the road less traveled

I took the path less traveled on my hike this morning. And I learned that sometimes, such as when the trails are icy and snowpacked, taking the road less traveled means you have to work a lot harder, you progress more slowly but get tired faster, and you end up backtracking and looking for a more traveled route.

Which as the revered Mr. Frost mentioned, does indeed make all the difference, but not in a way that I'm excited about at the moment. And that's all I have to say for now.

contamination

My daughter baked the most beautiful cookies tonight. She intended to take them to school to share with friends, but eventually gave in to my begging and let me have just one. I chomped into it with glee, freezing mid-munch when I suddenly noticed that it tasted strange.

A few minutes of sleuthing and sniffing in the kitchen revealed our culprit: the cinnamon bottle.

See, I buy spices in bulk, and they are packaged in plastic bags. I fill up my little glass bottles, then throw the bags in a big plastic tub with a lid in my pantry for storage until I need to refill the bottles.

Well, folks, apparently either cumin or curry or both are quite volatile spices. Volatile, is that the right word? Severely aromatic? Anyway, their aromas penetrated all the other plastic bags, including the cinnamon. So the cinnamon that I refilled my spice bottle with last week was distinctly cumin/curry flavored. Need I say more? Does ewww suffice?

As I threw out about a dozen bags of spices, my daughter and I were literally rolling on the floor laughing. It's amazing how much havoc one little improperly contained spice can wreak!

We decided the cookies were fine if you didn't expect them to taste cinnamon-y. We renamed them Sugar and Spice Cookies, which we thought was also hilarious. And since they won't hurt anyone, she's taking them to school anyway to see what happens. Some kids like weird stuff. Besides, they might taste great with coffee!

Anyway, there's surely some kind of moral in there, but I don't feel like digging for it right now. Please post a comment if one suggests itself to you!

Recipe is pasted below. They turned out great at high altitude here in CO. They are chewy and bend then break off in your mouth like my favorite kind of ginger snaps: http://www.glueandglitter.com/main/2009/10/02/brown-sugar-cookies/

Vegan Brown Sugar Cookies

1c whole wheat flour
1t baking powder
1/4t salt
1 t cinnamon (sniff it first!)
2/3c light brown sugar
1/4c canola oil
1t vanilla
2T water

Preheat the oven to 350°.
Combine the flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon in a large bowl, mixing well.
In a smaller bowl, mix the sugar, oil, vanilla and water, until everything is dissolved.
Pour the wet mixture into the dry and mix well.
Spoon the dough onto the cookie sheets, flattening each cookie a little.
You can even use cookie cutters to do fun shapes! If you’re going to cut out shapes, you might want to chill the dough for to let it firm up a bit.
Bake for 10-12 minutes.
Make sure you let them cool before serving.
Makes about 1 dozen.

fascinating article by bruce lipton

here's a brief excerpt from www.brucelipton.com:

The brain, like any governing entity, seeks harmony. Neural harmony is expressed as a measure of congruency between the mind’s perceptions and the life we experience.

An interesting insight into how the mind creates harmony between its perceptions and the real world is frequently illustrated in stage hypnosis shows. A volunteer from the audience is invited onstage, hypnotized, and asked to pick up a glass of water, which the volunteer is told weighs one thousand pounds. With that misinformation, the volunteer struggles unsuccessfully with straining muscles, bulging veins, and perspiration. How can that be? Obviously the glass doesn’t weigh one thousand pounds even though the mind of the subject firmly believes that it does.

To manifest the perceived reality of a thousand pound glass of water, something that cannot be lifted, the hypnotized subject’s mind fires a signal to the muscles used to lift the glass at the same time it fires contradictory signals to the muscles used to set the glass down! This results in an isometric exercise wherein two groups of muscles work to oppose each other, which results in no net movement-but a lot of strain and sweat.

