Archive for Taking care of yourself
Fermentation
Posted by: | CommentsOne of my favorite gifts this Christmas is a book by Sandor Katz “Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods”. I had forgotten how much I love all those fermented foods, and how easy it is to make them at home. What I didn’t know was how very good they are for our digestive tracts! However they have to still be alive to help us out. This means unpasteurized, and fresh so that these little organisms can re-populate our systems with the good stuff every day.
We don’t realize how dependent we are on these good guys until we start having them again – whole and living – and feel the changes for the better in our guts. There are many different ones in every culture around the world (pun intended). There are the vegetable krauts and kimchis, miso, tempeh, yogurt & kefir, cheese, pickles, meads, wines, and beers. There are also breads, vinegars, soy sauces, and fish sauces. The reason that they are always found on the table in many cultures, including ours just a few decades ago, is because they aid in digestion and elimination – not to mention helping manufacture B vitamins!
But those little organisms have to be live! So it being winter and loving all the heavier foods of winter, I decided to start some sour kraut in a crock on the counter in the kitchen! I’ve made kraut before, years ago, in a #10 crock with a large number of cabbage. It was for the whole winter and little did I know that by canning it, I was killing the best part! So this is a very small batch, less than one large cabbage, layered with sprinkles of sea salt and kosher salt.
A week later when I remove the weight and the plate which keeps the kraut under the brine, it has begun to ferment. The taste is a little bit sharp, salty, and still definitely crunchy to the teeth. Already the kraut tastes yummy and I can hardly wait to see how it tastes next week. I may have to try it every day!
After reading this book, I’ve discovered why my beet borscht was never the right amount of sour. I fiddled with the lemons and the yogurt or sour cream, and still not quite right. Now I find it contains saueruben, or fermented beets, done just like the cabbage kraut! I’ll let you know how it turns out after I’ve fermented the beets for a month or so…
Consider this to be another way to get back to basics and begin to enjoy real, live foods again. We all know the industrialized, factory foods are making us sick; now lets get some real and healing foods back in our lives and on our tables. Start anywhere, making sure the yogurt you buy is alive, making your own sourdough bread, starting sour kraut, eating unpasteurized and/or raw milk cheese. Or there is always making beer at home!
Happy New Year!
Posted by: | CommentsA Happy New Year to you! It’s the end of a year and the end of a decade. All of the planets are direct (no retrograde planets – not even Mercury!) It’s the end of a Lunar cycle as the moon is in the last quarter and is waning. This is a good time to be very still and become clear about what you want to release , let go of, weed out of your life. This is also a time to ask yourself what you want to take with you into the next year and the next decade.
The ceremony I do tonight calls up my gratitude and joy for the lessons learned in 2010, honors all the pieces and parts I am leaving in the old year and then I write them on a piece of paper which I burn (safely). The smoke carries them into the past.
Now I write what I want to acknowledge, receive, explore, and create in the new year – a manifestation list. I write it in my journal so that I can look at it and read it during the year. I also throw very tiny pinches of sacred herb into a flame as I read each item out loud. This smoke carries my words into the future.
Next I light a new candle and I do a reading for the New Year: with Runes, Medicine Cards, and/or Sacred Path Cards. Any Personal Oracle will do in whatever combination works for you: I Ching, tea leaves, Angel Cards, etc.
This is another way to bring in the New Year…and it deepens the New Years Eve experience into something that contains a lot of personal awareness. When no time is taken for self examination, course corrections, and allowing beliefs to change, we are in ‘default’ mode. That means the same-old-same-old on into the future. That is going to become very uncomfortable from now on! Right now rapid change is inevitable so we might as well go with it and surrender as fast as possible.
Calling in what you want in the New Year has two parts this year. Right after mid-night (or first thing in the morning of January 1st if you go to bed early) I read my manifestation list; then again 12 hours after the first new moon (night of Tuesday January 4th or the morning of Wednesday January 5th). Remember to say the list out loud and breathe after each item.
As you know, when steering something you are constantly making corrections with the steering wheel or tiller. Remember to do the same with your life’s journey. Steer it to avoid the potholes, the speed bumps, and that cliff up ahead! Keep your eyes on both the destination and the moment. Change only happens in this moment so make very good use of it. That’s what will finally deliver you to your destination, or not!
So Happy New Year! Remember that all is sacred. Here is a poem sent to me by a very dear friend and I want to share it with you. It is from the book I Send a Voice, by Evelyn Eaton, 1978:
Great Spirit,
Whose voice we hear in the winds,
Whose breath gives life to the world,
we would restore what greed
has taken from the Earth.
Great Spirit,
we are blind and deaf,
Open your eyes to us
that we may see.
open your ears in us
that we may hear compassion
open your compassion in us
that we may have compassion
upon the Earth.
upon our Mother Earth.
Great Spirit,
may our feet walk gently,
may our hands respect her,
may we learn the lessons
in every leaf and rock,
may our strength restore her.
Great Spirit,
When we face the sunset
when we come singing
the last song, may it be
without shame, singing
‘it is finished in beauty,
it is finished in beauty!’
—
Urban Gleaning
Posted by: | CommentsI’m living here in an old neighborhood in North Denver and wishing I had the energy of a decade ago or about 5 more sets of hands. The apricots are ripe across the street, bowing the branches to the lawn with fragrant fruit. They are ready for jam, bars, drying, eating, and Moroccan Chicken. All this used to go hand-in-glove with community and family time. It’s such wonderful -but intense- work that a group really counts! I want a gleaning group!
There are three or four peach trees at the end of the street loaded with ripening fruit, and I just missed the cherries a few blocks over. Soon my plums will be ready to go, and there are apple trees on every block. And that’s just around my house. Some of the freshest and cheapest organic fruits are dropping to the ground instead of into our mouths.
We have an old problem: food wastes and people are hungry! I’ve started talking; I’ve started connecting; and I envision people learning how to harvest again from their own yards and preserve their rewards instead of having it rot on the ground. I am dreaming about Urban Gleaners and Urban Foragers, harvesting all this abundance and sharing it with others. Now that’s local! That’s sustainable! Will you join me?
