day I started poo’ing green. I was genuinely ecstatic. A few minutes later I was cutting across those good vibrations with irate frustration like a powerboat in a Zen pond. And so it goes, hour by hour, day by day, up and down on the bucking wild horsie of my being, trying to learn how to ride well.

I am putting another post today (Conscious Cleanse Pix & Tips, so check that out for visual inspiration!

Great love & green poop,

~Sab

On Frankie’s farm, somewhere north of Siler City, NC

Conscious Cleanse Pix & Tips

On the conscious cleanse we start each day with a quart of lemon water (we add a drop of stevia) and write for 15 minutes. After walking the Ruckus Pack (Mishkami, Bean, Sophie & Pearl) breakfast is a green smoothie. Each night before bed I cut everything up, so in the morning hunger we can just add 2c water and press blend. I’ve fallen in love with the way the coarsely chopped plant manifestations look in the glass blender together.

The idea is to start with ¾ fruit and ¼ vegetable (i.e. Blueberries, bananas, pineapple and lettuce) and slowly invert that until the smoothie is mostly greens & other veggies (i.e. Kale, spinach, cuke and lemon or mango). And we usually throw a couple tablespoons of a ‘superfood’ like ground flax, chia or hemp seeds and a bit of coconut or flax oil.

Lunch is usually a big salad, or leftovers from the night before. Dinner has become a playground of vegan, gluten, and soy free wonders. Day 1 dinner was quinoa tabouli and wilted mustard greens tossed with portobello mushroom gravy.

Part of the cleanse is the food combining principle not to have grains & proteins in the same meal (except lentils) and to really emphasize vegetables. So on Day 2 we went all out with three veggie dishes with little proteins: raw mustard & salad greens with mung bean sprouts, toasted almonds and vegan caesar salad (which includes cashews & dates); sesame sautéed kale, chard and dandelion greens; and citrus infused steamed broccoli.

Day 3 was leftovers and Day 4 we switched back to grains with veggie fried rice drizzled with ume plum vinegar and lemon jus on a bed of red leaf lettuce and raw kale massaged with olive oil.

I want to share my quick version of the Vegetable Medley (or as Frankie likes to slur it ‘Vegetable Melody’) recipe. It’s one of our new favourite dishes. It’s a veggie ‘stir-fry’, except it’s actually steamed and you only put oil on at the end.

Vegetable Medley

First you chop up a bunch of veggies, aiming for a rainbow of colour choices. As you chop, separate into 3 bowls, based on degree of hardness. After my meltdown, (see post Tears and Green Poop) Frankie offered to help out more with cooking during the cleanse and actually did all the chopping you see here!

Into a inch or two of boiling water the first bowl goes, with ginger, garlic, onion and anything harder (broccoli stems, carrots).

Steam for about 5 minutes. (Our lid system looks tricky, don’t worry it’s just because we don’t have a lid large enough to fit this pan.) Next goes the second bowl for another 5ish minutes with things like tougher kale leaves, celery, mushrooms, chard stems, etc…

When everything seems about ready (still vibrantly coloured yet pierce-able without too much force) you add things that just need a 1-2 minute wilt, like chard leaves and baby spinach. Add, stir and turn off the heat.

When it’s done the idea is to drizzle each bowl with just 1-2T of oil (we like to blend sesame & olive) and a pinch of sea salt or dash of Ume Plum vinegar.  Then you feast on the flavours of the veggies themselves.

We did this recipe on a transition day and found it a little dull. When we made it again on Day 6 we were shocked by the bursting flavours of each morsel, and to realize how desensitized our tongues had been before!

Vegetables melodies,

~Sab

On Frankie’s farm, somewhere north of Siler City, NC