Cells, tissues, and organs do not question information sent by the nervous system. Rather, they respond with equal fervor to accurate life-affirming perceptions and to self-destructive misperceptions. Consequently, the nature of our perceptions greatly influences the fate of our lives.

Read the entire article here:
http://www.brucelipton.com/book-excerpts/the-nature-of-dis-ease

I was here

on a hike yesterday, we stumbled upon this magical mountain meadow. can you see the deer? she's hidden in the grass next to the tree in the middle.

I feel so incredibly blessed to live here ...

sprung

Along with tiny bowls of ice cream and tiny spoons, I also love tiny flowers.

Part of the fun is waiting for them. I watch for the little green sprouts to poke out of the dirt, then check on them eagerly every day. I don't want to miss a single moment of their progression into blooming.

I suspect I would not enjoy them quite as much if they were always there ... they might just fade into the background. It's the metamorphosis that delights me -- the transformation in just a few weeks' time from little green nubs to resplendent color.

I took this picture on my walk today to remind myself of something important: I WANTED my life to be this way. All of it ... the pain, the suffering, the growth, the waiting, the wanting, the achievement. The ups and downs. The losses and the gains. The ebb and the flow. The dirt and the blossoms.

I wanted the feeling of my hands in the clay. I asked for a big blob, rather than the finished product, so I could mold it myself. I also wanted to be able to smush it all up and start over. I wanted to experience transformation, not static perfection.

I am living exactly the life that I asked for. I wanted to play with free will, and I am generously presented with opportunities to exercise it in every moment. I may not always be free to choose what is going on around me, but my decision about where to focus my attention, what to think, or how to feel has never ever been restricted.

Sometimes, I forget that...

falling leaves

What is the variable that determines which leaves remain on a tree after a blustery autumn windstorm?

I went for a walk on a windy day, and there were colors swirling down all around me. Then I looked up into the branches of the trees, and noticed plenty of leaves flying like flags, stems still firmly bound to their tiny wooden flagpoles.

Why did they stay attached after the others had let go or were torn away? I would have thought that a ferocious wind would just strip the trees bare, but it doesn't. Some tenacious leaves always remain.

So who's in control here? It's clearly not the wind. Who or what decides when each leaf will fall? Is it up to the individual? Does each leaf have its own karma, destiny, or fate? Is it random? Does Mother Nature roll the dice to determine who stays and who goes?

Or perhaps it is more like a kindergartener's tooth falling out, or a woman going into labor and giving birth -- guided by a mysterious inner timing that is beyond our understanding or influence.

Somehow I find it comforting that I can't figure this out. I like that there are forces and rhythms at play around me that defy comprehension. It cracks me up that even a gale force wind cannot bully a tiny leaf into falling one second before its time has come.

I bet the leaves don't waste a moment of their lives feeling concerned about when they will fall. No predictions, no worry, no prevention. They just soak up the sun and the rain until the moment they drop.

Hmm.

visual bliss

At a friend's birthday party tonight, I sat near a guy who mentioned that he was a photographer. You know how I like to google everything, so of course I had to come home and investigate his work online. I am stunned speechless by the, umm ... gorgeousity ... of this man's work. See, that's not even a real word. I told you I was speechless. You will be too.

I just paused for a moment to tell you about him, and now I am going right back to his site to be transported and transformed.

I think lunar is my very favorite category so far.
http://www.steelephoto.com/photo.php?set_id=4

Or is it Flatirons?
http://www.steelephoto.com/photo.php?set_id=2

Oh, I dunno. Do yourself a favor and look at all of them.
http://www.steelephoto.com/index.php

If you feel inspired to use his contact form to tell him how much you enjoyed his work, go for it. He seems like a very decent and humble guy, from what I can tell, and I bet he'd be happy to hear from you. And feel free to pass his site along - it's like a mini online retreat.

