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Sprouts
There’s a garden that grows in the backyard, sprouts coming from seeds. Every morning, more loveliness. I wake, and walk out into the yard to see what the night rain has brought me.
There are radishes and onion and beets and carrots and edamame and cukes and squash and zucchini and peas that have grown from seed, first delightful little sprouts, then plants that take their place in the garden bed. Also, in the way of herbs, there is burdock and echinacea from seed, and milk thistle, lovage, borage, basil, dill, parsley, cilantro, tarragon, thyme and mint from the herb sale at Maymont a couple of weeks ago. Perhaps still to come are some fennel, oregano and marjoram.
I’ve been studying up on organic gardening as I plant and — do you know — it is the soil that feeds the plants. The plant takes from the soil what it needs in the way of nutrients and minerals and is healthy and filled with life. And color. And delight.
This garden belongs to me in the general way, in that my hands mixed the soil and planted the seeds, but in the truer sense, I belong to this garden, to this little microcosm of this beautiful earth.
How about awesome?
Awesome people hanging out together: an awesome Tumblr blog. This will cheer you up if you need cheering. Which I do.
Image of Elton John, Lady Gaga and Sting by http://awesomepeoplehangingouttogether.tumblr.com/
Clean
So, here’s what happened with the cleanse. I suppose it’s still happening. The first week, which was the elimination diet week, where you don’t eat sugar, dairy, corn, eggs, red meat, wheat or nightshades, felt a bit…fragile…, and I seemed to want a lot of rest. The juices and the clean food, along with the fact that I wasn’t eating foods that were apparently inducing an allergic response, were doing their magic.
According to the book, after the first week, you move into eating a liquid breakfast, regular (clean) lunch and liquid dinner, eating the same foods you were eating during elimination week. I decided to stay with what I was doing, since I was already eating a liquid breakfast and it was all seeming pretty manageable. So that’s what I did, and I’m not sure when it was exactly that I realized I felt better. And I mean, better than I can ever remember feeling. I had Martha-Stuart-like levels of energy and suddenly a great deal of compassion for people who wake at 3:00 a.m. and start to design the labels for their new spice jar system. It has taken a bit of practice to manage it all.
But I can see that this is a new way of life. It requires a bit of planning because it is not so easy to go out to eat anymore as most restaurants menu items in this [part of the] country seem to offer a choice between wheat or corn, plus dairy. Oy. When I eat something like that, just to be sociable, I can feel the Debbie Downer plunge that happens in my body. Thus, the menu planning. Thus, the search for others who are eating this way.
If you are thinking about doing this cleanse, I would read through the whole book and take notes, download the free forms they have on the site, make sure you understand it all. I spent about a week planning and gathering the ingredients. The one thing I may have missed is the fact that you are taking in a losing a lot of water and your electrolytes can become imbalanced. So maybe have some fresh coconuts on hand so you can crack one open and drink the water to restore them if you feel weak. (And you know this isn’t medical advice, right? It’s the other kind of advice, I suppose.)
So that’s about it. Except just a couple of pieces of the other kind of advice: eat food. Real food.
Little Portals
Sometimes I want to give you everything. Yes, you, reading this now. I sit in the morning darkened by the rain, listening to the tea pot work up to a whistle, making precise Morse code clicks on my iPad keyboard as I type this. I have just read this morning’s Garrison Keillor; first a cathedral of a poem you can walk through, smelling the beeswax candles, then stories of writers and the lives that seeped from them such WORDS that must be written, such COLOR that must be read years later. 200 years, 20, or right now, 5 minutes ago. We are calling out into the void with our pens, our keyboards, our voices, our guitars, our IBM Selectrics. We are inside this moment, and it is everything, and we want you there too.
Image is “Type Love” by Samantha Hahn
Food and Geekery
You know, don’t you, what it’s like to want to eat pretty color in this land of bland, GMO and government-subsidized corn and wheat? Everywhere you turn: wheat and corn; cheap, filling, with a long shelf-life. The occasional piece of lettuce which is barely green and yes, Debbie Downer, laced with pesticides. Totally lame.
