Friday, July 31, 2009

Beet Pickles

Opening my crusty old recipe box I wonder who sifted flour into it. It's a grey metal file card box from some forgotten office. In a Virgo moment early in my cooking career I had the insane idea that each recipe would live it’s life neat and tidy filed under its alphabetic letter. But that idea took a karmic turn somewhere along the way. Today there are folded yellowing snippets of paper with writing going round the edges, recipes written on (yes, sigh) napkins and papers worn and torn with love.

This time of year I usually make some kind of pickle in homage to the pickle makers of my ancestry. I like pickles. Looking through the box I found Ma Jess’ recipe for “Syrup for peach, crab or sweet apple or pear” with this little quote written on the side:

“You have to go over Fool’s Hill and Monkey Valley before you settle down.” I love that. Ma Jess was the beloved stepmother of my grandmother.

There is her recipe for beet pickles.

Cook beets – save cooking water – peel beets and cut in desired size. Reheat in juice.
Beet juice ½
Vinegar ½
1 cup brown sugar to 2 qts juice
Add cloves if desired. (I put in a stick of cinnamon with 10 cloves)

There is a note on the back of her recipe that says: “This was Tess’ recipe. Vinegar is stronger than it used to be so you may need to check taste for you.”

I wish I knew the year she wrote out that recipe but I can guess it would have been around 1930. Ma Jess lived on the family farm in Northern Michigan.
Jesse

Thursday, July 30, 2009

HOME - a Family Reunion

My son and I recently went to Missouri to attend my mother’s family reunion which was twice as sweet as it was only days after her birthday. There was a special program this year at the reunion to recognize and honor James Edward H., who died in battle on French soil in WW1. His gravestone had never been appropriately decorated, but the VFW had a memorial plaque installed recently. And now his story was told to the dozens who gathered round his gravestone, by the nieces and nephews he never knew, some reading letters that he had written home to his parents. This was followed by a 21 gun salute from the local color guard and taps, played by two bugles, echoed over the country side. Many were moved to tears, as was I.

Afterwards, my immediate family drifted away from the crowd, for this is the same small country cemetery where my father was laid to rest two summers earlier. Mom wanted to see if the grass seed they had scattered earlier in the summer had been embraced by the abundant summer rains, and we were all thankful to see that it had. Finally, the right combination of seed to water to sun.

My mother, noting that others had marked their family plot with wrought iron hooks, had installed one near my Dad’s stone. Stating that she was sure that my father would have liked it, my Mom chose a kinetic sculpture with cups of bright colors that moved with the motion of our presence. My brother had securely wired the metal mobile to the hook. I stood with my brothers and sister and we were happy with Mom’s inspiration. I gazed over the small farm pond nearby and listened for my fathers beloved quail, who had called out so gently during his grave side service … but I did not hear their voice this day.

As we drove away on the old narrow gravel road, I noted out loud that the colorful baubles were no longer in motion. My brother quietly acknowledged that they were not moving as we drove in earlier. Had they only been in motion as we gathered round to spend these precious moments with my father’s memory? moved by …..?
I am not surprised that I was not the only one who felt Dad’s presence.

* annette

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

The Cup

Each one comes, in their own time, and trades their small cup of understanding (of experiences and interpretations) for an ocean. That’s the difference-cup - ocean. What’s amazing is how long it can take to say “Im ready to give up my little cup.” How many teachers are sent, books are read, techniques applied, courses taken, interpretations given and visions revealed before you hand over your cup. It’s okay mind you, it’s only a cup and you are entitled to hang onto it as long as you like. Folks think all kinds of things are necessary to be ready, to prepare, but none of them really are. Simply place it down. The ocean is waiting.

“But how?” you ask. “It’s all I know.” Simply place it down and for a while know you will pick it up at the drop of a hat, at the instant someone challenges you or your sense of self/safety is threatened-in other words-survival. The conditioning is; something in the cup will save you, some answer is swirling around in it’s shallow depths. No-it’s not, but that’s okay if that’s what you want to think for a while longer. But not much.

As the ocean of love arrives at your door you will not care about hanging onto it. You will jump in, swim, play, float, whatever it is for you. You’ll be so busy being a drop of love bopping around the ocean you’ll soon forget your old cup and the limited world you once thought was all there is. You’ll one day have the thought “The Cup?” and laugh and laugh, that for so long you lived your life in protection of it’s fragile nature. That you worked around, planned around and built around it. "A cup", you’ll think, how silly.

