Waiting

It's nearly Winter again and so we've been firing up the woodstove regularly. I really like lighting the fire, and doing so when there are still some embers from the night before has been a good exercise in the benefits of waiting. It can be tempting to throw a match in there or use the butane lighter, but more and more I like to just lay the wood on top of the embers, sit back and wait. I'm trying to do that more in life as well: set the proper conditions and then wait for the results in Nature's good time.

Circles

Here is it already January 6th, 2010. I've had this enso circle graphic ready to go for about a week now, thinking surely the New Year would inspire me to write something about the emptiness of the circle, and the potential it represents. How the middle part of the circle, when you reverse the field, looks like a ripe peach, full of juicy goodness.

So far, I still just feel a sense of the big fat zero. I know I should feel renewed, I should feel hopeful, I should feel energized with the clean slate of a new year, a new decade, etc., etc. But nope, I'm still stuck in the state of zero. Zero motivation, zero optimism, blech, bla, yuck. The same state that ground my ponderings to a nearly complete stop last Fall.

I guess I'll just keep watching and waiting, knowing that everything's impermanent, and that this cycle will work itself out somehow, some time, some where.

To anyone who still wanders by here now and then, I wish you peace and contentment.

Picture of enso circle courtesy www.themiddleway.net

Garden 2009: Summary of What Worked and What Didn't

One of the purposes of this blog is for me to keep track of the things I'm doing and learning about sustainability and food security and the like, through my own gardening efforts. I didn't post much about my garden (or anything else for that matter) this summer, but I thought I should at least make note of how some of the things I tried turned out.

I'll start with what went well:

1) Potatoes: Potatoes are plain-packaged miracles in my opinion. I was astounded again this year at how many potatoes will grow from just a quarter-potato planted in the Spring. I planted a section of Yukon Gold potatoes this year - the section was about 5 feet square. I probably planted the potatoes too close together, and I didn't hill them up as much I had intended, yet I got over 40 lbs of potatoes out of that little patch. Some of them were hands down gorgeous! Smooth, creamy, perfectly formed spuds. I have since made a whole lotta potato-leek soup and mashed spuds, which are now in my freezer for Winter. Not to mention the bounty of new potatoes and butter we had over the Summer itself.

2) Carrots: These grew and grew whether I thinned them or not, and tolerated quite the variation in temperature and moisture - I was so enthralled with them I wrote a little post all about it a couple weeks ago...

3) Perennial Herbs: I was so happy that my lavender plant made it through last Winter, despite the many nights of bitter cold we had (and by bitter cold I mean -45C at times, and often many nights in a row of -30C). Not only did it survive, but it thrived and produced lovely flowers that were loved by a lot of bees and bugs. By virtue of a late September trip to a lavender farm just outside of Victoria, BC, I found out that my particular variety of lavender was edible! So I harvested my lavender flowers (probably past their peak, but oh well) and made some delicious lavender scones, like you see in the picture above. I also made some lavender and sage tea with honey, which is also quite tasty. Which brings me to the sage - another plant that just grew like crazy this Summer. I have harvested a huge jar-full, enough to last me over the Winter, for certain. My thyme and rosemary also did well, and I fully expect to see them survive over this Winter, providing there is enough snow to insulate everything nicely, like there was last year.

4) Perennial Salad Greens: I grew three varieties of greens from seed: Salad Burnet, Burnet Saxifraga and French Sorrel. All of these sprouted well and grew quite profusely. Both Gord and I and our guinea pigs enjoyed these greens over the summer and into the late Fall (i.e., now). I am keeping my fingers crossed that they live through the winter - the odds are fairly good since they are quite well established now.

There were several things that didn't go well, some of which I've complained about already, and some which I haven't mentioned yet:

1) Cucumbers: I have absolutely no luck with these. Last year they were killed by frost and this year the seedlings were fried by a hot spell after a cool, dry spell. I had been trying to conserve water becasue of the dryness early in the Spring, and apparently I was a bit too stingy with the H2O.