Pretty food has color to it. And color is a sign of nutrients. When a plant is grown in mineral-rich soil, it absorbs those nutrients, and is hardy and far less susceptible to insects and fungus so it doesn’t need pesticides. And it’s got the energy to bust out some serious color.
So, we know we want pretty food. And keeping pretty food ready at hand takes some planning and some work what with managing ripeness for things like avocados and mangos, and wanting to eat the kale while it’s still filled with qi. I was in the midst of this planning when it occurred to me that perhaps by now someone has come along with a program that does what I’ve been wanting for years: recipe database with grocery lists and menu planning. I googled and voila: Paprika iPad app for $3. And it’s the bomb. Really, I would go so far as to say it’s iTunes for your recipes.
It runs clean, lean and beautifully. It does what you want it to do without too much thinking or work. You can click a button to add a recipe from Epicurious or Whole Foods or whatnot, replete with photo. And, my favorite feature: you can add all of your own categories and cross-reference to your heart’s content. Here are some of mine: crockpot, gluten-free, family recipes, holiday foods, retro-fancy, appetizers & snacks, beverages, salads, soups, superfoods, breakfast, gifts, picnic, health, medicinal & reference. Etc. Etc. I also have a category for each kind of vegetable, meat, grain, plus various cuisines, plus seasons. To me, it’s wondrous. Now, back up just a second and read the category called “health, medicinal and reference.” Do you see what just happened? This thing is not limited to recipes. You can copy an article about a certain food or nutrients in and categorize it however you’d like. So, if you’d seen something about beets being amazing for you, you can categorize it as “beets” and “reference,” and whatever. Then you click on the “beets” category and there you have the article AND some recipes containing beets. Helpful!
Now, how about some menu planning? From within the recipe itself, you click on the meal planning icon and then pick the day from the calendar that you’d like to have that recipe. Need the ingredients? Click on the grocery icon and add some or all of the ingredients to your grocery list. Then all your groceries are compiled for you and yes, you can print or email the list. Or just have your iPad with you at the grocery store and check things off as you go.
Can you email people recipes from within the app? Yes. And, if they have the app, they can import it right in. I’ve added all of the family recipes, like my Nana’s hot milk cake and my grandfather’s spaghetti sauce so if my sisters are very clever they will get the app and have me email them the recipes. They are not such uber-geeks as I, but they certainly have potential.
Okay, down from my soapbox and out to plant some beet seeds in the garden. All this talk of beets.
Yesterday On the River
My darling son Kenny was in town this weekend and we went to the James River, by way of what’s known in these parts as Texas Beach. You depart ordinary reality slowly, via a path from a park near Maymont which seems initially rather ordinary. This is, as I’m sure you know, often true of portals. You walk down a dirt path, cross over the railroad tracks via a weirdly God-awful footbridge and set of stairs down to the path on the other side, over and past the still waters of the inland channels. Keep going. Past baby snakes, past the people gathered in the lagoon, past stagnant water, poison ivy, tree roots, all being lovely, all being love. Keep going in to the river, into the fall line. Over the rocks and the current. To where you are in the center of everything and you are river. You are the huge rock with water moving past. You are the sun shining on everything. You are the beautiful planet that is recreating itself before our very eyes. You are the railroad bridge. You are the girl hoola-hooping just upriver. You are creating and being created, and it is a little bit astonishing, a little bit reassuring, but mostly, you are breathing in, breathing out, and you feel the river-tree-sky-beauty breathing with you.
Being Happy and Being Inspired Makes Happy Inspired Art
My dear friend and amazing human being Liz Sheehan is the director of Partners in the Arts, a program that supports arts integration at local schools here in RVA. We know, of course, that art feeds our soul. Our spirits. And kids know this already and way better than we do, but sometimes we just math them and english them to distraction so the part that they know at a deep level — the language and the dance of their very spirit — gets squelched.