Now the ocean requires certain things to stay in. You leave all that planning behind. It’s not about that. All the judgements and needing to do everything right, get left behind too. Being right, forget that as well.

That series called “Left Behind”, they got the left behind part right. They just didn’t get what’s left behind. It’s not a bunch of folks who haven’t followed some rules or paid a certain kind of allegiance to “Jesus” which is what I recall they demanded from my limited exposure. It’s the need to be right, the desire to judge, to prove yourself, greed and power over, these are just a few of the things you put down with the cup.

The cup and all it’s secrets, wrongs and rights (rules) that keep you separate; from someone, anyone, something or anything. All the the time, the whole show, the entire ride in the cup took place in the ocean. You could never have left. It was our imagination playing out the dream of limitations. What a relief. Is it time for a new dream? Would you like a cup of love now?

Mary

Monday, July 27, 2009

Poem - Beauty Way

Can the world survive if we follow the Beauty Way?
If we focus only on the Highest Vision,
could we bridge the gap to actually attain that world on this earth?
Can there be angels without devils?
Can we trust, can we love, can we live
openly,
without being sucked dry or destroyed by takers & fakers?
How big can the Beauty Way be and still survive?

by Terra Rafael

Sunday, July 26, 2009

The Experiment

What if
I just gave up
Anxiety?
How has it ever served me,
Other than keeping me
An adrenaline junkie?
Could I?
Can I?
Will I?
This experiment
Is worth
A whole new vision of Life.
Let’s just see…

Prema Rose
7/25/09

Saturday, July 25, 2009

Summer Meal

I’m thinking of the zukes just forming in my garden, small green nubs on the tail end of huge golden flowers. Soon I hope to pick them.

By then, the tomatoes will ripen, those small pale orange pearls covering the branches, with yellow flowers on others limbs of those yet to form.

Soon the scallions deeper in the dirt will fatten and the basil leaves will broaden. My favorite dinner by August will come from my own garden instead of the supermarket.

When August arrives, I’ll pick all these items, this bounty of nature and , in a skillet with some olive oil or coconut oil, I’ll place them chopped and ready for the heat.

Sautéing lightly, readying brown or basmati rice or whole grain udon noodles on the side, I’ll wait for the vegetables to come to readiness, retaining their color, a slightly softer texture, and give me aromas to enliven my taste buds.

Fresh picked foods bring life force with the taste from the vine and transfer prana into my cells. For this, I’ll wait through the early summer until nature’s time decrees she’s ready. And then I’m ready to feast.


Jyoti

Friday, July 24, 2009

Dreaming of Road Trips with Mary

 

Home and away

Friendship and miles

Red wine and brownies

Mountains and prairies.

Long years and love

Yo yo Ma, Bob Dylan,

Jerry and Johan Sebastian Bach

Witty smarks and

Dark conversations

Chicago

Peeing

Along the way

Mapping and camping

Phoenix to Berkley

Roaring with laughter

Shannon and Darby

Blue sky and weed

Mackinac , Sarnac, and White Fish Bay

Ian and Sylvia

Tall trees and grey oceans

Beaches of agate

Mississippi, Iowa and

Dogs in Nebraska

Mountains of rocks

Rivers and Freddie

Skipping to ski

And Low country valleys

Time and again

Have we crossed the boarder

To higher ground?

Are we there yet?

Sixteen to sixty

Who are we now?

Where are we ?

Will we ever go home again?

Not this time around

Want to go to Marin?

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Waking Life

Ever present eternal being laps

  at the shores of my existence.

Gently reminding me

  there is no me.

Gently washing lifetimes

  of identities,

that cling,

  as spirit soars.

 

This waking life,

   the elixir available to all,

beyond the reach of mere words,

   drips in, seeps in.

Allowing, dissolving

  what we previously resisted,

griped,

   and judged.

 

I reach past the mind,

  simply,

and the waterfall of being

  stares back,

laughs,

  moves,

in me…

  me?


Mary

 

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Prose - These Days

These Days


We’re moving into a new realm. It isn’t like the old days, even though a lot of us attempt to grasp for the familiar, it’s barely there. My experience has been bumbling, not quite the smooth transition I had imagined. I’m shocked at my clumsiness, even my eight-year old granddaughter commented on how clumsy I have become. I am tripping over things, running into walls, banging my head on whatever gets in my blind path. I’ve grown concerned, my body aches, I feel much older than I am.
So you can imagine my relief when I read a metaphysical email stating all these mishaps that are happening to us as we are shifting into the next dimension. We are not in the past anymore and yet not in the future either. Our movement into this new and different place may only flow smoothly, if that’s an option, by staying totally and completely in the present. Even the present may be a little nebulous. It’s the best we have at the moment.
Patricia
7/19/09

Monday, July 20, 2009

Poem - The Speed of Creation


The speed of creation
is as slow as a glacier,
steadily moving over boulders,
grinding them to gravel.