2) Beans: These things were fried more than once, and were very slow to get going in the adverse conditions of cool dryness followed by hot dryness. Later in the summer they had a burst of growth that happened so fast the beans were past the fresh eating stage before I even noticed there were beans at all. They were even past the pickling stage, they were that big. Fortunately they were a dual purpose bean, in that the seeds themselves could be dried and used for soups. So I have a whole cupboard full of bean pods drying.

3) Tomatoes: Dead. Killed in a late frost (in June). I didn't have the motivation to try again.

4) Pumpkins: Dead. Seedlings eaten by some sort of garden pest, perhaps of the deer or pocket gopher variety.

5) Chard and Kale: started out good, but the above noted pocket gopher decided to invade that corner of the garden after our 'mole repellent' thingies chased them out of the yard. All that underground burrowing killed a good half of the chard and kale after that.

6) Aspen tree "cloning:" Our property is full of trembling aspen trees, but there is one large gap in the treeline from what I assume was some over-zealous grading when the house was built. I want to fill in that gap with the same kind of trees, and when I saw this rooter pot device at Lee Valley tools, I thought it was the answer. I had visions of free trees in my head, and I enthusiastically made my way out into our woodlot to choose some prime cloning fodder. I followed the directions closely and soon had ten aspen saplings fitted out with attached rootpots. I don't know if it was a problem with the rooting hormone washing off of the exposed "wound" inside the rootpots, or my not keeping the soil evenly moist. (Watering these things was a tad more complex than the little instruction book led me to believe.) So instead of planting ten new trees, I killed ten trees instead. Not good.

Despite the disappointments I did learn a lot, and there were some things that did go well even in the tough conditions. I guess that's the most important lesson of all: when the going gets tough, I just need to channel my inner potato. And then maybe have some lavender scones with tea. :)

The Upside of Weeds and Weeding

Over the last couple of weeks I've been doing something sort of different for me: listening to podcasts while doing yardwork. Normally I like to just hear the sounds of the outside when I am outside, but since I discovered this whole podcast thing, I've enjoyed doing some listening and weeding at the same time.

Last week I was listening to yet another one of Noah Levine's podcasts and while I can't remember the exact details, the gist of the podcast was that the things we think are obstacles really aren't - they are more like things that we need to work through for a reason, and that it's not necessary or even desirable to remove all obstacles all at once. As he was talking and I was weeding it occurred to me that maybe weeds aren't as, well, 'weedy' as we think either.

For one thing, weeds can act as shade for newly sprouting seeds - I know my little bean plants appreciated the shade from some lambsquarters weeds when we had hot spell in May. And a bit later in the season, when it comes time to yank the weeds out, they can be laid on the ground as mulch, helping the soil to retain its moisture. Maybe it sounds corny, but in the same way some of our bad habits and unskillful actions, immature as they are, can serve to protect us while we mature and gain some life experience. Eventually it comes time to get these things out of our lives, but it's still not a bad idea to lay them aside as some 'mental mulch' - reminders of where we've been and what we've learned.

If our gardens didn't have weeds, we probably wouldn't spend as much time in them either. Having to go in there and pull out the weeds from among the deliberately planted plants means that we become much more familiar with what's in the garden and how the plants are doing. We have the opportunity to notice what's growing well and what's doing poorly, where the soil retains moisture and where it tends to be dry, what's a bit buggy and what's vibrant and healthy. In the same way, it's good to spend some time observing the landscape of our thinking, taking note of what type of stuff is flourishing or languishing (or rotting! ;)) in our head. And if some of that stuff isn't useful, if it causes deep dissatisfaction for ourselves or others, it may be time to consider turning it into mulch rather than letting it keep on taking root in space that would be better used to nurture something else. Meditation is one way to do this kind of 'mental weeding.'

Sometimes weeds closely mimic the plants we are actually trying to grow. For example, last year I pulled out many a carrot sprout because they looked a lot like a certain ferny-looking weed (namely, scentless chamomile). And, I left in some weeds that I should have pulled for the same reason. Based on that direct experience, this year I was able to discern what is and is not a carrot, so this year's carrot patch is much more productive. Similarly, sometimes a person needs to get up-close-and-personal with the problems and obstacles in their lives, in order to sort out what's what. Sometimes we keep certain things/ideas/habits in our lives because they seem like the real thing. It's only later, after we see the genuine article and the imposter side by side in full bloom, that we can clearly discern the difference. Those can be difficult lessons, but they sure do stick with you.

