With each new horror — another I have been blessed to avoid proximity and immediate impact—I ask myself (and make some follow through) on how I can contribute more both to speaking out against injustice, inequality, and warmongering, and also to making collective life more joyous.
On a day I grieve and speak my outrage , I share work, and food, and moments of beauty.
I am pleased and excited to announce my first public, in person practice since the inception of the pandemic. Is it any surprise that this yoga offering is an invitation to the garden, which is a place dedicated to creating and sharing joy, learning, and nourishment throughout the community for over 50 years?
Come get out into beauty and into your own body and into the dirt on Tuesday, June 6th, from 9 am to 12 pm: at the Washington Youth Garden, on the grounds of the National Arboretum. After the welcoming yoga practice, we will all join the staff and the regular volunteers (I’m one of them), in the garden. Throughout the time, I will be available to respond to individual questions about yoga and about optimizing physical alignment/orientation to make it more sustainable to work in the garden, especially for older bodies. Here’s the link to get more details and to register: Yoga and Volunteering at the Washington Youth Garden
Think this sounds great, but you’re hoping for a different time or location, please feel free to reach out.
Last Monday I had the honor and delight to be invited to a multigenerational dinner of homemade dumplings at a neighbor’s house.
I was told it was customary for guests to shape a share of the dumplings; the hosts do everything else. As I have not grown up making dumplings as part of group family activity, that meant I needed first to be shown what to do with the already made dough and filling.
Skills used to make homemade noodles, tortillas, and pizza helped make dumpling shaping an accessible activity. It was tricky at first. Two people were showing me two different ways, which was somewhat confusing in an enjoyable way, and helped emphasize that for friendly dumpling making, ultimately, everyone needs to find their own method that works for them. Also, as with many hand skills, because it was the first first time I was being shown, I was simultaneously transposing it from right to left-handed.
It only took two tries to get a dumpling that wouldn’t explode in the pot and lose its filling. It took several more to make one that had nice pleats and blended in with the rest.
We had an interesting discussion about the difference between learning by eating several variations and then reading several recipes and then trying to replicate a version that resembled what I had eaten prepared by someone who learned from childhood as part of a multigenerational group process.
I have long contemplated, and continue to do so, how my comfort in learning anything from a book and then seeing if I can do it or something like it, has shaped my meditation and movement practices.
It’s pretty easy to see which dumplings I made. No difference in taste. I was also happy to contribute garlic chives from the garden.
For a garden to thrive, it takes planning, knowledge/study, and engagement. To still find joy in it, one must also surrender to the vagaries out of our control. Sure enough, every year, with variations in weather and seed/root/plant stock, some things will be especially prolific, and others —perhaps our favorites—will fail despite best efforts.