Enter Liz Sheehan. Now here is a woman with an enormous heart and a brain that can think circles around mere mortals and in that way, Liz often reminds me of Katherine Hepburn’s character in Desk Set who “associates many things with many things.” Beyond that, she has an intriguing history of having grown up in Manhattan, working as a graphic designer there, acquiring a PhD in cultural anthropology and consequently working at the Smithsonian Institute in D.C. where she could wander the catacombs of the place, examining the ephemera and iconic memorabilia of our culture to her heart’s content. When you talk to Liz, there is a profound listening going on that is practically seismic. As you can imagine, all of these qualities and experiences make Liz an extraordinary writer — indeed, one of my favorites. I am going to keep all the rest of the treasures I know about Liz to myself because by now she will be blushing and wanting me to keep the focus on the kids who need the arts integration for God’s sake. I just want you to understand about this quiet wonder who is here in Richmond, Virginia, working quiet wonders under the guise of Partners in the Arts, this quite unique program that actually uses art to teach other subjects. Speaking to the children in language they inherently understand, it would seem.
So now, here’s one of the projects of Partners in the Arts, involving Chris Milk Hulbert, one of Richmond’s beloved painters, and Sarah Fought, art teacher at Linwood Holton Elementary School and her students. How lucky are these kids to have teachers and people like Liz and Sarah and Chris who honor them and that part in them that is sacred and constant and mustn’t be papered over for the sake of busyness or culture or other foolishness. “Being happy and inspired while making art makes happy, inspired art,” says Chris to the children. Yes, yes, yes.
I’ve been watching too much television news lately, i.e., more than 5 seconds on any given day, and it had started to wear at my gleaming worldview just a little. For this little segment where I get to listen to Chris’ responses, I will make an exception to my new no-television-news-whatsoever rule:
My Planet: Healing with Whales and Other Stories
My dear and lovely friend Leah Lamb has launched My-Planet.org, and with it brings to life her dream of connecting people with our amazing planet — and those who share it with us — through stories. Let’s join with her and start to tell beautiful stories of each other, of our oceans, our trees, our home.
There’s enough awfulness pouring out of the television set to dash our hopes if we let it. If we focus on that. Let’s not. Instead, let’s change the story. Let’s get outside. Let’s smell what trees smell like. Let’s dream a new dream. You, me and Leah.
Clean: The Beginning of a Four-Week Detox
This week, I’ve started a cleanse, after going back to this book Clean, by Alejandro Junger. Gwyneth Paltrow recommends it on GOOP, and since I do everything Gwyneth says to do, I got the book and went through it last spring. This spring I’m actually doing the cleanse. In fact, my mom and I are doing it together. Though the website offers lots of products to use in case you are so busy you don’t have time to prepare food, you can do the cleanse without them, just by using real food with a few supplements.
The idea is that the body has this amazing detoxification system that does its work after the work of digestion is finished. Except that often so much time or energy is spent on digestion that there is not enough left for detoxification. More precisely: the body needs approximately 8 hours to digest the evening meal while we sleep. And it is after this digestion process that the detoxification process begins, which takes another 4 hours. So. If we eat a snack or even a heavy meal at 9 p.m. and then get up and eat or drink at 7 a.m., our body will take the time to digest the food, but will run short on the detox, because it has to start the digestion process again in order to survive. So, when the body is exposed to environmental toxins and toxins and allergens in food and then doesn’t have the opportunity (and possibly the nutrients) to detox, health starts to be compromised.
So, this cleanse is meant to be gentle and manageable while still conducting one’s life. It goes like this: the first week is “Elimination Week” - or ruling out those foods that can sneakily cause allergic reactions and/or an undue burden on the body’s digestive system. We are phasing out coffee/caffeine and dairy, about a fourth of a cup less of coffee each day. And we’ve eliminated sugar, wheat, corn, red meat, nightshades, and all processed foods. So we are eating a lot of fruits, vegetables, quinoa, brown rice and chicken. It takes a fair amount of food prep in the morning what with juicing and smoothies and whatnot but then we’re set for the day. This weekend we will start the actual cleanse, which means eating pretty much we are eating now but breakfast and dinner are liquid meals - either juice, smoothie or soup. Lunch is what might normally be dinner - chicken, rice, broccoli, etc.