Weeding is also a thing that is never really "done." There are always more weeds sprouting here and there, sometimes the same type of weed and sometimes a new variety. Experience with the familiar weeds helps us figure out what to do with the new ones. And over time we get better at preventing the garden from getting overrun with them. The same goes for our head and heart: with some regular and compassionate maintenance, we can prevent things from getting too tangled and overgrown in there, with some space to breathe.

All of this takes time, awareness, attention, intention and effort. Definitely good investments though, both in the garden and in ourselves!

So how's your 'weeding' going?

April Showers, and other random thoughts.

Ah, it's raining. Not snowing.

I think Spring may have actually arrived! I went outside this morning to take a few pictures of things like the patch of green grass I saw near the sidewalk, and the amazing site of my thyme and lavender that actually seem to have survived the Winter. Birds are chirping like crazy out there, the squirrels are chasing each other all about, and it's raining. A nice, soft drizzle that you can hear patting the ground as the drops land. It made me smile.

I think my brain must be infected by Spring this morning as well, because I'm thinking all sorts of different things, like is Twitter useful or just another way to broadcast random thoughts out into cyber space? Some of these things like Facebook and Twitter just seem so narcissistic and egotistical to me, but yet they appeal to me and my fondness for gadget-y and neat things of all sorts. And if Facebook and Twitter are egotistical, then so are blogs I suppose. Hmm. I have decided to try out the Twitter thing anyway after a few friends and family members joined, and when I saw that even Thich Nhat Hanh has an official Twitter feed. So I've linked my twitterings (tweets?) in the side bar there - so far I'm thinking it could serve as a mini-updater for this blog, one which would contain shorter ponderings.

And now, right now as I type this, there is a story on CBC's Q, about this very thing: the narcissistic tendencies of the current society and how social networking sites figure large in this this trend. The Ego Boom is the book that host Jian Ghomeshi is talking to the authors about, and how focusing on enhancing kids' self esteem over the last 20+ years has actually raised a generation of people who think they are close to perfect, have the right to choose among limitless options, and are entitled to be famous. Ack, perhaps I should reconsider this whole blog/facebook/twitter thing after all.

Another thing I am thinking about today is the amazingness of Vandana Shiva, (who as it happens, is linked via the CBC program, The Current, which also has a twitter feed.) Vandana Shiva started the Navdanya organization, which has been instrumental in fights against logging, water depletion and genetically modified seeds. When I was listening to The Current on the radio this morning, Dr. Shiva related the astounding statistic that 200 000 farmers in Pakistan and/or India have committed suicide over the past decade because they lost their farms to Agribusiness. Dr. Shiva and her organization have been working to help farmers return to organic farming practices, with amazing results. Good things happen when people live out their principles in the everyday practices of their lives.

These random and unpolished ponderings brought to you by the effects of Spring!

Oh, and one more random goody I just heard about: Depression Cooking with Clara. These are YouTube videos of a 91 year old lady cooking and giving tips about how to stay healthy in tough times. She is adorable, and one smart lady.

That connection with nature thing...

Last weekend Gord and I spent some time outside in the treed part of our property -- we really needed to get out of the house and just be out there. Spring has been a long time coming, and while there is still a lot of snow around, the sky was blue and the sun was warm. So we went out to feed the birds, deterimined to take our time about it, and just enjoy being out there.

We have a lot of black-capped chickadees around here, and they have become less and less shy over the years. Often they will fly over and sit very close to us when we fill the bird feeders, and chirp loudly as if to say, "hurry up already, we want our black oil sunflower seeds!" At times there are dozens of them that come to the five or six feeders we have set up, for sunflower seeds, peanuts and suet.

This year has been a banner year for squirrels as well - there are four of them! It seems like they may be two mated pairs, but we really don't know for certain. They come to the feeders as well, and it is quite the show to see the squirrels and the birds vie for the prime feeders.

Gord has told me of how one of his uncles used to have birds eating out of his hand, and this Spring he really wanted to see if that could happen to him too. These chickadees were pretty friendly, so they seemed like they might just cooperate.

