June 9
I am sick of cooking!
On Tuesday I prepared this meal, plant-based and mostly whole foods. Pancakes made from sourdough starter and mashed chickpeas, steamed asparagus (in season now), spinach and cucumber salad. There is processed whole wheat flour in the pancakes, processed vinegar and mango juice for salad dressing, processed sweet zucchini pickle, canned cranberries (added sugar), and lime juice for the asparagus. I cooked apples and added raisins and dried cranberries (processed, sugar added?) for sweetening. I enjoyed preparing it.
Then on Wednesday I felt weighed down (burden * ) at the thought of planning and preparing one more meal. This is the sort of thought that, a few years ago, would have slithered me straight down into depression, like a snake on the snakes-and-ladders board! I put dinner on the table anyway, a less "virtuous" meal, but nutritionally adequate, and I know that this weight will lift. I just need to walk through the time, this feeling, let it be. Think of it as a stretch of path that has to be walked, just walked, no battle, no hair shirt, no judgement. It will morph on its own, and change will have happened. The mind like water, like a tree growing.
*****
Forty-five years after first reading Wallace Stevens I finally understand, I think, what he is talking about. Imagination clothes the sights and sounds and experiences we meet with, every minute. Like a projector, we shine the lights of our history, our knowledge, speculations, suspicions, on the world. It is how we make sense of it (or sometimes "nonsense").
The sacred. A split rock through which the stream runs.
Like a thing on the seabed, whale bones.
The dragon, born from the catastrophic fall of a tree in the storm, broken body parts fallen across the meadow, almost bleeding in their rawness. K and I never pass by without shuddering at the violence of this tragedy, like a car crash. But we like to see the dragon there, watching the meadow.
*****
A human seeks to go "to ground". Or to wellness, or peace. This week I experienced sudden improvement in my health, walking better, straighter. I have less pain. I began some targeted yoga exercises on Monday which have vastly improved the movement in my hips and lower back, so that I am walking to full extension with both hips. This was thanks to Gift of Health, the Wellness Chat from the 31st May. A question was asked about degenerative spine disease. Dr. Rayapudi, on his own this night, was shooting from the hip on many issues, being forthright about diet and self-care. He recommended yoga for spine health. * Indeed, exercise is fundamental in supporting our skeleton. We have a vast infrastructure of muscles and tendons to support our joints. If these are kept supple and strong, the joints take much less abuse from occasional extra work. Exercise can also provide much-needed mindful time, from encouraging being present in one's body, to thinking. We spend a lot of time with music and screens as we go through the day. I see people walking with earbuds in, sometimes looking at their phone, too. I have said "good morning" to walkers on the street, and wondered that they ignored me until I noticed their earphones and realized they don't even hear me. I love to listen to music, when there is not too much going on. However if we are to process our thoughts and emotions we have to "sit with" them, and let them ferment, or bubble like yeast starter.
There are still pools and sudden releases in life, just as this stream pools, and then falls past a fallen tree or a rock ledge.
Thursday morning, I feel centred and stronger. I set off on my walk with Rocky ready to go all the way to the last turn, and yet yesterday, though I did three walks, each time I felt unable to go farther than the first turn.
In the woods I was unaware that it had started to rain again, then I came to the cow pond.
A dancer:
Tadpoles! I was ten again, to be seeing them!
There is only this day, this now, but time moves us: inexorably to tomorrow. May you keep well.
Mumma Yaga
The sourdough chickpea pancakes in the pan.
burden: I posted this on Facebook in May. Continues to be a major theme for me.
"I wonder if my father carried the burden of his brother's death with him all his life. His younger brother died in the war on a ship that was hit by the enemy, while my father survived the war and lived to have a family and grandkids. This living tree carries the burden of its fallen brother as it grows."
https://mummayaga.blogspot.com/2022/05/220503-their-naked-selves.html
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