I will let you know how it goes.
xoxo
Lisa
Feeding Myself Healthy Food
My feeling is this: our bodies are complete miracles. And probably we are wise to feed our bodies more miracles, like plant-based nutrients that are as close to their natural state as possible. And when we think of feeding our bodies, we probably want to expand that notion to include everything that our bodies take in, whether through our mouths, or our skin, or our lungs. So we can, with great delight, think of what our bodies might want, and start to give our bodies those things, at the same time begin to eliminate those substances that might stress us and our lovely bodies.
Sometimes I get the idea that I have to figure it all out: what food to eat/not eat, what products to use/not use, what daily practices to do to connect with the beauty that is everywhere. And figuring it all out can feel very complicated and overwhelming. But then I remember that I can just listen to what my body wants, or see what resonates or just feels right. And, to start with, my body doesn’t particularly want all this figuring because, of course, figuring is stressful. It’s a little bit like spending all my time asking questions instead of listening to answers.
Right now, here is what seems right to me:
1. Lots of good, clean water. I fill 3-gallon jugs with reverse osmosis water at the healthy food store and from that fill my insulated water bottle which I keep near me at all times. I also keep a 3-gallon jug in the back of the car so I can always fill up. I may need to come up with a solution for keeping this jug cool in summertime since it gets really hot in Richmond. I’d love some ideas.
2. Eating lots of colors. I keep ingredients at home to do this, but I also go to the organic salad bar at Whole Foods several times a week and fill a container with things like spinach, celery, beets, edemame, zucchini, quinoa, grapefruit, blackberries, kiwi, pineapple, chick peas, etc. This way I know I’ve covered my bases nutritionally and will have the energy I need to prepare healthy food at home. I like to keep organic spinach in this house to have for easy salads with pears and avocados with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. I also like to have kale and apples around to make smoothies in the blender with a little bit of water. And then, there’s juicing. I can get in a nice cycle where I’m making juice every morning and it feels AMAZING. I use organic produce here especially, since the juice is going right to the bloodstream. Usually I juice carrots, apples, celery, ginger, and a lemon.
3. Eating organic whenever possible. Every year, the Environmental Working Group comes out with the Clean Fifteen and the Dirty Dozen, a list of the fifteen cleanest and twelve most pesticide-laden fruits or vegetables. So, since apples, celery and spinach are high on the Dirty Dozen list, I go organic for those. Onions, pineapples and avocados are generally cleaner so I can go conventional when buying those.
4. Eating less gluten. I lost 20 pounds without trying when I gave up gluten last spring. Maybe because I didn’t have the gluten causing a stress/allergic reaction in my body. Maybe because I wasn’t eating bread and everything that comes on bread. And maybe because I was eating more fruits and vegetables instead. Or maybe all of these. At this point I am occasionally eating some bread but gluten free whenever possible. There are two products that for me make being gluten free possible: Udo’s Gluten Free Bread and Ancient Harvest Quinoa Pasta. Also, Bob’s Red Mill has some nice gluten free options.
5. Eating less dairy. I’m still drinking coffee in the morning and for that I use half and half. Also, I eat a bowl of Stoneyfield Farm yogurt most days because it’s delicious and it feels right. But otherwise I don’t routinely add dairy to things.
6. Eating less nightshades. Potatoes, tomatoes, peppers and eggplants are nightshades which produce a toxin in their skin to ward off insects. This toxin can affect some people adversely and I seem to be one of them.
7. Having something fermented on a regular basis. Usually this is Kombucha.
8. Eating more plant-based nutrients than animal-based nutrients.
9. Using products that have as few toxins as possible. Here’s what I use: Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soap for shower and hand soap. Moroccanoil Hair Treatment. Aubrey Sea Buckhorn Nourishing Skin Lotion. Weleda Sage Deodorant. Griffin Remedy Daily Shampoo with Sea Buckhorn and Orange. Weleda Toothpaste. Trader Joe’s Cedarwood & Sage Multi-purpose Cleaner. I keep it simple.
And all this is not to say that a diner breakfast of waffles, bacon and eggs is out of the question. Because there is delight there, too. I just do things to keep that kind of fun in balance.
What kinds of things have you found that are helpful and make you feel WONDERFUL?
xoxo
Lisa