And last Sunday was the day - after standing still and sort of blending in with the feeder for about 15-20 minutes, the birds started sitting on the feeder while Gord's hand was there:You can see the squirrel there (whom Gord has named 'Chomper') in the background, keeping an eye on the situation.

A few minutes later, one of the birds landed on Gord's hand and took a sunflower seed out of it, before flying away. This happened quite a few times with a few different birds, and I managed to get one decent picture of this:
Not to be left out, Chomper came by in a little while for a closer look:


And then came closer yet for his share of the sunflower seeds:

I can tell you this was the highlight of our day! I've cropped the pictures so Gord's face isn't in there, but in some of these shots he is really smiling! There's something pretty amazing about having a little bird or squirrel think you're just another part of the landscape, safe enough to sit on.

Next time it will be my turn to try and stand still for 20 minutes at the feeder, and see what happens. I knew meditation was good practice for a lot of reasons, but I didn't foresee this particular application!

Wishing everyone a happy weekend, with time enough to stop and connect for a little while with Nature's goodness.

The Anthropocentric Weather Report

This morning I was listening to the CBC as usual during my 45 minute commute to work. Also as usual, the announcers were going through the regular news, traffic and weather reports at various intervals. When it came time for the weather, the announcer said something to the effect of how disappointing it was that she couldn't say we were in for a "lovely day" again, like last week, because it was raining. The host of the show replied in kind, bemoaning that it was a rainy, windy and miserable day. And I thought, wait a minute, that's only true from a human point of view.

From the point of view of the grass, trees and the ducks in the nearly dry wetland area near my house, today is actually a very lovely day. About 10 - 20 millimeters of rain are expected to fall today. The land is really in need of this, considering the unseasonably warm and dry weather we've had for the past two weeks or so. Speaking anthropocentrically, it has been a really nice Fall so far, with mild temperatures, no rain, and almost completely sunny days.

That weather report illustrated to me once again how disconnected a lot of us humans are from nature most of the time. Surely after two weeks of sun, a little rain is a good thing? It reminded me too, of how much we humans like our undisturbed comfort, and how we almost seem to take it for granted and feel entitled to it at the same time.

I've certainly been guilty of feeling resentful towards the weather, especially towards the combination of rain and wind, and especially on a work day. It messes up my hair and splatters my glasses, while I struggle to hold on to my umbrella and avoid stepping into puddles, all the while dodging the water spraying from passing cars' tires. But then there are the days on the weekend when I relish going out into the rain, with my silly hat on, to weed the garden or fill up the rain barrel. I like feeling that rain plunking down on my head and smelling that smell of wet grass. Feeling my rubber boots squish in the dirt and hearing the raindrops patter on the leaves. That is a "lovely day," in my view. And maybe walking to work in the rain with my umbrella isn't so bad either.

Picture courtesy this Flickr site

New Year in September...

I have always thought of September as being the start of a New Year, much more so than January. Years of going to university probably ingrained in me the idea that September is all about beginnings. All those new loose-leaf binders, day planners, back packs, and pens, oh the beautiful pens! And sweaters - I can wear sweaters again.

So this past Labor Day weekend really brought me the sense that Summer is winding down. It's been a good Summer, with many gardening lessons learned. I tried my hand at canning for the first time, bought a freezer and even dried some chard and tea herbs, as I try and get a handle on this whole food security thing. We joined a local organic CSA farm, and I learned a bit about how to cook based on what's in season, rather than what's in the grocery store.

I made a start on a small herb garden, and even tried growing some different types of grains, just to see if it would work. We put in a vegetable garden, and planted a variety of trees. I planted edible plants instead of decorative annuals in my flower pots, and dined on local salad greens. We bought a rain barrel. I tried cooking in my homemade solar oven. I learned more about the plants that grow in my own back yard, and enjoyed many a cup of herb tea from the leaves I picked within 50 feet of my front door. Planting garlic and marigolds around the perimeter of the garden seems to have kept the deer out. It was a good Summer.