If you live near Boulder, I think I heard him say he has a show at the Boulder Public Library gallery for another week or so. His name is Peter Steele.

common sense and science

here's what's been fascinating me lately:

Mellen-Thomas Benedict was dead for 90 minutes, and had quite an experience before he came back. Very profound stuff - hopeful and empowering:
http://www.mellen-thomas.com/index.html

German New Medicine: The theory that illness in the body is actually an adaptive response to a stress conflict makes deeply good sense to me, and changes everything in terms of intervention.
http://germannewmedicine.ca/documents/welcome.html

Primary Perception: My life changed dramatically when I read The Secret Life of Plants years ago and learned that scientists had proven that plants and bacteria respond to our intention. Cleve Backster was apparently behind this research, and has his own site:
http://www.primaryperception.com/bio/

horse rescue video

beautiful and powerful footage of almost 200 horses being rescued from a hill that became surrounded by water in a storm.

a mangificently choreographed team effort that paid off ...

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7208904950568913763&q=netherlands+horse+rescue

ahhhlaska

I am an avid armchair traveler. I love staying warm and cozy at home while watching slide shows of the trips taken by my more adventurous friends and family. today I went to Alaska and British Colombia with my friend Julia, who is an AMAZING photographer. This slide show takes a while to download, but it's so very worth it ...

sunrise

the ceremony this morning was deeply satisfying and energizing. the colors in the sky were stunning, the temperature was perfect, and the chemistry of the group was pure synergy. check out this incredible picture that Lena took. it's a bit darker than the sky really was, but you can still feel the magic!

summer solstice

tomorrow at dawn I will be in the beautiful Rocky Mountains watching the sunrise while facilitating a solstice ceremony. I love marking the touchstones of the yearly cycle with ritual and intention. I was thinking this morning that time moves forward just like a spiral - marching onward year after year, yet within each year moving full circle. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I move forward like a spiral through my arbitrary experience of time - guess it depends on which model of the universe we are subscribing to at the moment.

In any case, I wanted to share some of the ceremony with you here, so you can join us virtually from wherever you happen to be if you wish.



At 4:45 am, we will gather together in a circle at the trailhead. I will mist a blend of purifying essential oils, sound a resonating chime, and offer a short prayer and blessing to attune us to the reason we have gathered, and help each of us clear our minds and hearts and become fully present to experience of the moment.

We will then hike in silence to a location high on a hill, where the eastern horizon is visible, immersing ourselves fully in the quiet stillness of the early early morning, before most people have woken up and started rushing around and thinking too much, while the earth is still fresh and cool and clean from the purification of the night. It is likely that we will encounter some deer grazing, and even possibly catch a glimpse of a mountain lion, for this is their finest hunting hour. We will most certainly be enveloped in birdsong.

When we reach the vantage point, we will each look around for a patch of ground that calls to us and make ourselves comfortable there.

Sitting in silence, we will internally prepare some personal intentions for the coming season, knowing that at solstice, the intensity of the sun is at its zenith, and that we can use intention to symbolically harness that power and link it to our will, thus infusing us with energy and focus to help us powerfully manifest our intentions.

After the sun is risen, we will invite the light of the sun to illuminate the pages of our journals as we record our sacred intentions. We will then gather together in a circle to share a light breakfast, and to tell the others what we plan to make manifest in the coming season, thus also harnessing the exponential power of two or more gathered in support of each other, joining their hearts and minds in a singular purpose.

We will then hike back in the full glory of a hot and sunny morning, laughing and talking and playing along the way, reveling in the joy of being human on this bountiful planet.

so there you go! join us in your mind - we will hold space in our circle for you.

fame

I was very impressed with this huge meteor crater near Flagstaff. Scientists have determined that just before impact, it was traveling over 11 miles per second! and all it has to show for all that speed is a big ole hole in the ground.

fame ... how fleeting! ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

(that's my mom, me, and my daughter)

blooming

this cactus blooms for only one day every year, and it chose the day after we arrived to grace my mom's front yard with its beauty.

cactus medicine: open yourself deeply and completely into this moment ... tomorrow may be too late.