Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
Feathered visitors when I was out in the garden early before the heat got too oppressive.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
Yesterday, the first of the year, I pulled off the shelf and opened at random Anne Lamott’s “Bird by Bird.” I’d found it used some time ago and was interested, but other things got ahead of it on my reading pile. The page to which I opened seems highly topical for what is coming this year:
For instance, I used to think that paired opposites were a given, that love was the opposite of hate, right the opposite of wrong. But now I think we sometimes buy into these concepts because it is so much easier to embrace absolutes than to suffer reality. I don’t think anything is the opposite of love. Reality is unforgivingly complex.
May we find enough love to suffer well the complexities to come this year. For me, I know that deepening and recommitting to my practice will help me find what more I can offer.
As the child of Depression era parents, I was taught to use every bit of the food that we bought. I was an impoverished scholarship student for the first eight years I lived on my own. I also started paying attention to environmental issues early on; in high school, I worked to bring awareness of energy and water consumption and recycling in connection with the earliest Earth Days. Having gotten into the habit of being resourceful and creative with food early on, I never got out of the habit–though many of my law school and better off friends thought I was weird or cheap.
With the recession continuing (and only likely to deepen dreadfully for my lifetime given the tenor of the debt negotiations) and thankfully growing interest in being kinder to our environment, it is becoming fashionable to be more mindful of waste of any kind. Here is a great article on how to savor more of your food and diminish your trash output (which, by the way, also lowers your carbon footprint.)