And now Fall approaches - quickly. We've had our first frost already and it has spurred us on to split and stack firewood. This weekend we dismantled the Little Garden entirely, and have turned that part of the acreage into a wood storage area. I've moved the compost bin over to the Big Garden area. We're arranging to have the chimney cleaned, and we'll (hopefully) learn from the chimney sweep person how to do it ourselves. We tested out the hand pump for the cistern, and it works! Now we can pump water if our electricity goes out.

And, I picked the first of the corn. I'd forgotten I'd planted a blue corn variety until I shucked the two small ears and saw that one was all decorative-looking. Upon cooking the two ears, the blue corn turned out to be much more tender and tasty than the regular yellow corn. I think I left it too long on the stalk, and I'll probably harvest the rest of the corn right away, even though the ears seem quite small.

The biggest lesson of all seems to be to "Stop, and pay attention." Become attuned to natural cycles. Watch and see which plants like which conditions. Slow down and notice the two beans that look like they're embracing on the vine, or the fuzzy seed pods on the chick peas. The opulent beauty of squash blossoms, and the perfection of a new potato just under the surface of the soil. The resilience of leeks and carrots, despite all the weeds and the days I forgot to water them.

So Happy New Year everyone! May we all experience the vigor and zest that comes with a crisp Fall day, and the cozy contentment of a warm cup of tea on a chilly Fall evening.

Big Garden Update: Frost in August!

Well, it happened. An early frost.

I was completely oblivious to there being any frost danger - it's still August after all! Even in this part of Alberta, August is not typically a time to worry about frost. But this morning I ran out to see the pumpkins that Gord said were growing in the garden (I had thought all hope of pumpkins was lost), and then noticed that the pumpkin leaves were all soggy and limp. Then I cast my eyes to the squash patch, and yup, those leaves were soggy and limp too. Those are the soggy squash leaves in the picture there, with one brave butternut squash among them.

I have no idea if the squash or pumpkins will now get any bigger, without leafy solar collectors to make sugar. The one bright spot is that the part of the squash plant that had curled its way in between the corn rows didn't get killed by frost. So maybe those few leaves might sustain the a few squash and let them grow a bit more. I don't think the apple-sized green pumpkins will be so lucky though.

The kale, beets, chard and spinach I planted came through alright, this time. I will have to be more aware of night time temperatures from now on, and get going on my plan to cobble up some row coverings or cold frames or something so these newer plantings can keep growing for a while yet. It's a good thing we're coming up to a long weekend, because I've obviously got some work to do!

Folk Fest Philosophy I: Garden-measured time

Ahhh....it was another fantastic Edmonton Folk Music Festival! The weather was nearly perfect, the food delicious, and the people as kind and considerate as usual. We were treated to the generosity of both friends and strangers.

And the music, oh the music. Four days of inspiring, heart-wrenching, forward-thinking, joyous folk music from around the world. We saw artists from Denmark, Scotland, Mali, Australia and Wales to name a few. Not to mention a bunch of terrific performers from many parts of the USA and a whole bunch of local talent from my province of Alberta, and other Canadians from coast to coast.

The lady you see in the picture here, calls herself Little Miss Higgins, and she's a blues player from Alberta, currently making her home in Nokomis, Saskatchewan. Little Miss talked about her love of her little 400-person town, and how she liked to dig and weed in her garden while listening to the trains going by. She even marked time in terms of her gardening, saying by way of introduction to her town,

"We moved there five gardens ago."

Imagine if we all counted time this way. If we saw time in terms of natural cycles instead of the artificial ones we create, like "9 to 5" or "Spring Break" or whatever time we set that dang alarm clock for.

It's hard in our culture to try and live our lives based on natural time cycles. We even try and change natural time cycles for our own purposes, like when we switch back and forth between 'standard' time and 'daylight' time. Aptly enough, in Little Miss Higgins' province of Saskatchewan, they have eschewed this practice and stick to 'standard' time all year round.

Even better than 'standard time', is 'garden time', I think.

Water and Personal Accountability

As I mentioned yesterday, after reading the book Blue Gold, I've become acutely aware of the looming world and local water crises. This crisis scares me even more than peak oil issues, because while humans (and and animals, and plants) can certainly live without oil, none of us can live without water.

