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    Ice on the Potomac

    A treasured friend and respected colleague who left her body late last week was buried this morning.  The work year started, then, with some colleagues and I leaving the office for a portion of the middle of the day to drive up to the cemtery and offer our love to her family and our good-byes to her physical presence.  On the way back to the office, I noticed that the Potomac has been icing over, which is very unusual.  I also remembered that I had my camera in my pocket.  So I took it out and caught the moment in honor of my friend who would have loved the way the birds were dancing on the ice, in honor of beauty, in honor of the life teeming above and below the apparently still, frozen river.potomac ice

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    Unexpected Rain (and Opening to Grace)

    I thought perhaps that I was still dreaming when I heard the soft patter of early morning rain. It has been so unfortunately dry. There was no rain in the forecast–only impending blistering heat–for days to come. But a cool rain it was indeed, nourishing the garden and giving temporary relied to my soul, anxious about drought.

    As I enjoyed the unexpected rain, I thought about the practice of opening to grace. We cannot make it rain, though we might pray or dance for it. We can, though, make the ground and garden ready to receive it, even as we simultaneously plan and prepare to live as mindfully as we can with drought.

    When we simultaneously open to the gifts of grace and work in recognition of challenges and limitations, we can experience and offer the most joy and fullness of being for ourselves and others.

    Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

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    Some Books on Food I’ve Been Revisiting (Yoga of Eating Part II)

    I have been revisiting these cooking and gardening books from among my varied collection as I prepare for the “Yoga of Eating” Workshop.  In addition to having recipes and/or gardening techniques each teaches about health, ecology, plants, and seasonal eating, is written in a way that would appeal to both novice and expert cook/gardener alike (including some recipes in the gardening books), and some have very pretty pictures.  The key words for this focus in the titles:  enjoyment, art, healthy, ecological, seasonal, healthy, earth, practical — essential attributes/attitudes/directions for eating with yoga consciousness.

    Cookbooks:

    Bishop, Jack, A Year in a Vegetarian Kitchen:  Easy Seasonal Dishes for Friends and Family (Houghton Mifflin2004)

    Sass, Lorna, Recipes from an Ecological Kitchen, Healthy Meals for You and the Planet (Wm. Morrow & Co. 1992)

    Shaw, Diana, The Essential Vegetarian Cookbook (Clarkson Potter 1997) (Your Guide to the Best Foods on Earth:  What to Eat; Where to Get It; How to Prepare It)

    Tiwari, Maya, Ayurveda:  A Life of Balance (Healing Arts Press 1995) (The Complete Guide to Ayurvedic Nutrition and Body Types with Recipes)

    Waters, Alice, Chez Panisse Vegetables (Harper Collins 1996)

    Kitchen Gardening:

    Bremner, Lesley, The Complete Book of Herbs:  A Practical Guide to Growing and Using Herbs (Dorling Kindersley – London 6th Ed. 1993)

    Gilberti, Sal, Kitchen Herbs:  The Art and Enjoyment of Growing Herbs and Cooking with Them (Bantam 1988)

    Guerra, Michael, The Edible Container Garden, Growing Fresh Food in Small Spaces (Fireside 2000)

    Lloyd, Christoper, Gardener Cook (Willow Creek Press 1997)

    Pavord, Anna, The New Kitchen Garden (Dorling Kindersley Am. Ed. 1996) (A Complete Practical Guide to Designing, Planing, and Cultivating a Decorative and Productive Garden)

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    “The mind and spirit become ripe…”

    I have been indulging in reading the thriller Angelology (complete with stories of angels and the war between good and evil), which  I picked up at the Books for America shop in Dupont Circle a couple of weeks ago for the kind of night of reading that is the equivalent of a night of watching television if I had a television.  Relatively early in the book, a professor says to one of the brilliant students who is a central character to the plot:  “I have found that our texts will speak deeply to someone or they will say nothing whatsoever.  It depends upon your sensitivity toward the subject.  The mind and spirit become ripe in their own fashion and at their own pace.  Beautiful music plays, but not everyone with ears can hear it.”

    This statement encapsulated the ongoing thinking I do about my attraction to yoga and the tantric philosophy.  I was contemplating especially deeply this week on my return from California, with no particular insight arising, what has drawn me in to this world of meditation and yoga.  What am I doing, having been born in New York City and working as a civil servant in DC, coming from atheist Jewish grandparents and converted to Quakerism parents, finding such joy in learning Sankrit chants and working with energetic principles described in these ancient and medieval Indian texts?  I do not doubt that the practices resonate and the texts speak to me and that the attraction is energetic, just as we are drawn to certain tastes and colors and entertainment and people and no interest arises from others.  I just wonder why these practices and texts and not something else and why they hold me to such a degree that I am moved to teach them.

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