Kitchen / Garden / Sanctuary - Urban Homesteading to Nourish Body + Spirit

Month: September 2012 (Page 1 of 3)

Retreat

Well, after the completion of 10 months of my two heavy-duty antibiotics, I sensed that the time was finally right to receive some acupuncture. So I went for my first treatment on Monday, and woahhh!! The stuff is powerful. My body was still metabolizing the drugs anyway (it’s slow at that), but the treatment seemed to really kick things into high gear and now I can see why all this time I was getting the feeling to ‘just wait’ — because any sooner and I’d still have been on the drugs and it would have been altogether too much for my sensitive body. So I laid extremely low all week long, pretty much just ‘surviving it’ and resting and reading and sleeping and drinking mugs of tea and plain hot water, and finally today I’m feeling quite a bit better.

And I have to tell you about a strike of brilliance! It was cool, cloudy, and sorta rainy most of the week, and on Wednesday I had this idea to bring my electric blanket and down comforter outside onto the chaise lounge on the back porch. A heated outdoor lounge. OH YES! And so I was able to be outside all day long, and all evening too, with chilly air against my face but all cozy and toasty at the same time. The electric blanket went under me with the comforter over me. It was as decadent as it sounds. It also really helped to be outside; I have trouble being laid up inside because it just screams “SICK!” and that’s depressing. I love being outside!!

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View from the lounge:

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I was craving fresh juice, so I gathered apples that we just picked off our tree, as well as some celery and parsley out of the garden, and juiced them all. It was incredible!

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F ordered two storm lanterns and they arrived yesterday. They are awesome! We love the ambiance they lend. And I loved being cozy on my lounge past dark with the lantern light on the porch.

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I hope you’ve all had a good week. Happy Friday!!

*****

Gratitude Sunday * September 23, 2012

~ I’m once again joining Taryn over at Wooly Moss Roots in her Gratitude Sunday tradition. ~

Gratitude Sunday is a time to slow down and remember those thankful moments that graced our week. One reason I love keeping a daily gratitude journal is because it helps keep things in perspective for me. Each Sunday, I open my journal and share some of those moments with you here. If you’d like to join in, just leave a comment!

Gratitude is powerful energy. I love hearing others’ gratitudes!

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– Gorgeous, settled weather. Being able to have the windows open all day long, and having it be warm enough to really live outside all day. I love this season!!!!

– This season of abundance where I’m eating largely out of the garden. I think homegrown food is sacred food… it feels sacred anyway… and I feel so good putting it in my body. I think it’s even neater when I can cook my garden food in the solar oven, because not only is it fun, but it seems like that strong solar life-force energy must imbue something good!

– That our tree has apples this year. About a third of each apple is unusable because of apple coddling moths — I really hate those things — and the squirrels are more than a little wasteful in their consumption of the apples, but that’s okay; there’s still more than enough for us. Even though we don’t give the apple tree any special attention or fertilizer or anything, it still has generously produced the biggest, most beautiful apples! The variety is Red (un)Delicious, so they’re not spectacular for eating fresh, but they do make nice applesauce.

– Tons of sun = tons of solar cooking = hardly any indoor cooking on the stove!

– A moon cycle for me, finally. I haven’t had one in close to a year, and it feels like such a triumph for my poor ol’ body which feels so broken sometimes. The medical people say that not cycling is not healthy for your body because it increases your risk of cancer and whatever else. It just seemed like yet another problem to deal with. A couple months ago while lying in the silvery light of the full moon, I said internally to whoever might care, “Fix me, Grandmother Moon.” Perhaps there’s a Grandmother Moon, perhaps there isn’t, but something replied right back to me, “But you’re not broken, dear.” And indeed, it turns out that I’m not broken. It feels weird to type to the world about this very personal matter, but it wants to be said. One of the things I’m realizing (and just beginning to put words to) during this experience of extended, major illness and difficult recovery is that one of the little-talked-about effects is a disconnect — maybe even a total detachment, yes — from your physical body… and if you’re a woman, most especially from that soft, delicate, inward feminine nature. When you’re sick, you don’t feel beautiful — you feel the very furthest thing from beautiful. You don’t regard your body as the sacred vessel it most certainly is — because it feels like a living hell to be trapped in a severely sick, pain-filled body, and you just want out. When you’re sick, that tender and complex and ethereal and soft and fragile aura of feminine confidence you’ve gingerly built within yourself over the years… well it gets blasted apart, unceremoniously. When you’ve got a major illness going on, your femininity is one of the first things out the window, as your very survival shoots to the top of the list. And so now, having my body perform on its own accord a most normal and feminine thing, not only feels triumphant and reassuring, but also symbolic as the beginning of the rebuilding of something that’s been lost.

– Having a quiet, pleasantly lazy weekend, not overdoing it, and yet still getting the things done that I wanted to. That feels perfect — the perfect blend of rest and activity. I love it when I manage to achieve that.

– Clean windows. So nice!!

– Finishing up some applesauce- and sauerkraut-making before heading to bed one night, and feeling so content. Soft lighting, quiet music, being in our own home, in our own beautiful kitchen, preserving the food that I just picked from the backyard.

– My loved ones around me. It’s the thing I love the very most.

– The small walks I’ve been taking at dusk almost every day. I love them.

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What are some of your gratitudes from this past week?

*****

Waiting

The energies must really be flying; have you felt the intensity? I’ve had a rough time of it lately; “severely distressed” would not be understating it. I feel awfully uneasy when I begin brushing against the outermost edge of my sanity, feeling trapped on all sides by that which feels utterly hopeless, questions I don’t have answers to, have-to’s I don’t want to face, and complex decisions that need to be made which will have very real ramifications now and in the future.

But it’s a solitary experience that one can only resolve for oneself; nobody else can, or should, do it for you. So outwardly, while I quietly peel apples at the table, inside I feel blown apart amidst the deafening maelstrom.

And my poor Honey, too, is mucking through much, and we both walk around with furrowed brows, preoccupied with what weighs so heavily upon each of us.

Such intensity right now.

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At times it feels like the most that I can muster is to just wait. Wait, and hope that it please just starts feeling lighter.

So whenever I can, I insert into my day that which is as light and life-affirming as possible.

I make applesauce from the apples off our tree. I have tea. I sit outside and put my face in the sun. I go barefoot. I read fluffy magazines (because that’s all I really feel like doing right now anyway, cause I’ve just about been done in otherwise). I cook cool things in my solar oven. I sing to my kitty-cat and attune myself to her zen-like vibe. I hug F, and hug him again. I sit by the garden in the long shadows of the evening.

And slowly, I work through these decisions — pairing purposeful action with sitting peacefully within the unknowing (still practicing), and at the end of the day, simply hoping it’ll all turn out okay.

Slowly, the world feels a tad lighter.

And then the next day, maybe even a little lighter still.

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Calendula

Solar-powered sun jar

A cup of tea, thoroughly enjoyed.

Apple peeling

Applesauce making

The mice are active in prep for autumn, so Liz too has been active.

Waiting for mice

She caught a moth here near the light, and is waiting in case of another one.

*****

 

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