One of the most amazing things about water is that instead of contracting when it freezes, like most things do when they get cold, it expands. This makes it lighter than water, so it floats on the tops of lakes rather than sinking to the bottom. This has the added effect of insulating the rest of the lake, preventing the body of water from freezing. If this didn't happen, all the fish and other aquatic animals and plants would be killed every winter. I've always found these properties of water to be amazing, if not downright miraculous!

I also love the paradoxical nature of water (of which the expansive freezing is one example). It is placid yet powerful, gentle yet relentless. It can be restorative yet lethal, depending on the circumstances. It's also the "universal solvent," as my dad says, and that's true: literally and metaphorically I would say.

But all this waxing poetic-like is meaningless if I'm not doing anything differently, isn't it? Which brings me to my personal accountability for my water use. I'll start with what I'm doing pretty well at, move on to what I'm getting better at, and end with what I still need to change. In doing so, I hope readers will ponder their own water use and engage in a similar water reckoning for themselves.

What I'm already doing:

• "Navy" showers, most of the time
  
• Showering every second day
• Saving shower warm-up water in a bucket in the tub to use for flushing the toilet
• Saving kitchen sink warm up water for watering plants or putting in the tea kettle for later use
  
• Low flow toilets, shower heads and faucets
• Low water use front loading washing machine
  
• Yellow/Mellow principle
  
• Turning the tap off when brushing teeth
• garden hoses on timers, using a soaker hose/drip irrigation for part of The Big Garden
  

What I'm in the middle of doing, or trying to do better:

• One 40 gallon water barrel set up outside but not yet hooked up to downspout - materials to hook it up have been purchased and just need to be installed.
  
• Spot watering with a watering can and collected rainwater before using the hose/sprinkler - this depends on how pressed for time I am on evenings/weekends, and if there's water in the barrel.
• Turning tap off when I wash my hands
• Not waiting for tap water to warm up before washing my hands or my face or my hair.
  
• Looking into taking a rain barrel conversion workshop since we have two good blue plastic barrels that just need to be converted for water collection purposes but which are sitting empty at the moment
  

What I have to start doing:

• Figure out how to waste less of my greywater
• Increase drip irrigation system to Big Garden; start one for the Little Garden.
  
• Use less water to wash dishes
• Put something (maybe a rock and water filled 2 L pop bottle?) in the toilet tanks to make the low flush toilets even lower flush
• Navy showers, ALL of the time
• Figure out how to add contour/swales to my yard to help the water soak in instead of running off
  
• I'm sure there is more to add to this list....
  

The amount of water I use for each of these things really hit home the day I partially set up the rain barrel outside about 4-5 weeks ago. It was raining for most of the day, sometimes quite hard. So I set up a bucket under the nearest downspout and just poured the collected water into the rain barrel, bucket after bucket. It took quite a while -- several hours actually, as the rain became ligher and heavier again througout the day. Mostly I used just a small 1 gallon ice cream pail, because it was easier to lift and pour it into the rain barrel without spilling that way.

As I'd wait for the pail to fill, I'd pull a weed or two, and even did a little bit of Tai Chi in my rubber boots and rain hat. Then I'd pick up the pail and pour it in the barrel again. It occured to me then that sometimes I've let the kitchen tap run and probably a whole gallon of water would go down the drain before it warmed up to my liking. Juxtapose this with the care I was taking in saving this rainwater from the downspout and putting it in the barrel - it just didn't make sense to waste in the kitchen what I was collecting in the yard.

So now when I turn on the tap, I imagine the water coming out of the downspout and into my ice cream pail, to be saved in my water barrel. It's made me waste a lot less water, making that inside/outside connection. Imagine how much more precious water is to someone who walks a mile or two every day to collect their family's drinking water! Generally speaking, we rich westerners are disconnected from where our water comes from and where it goes when we're finished with it. Going out and collecting my own water has changed that for me. I encourage everyone to try it sometime, and think about the paradoxical miracle of H2O!

Picture courtesy a recent rainfall in my yard

Family Day: We are all One Family

Today is Family Day in Alberta, and in a few other Canadian provinces too. It is a good day to remember the scope of Family, and that we are all part of the same One.

Crunchy Chicken has started an organization that doesn't just recognize this connection, but helps us to extend our good will and compassion to others in a concrete and practical way. Goods 4 Girls is an organization that provides reusable menstrual pads for girls in Africa. People can donate money to the organization, or sew the reusable pads themselves to donate.

Often girls in African countries are prevented from going to school, because they do not have adequate supplies to deal with their menstruation while they are there. Often, girls will stop going to school altogether after they reach puberty. The Goods 4 Girls site has a lot of eye-opening information about how menstruation can be a barrier, practically and culturally, to so many things that we in the western world just take for granted.

Even with the use of my Diva Cup and Luna Pads, there are days I'd like to wimp out and stay home from work. But imagine if you were prevented from going to work or school, just because you didn't have any reliable menstrual supplies at all, and had to use rags, or newspaper or animal skins to absorb your menstrual flow.

Some makers of disposable feminine hygiene products are getting kudos for donating their products to girls in these countries. But don't kid yourselves - this isn't because they want to be generous. It's because they want to expand their market and make money off those who can least afford it. It's part of the spread of the culture of waste and disposability that has helped to get the world into the over-consumptive mess we're in now. Plus, disposable menstrual products also contribute to the underlying societal message that menstrual blood is 'dirty' and is 'garbage.' It's not. Its part of the natural cycle that brings us ALL into being. Into the One Family.

Tao Te Ching, Chapter 6:

The valley spirit, undying
Is called the Mystic Female

The gateway of the Mystic Female
Is called the root of Heaven and Earth

It flows continuously, barely perceptible
When utilized, it is never exhausted

Sunrise

More by luck than design, I was awake for the sunrise yesterday morning. Given that it was a Saturday, this was fairly unusual, even though at this time of year the sunrises aren't that early. I had gotten up to light the woodstove and when I looked outside, there was a beautiful pink-y light to the sky. I rushed outside with my camera to see if I could capture the scene, and I managed to get a couple good pictures while shivering in my pajamas out on the front landing.

After I had taken the pictures I realized that it was the first sunrise after the winter solstice. I always feel some relief when the winter solstice has passed and the days start to get longer again. We don't live exceedingly far north, but far enough that in the depth of winter I arrive at work and leave work in the dark. If I don't go out at lunchtime it can seem like the sun never rose at all. So this sunrise was a nice reminder that light is coming back, eventually.

Beginnings and Endings

Sundays for me are a day where I can sleep in for a while, and maybe read in bed while having a cup of tea. It's such a nice way to ease into the day. Sundays are days where I try to rest my body and my mind. Sometimes it's more of one than the other.

Today I was able to sleep in and have tea and read in bed, and then Gord and I went outside and did some work in the yard. The hyacinths have bloomed fully now, and my perennial geraniums are beginning to poke through the soil. It looks like some irises and day lilies are coming up as well, and a few reddish shoots of my delphiniums are visible too. These things made me smile.

But then we were reminded of the fleetingness of all life. While I was checking out the compost, I looked over into a bucket that had filled with snow and then melted. Sadly, there was a drowned squirrel in there.

I went and told Gord about it, and we were both sad. It was our fault that the squirrel had drowned. We should have turned all the buckets upside down before winter came. The poor squirrel probably jumped in there and fell through a thin sheet of ice, and then couldn't get back out.

We found a nice spot to bury him, near the sunflower seed feeder that he had made his winter home in. We took some sunflowers and some peanuts and put them in the little grave. And I took some of his bedding moss and fluff and put it in there too, for him to lay on. Then we covered him and planted some flower seeds on his resting place. Later, we will sound the gong for him, and wish him Godspeed. The sound of the gong will strengthen and then fade away, another example of how all things have a beginning and an end.

On the way home from Tai Chi

While driving home this evening I had one of those neat moments that comes along once in a while, and I actually had the wherewithal to pay attention to it this time. I had the latest U2 cd in, and the song "Origin of Species" was playing. At the same time there was a beautiful Spring sunset happening and I was seeing this and singing at the top of my lungs along with Bono. Add this to the nice warm glow my muscles have after a good session of Tai Chi, and it just doesn't get any better than that!