The speed of creation
is sudden as heat lightning,
unpredictably sparking
a grass fire on the summer-parched prairie.


The speed of creation
is as subtle as the pace of petals,
opening longingly
towards the face of the sun.


The speed of creation
is as concentrated as developing from a dot of intention to newborn,
complete with ten fingers and toes and heart and mind and soul,
after just ten moons in a human womb.


The speed of creation
is seven days,
something manageable for humans to imagine,
measuring the immeasurable,
allowing us to enter the heavenly realm of creative chaos
without getting lost.

by Terra Rafael

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Free Write

Free Write

Writing is free. One of the most enjoyable activities that I have found in my life is writing. And, yes, it is free. I do not have to go anywhere, except inside my own head and my experience. I do not have to be in a good mood, or any mood, to let what is inside of me come out, spilling words upon a piece of paper or a computer screen. Everything triggers a thought and, like a thread of inspiration, I follow it, meandering down a path of cobblestone words without, necessarily, a destination. On it goes into deliciousness, or exposition, or playfulness. Whatever. This is an adventure in itself. Perhaps I will hit upon some deep resonance within me. Perhaps not. It really doesn’t matter. This is fun and it is free.

Prema Rose

Saturday, July 18, 2009

Just Do It!

Dreams you’ve had for years

unrequited still.

Just do it!

Love you’ve meant to give

and still haven’t.

Just do it!

Books to write, songs to sing

procrastinated still.

Just do it!

No regrets to linger

at deathbed edges.

Just do it!


Jyoti

Friday, July 17, 2009

Questions

Have you ever waded in a mountain stream in springtime when the ice was barely melted and your toes were froze before you put them in?

 Have you watched a scarlet sun set behind a maple forest in autumn? 

Have felt your heart smile watching a child play in the snow for the first time?

Did your heart skip a beat when you saw the Statue of Liberty? 

Were you lonely when you left home for the first time? 

Did your umbrella turn outside wrong when you went out into a wild rain? Were you exilerated? 

Did your heart yell out loud when you first fell in love? 

Have you ever gone crazy to the beat of a drum? 

When were you old? 

When did you become young again? 

Where do you feel home the most? 

When will you go home again?

Jesse

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Questions, an Essay.

The channel, Benu, has said, “How many times have we answered your prayers, only to have you say, ‘Wait, I am not ready.’ We bring a wondrous partner forward for you to meet and you say, ‘not this morning, my hair is a mess”. Women in the audience twitter nervously. It does sound funny, but kind of familiar, and it makes us wonder ………?

Three years ago I was single and the house that I was living in was about to foreclosed on. I had to move but had no where to go. Every day I prayed and I heard these words, “It is being prepared for you, dear one.” Life felt very challenging. I wrote a fictional piece that I called “The Perfect Day”. In it I described where I lived, my gardens, my life partner ~ whom I called Buddy since I had not met him yet ~ and I described what sounded like a dreamy day of bliss. One week later I found an adorable farm house on five acres in the same neighborhood where I was living, and it was for sale in my price range. An amazing, wondrous gift from heaven was a reasonable explanation, every cell in my body was grateful !! So I bought it and planted a garden.

I worked my job, mowed my new yard and rode horses with my friends while I waited for the angels to manifest “Buddy”. Weeks, months, years went by and very few men, single, eligible men, walked through my life ~ and none that were ready for a relationship. I continued my prayers of gratitude.

And now here is a fellow, introduced by a dear mutual friend; we email me for months before he travels to Colorado to meet me. He is wise, thoughtful and a sincerely gentle soul and, from what I can tell, a wonderful human being. And is ready to be in a relationship …. with ME! When he looks me straight in the eye and softly tells me that he has been waiting nine years to find me, well, my heart flutters wildly!

BUT he lives in Wisconsin. He has shared custody of his two children, older teenagers that live a few hours away from him in Illinois. Over and over, and over and over I ask “What am I to do with this?” I can almost hear Benu chuckling.

Finally I sit and pray, “What is the next thing that I need to know or do to be in a state of Divine Grace?”

And this is what I heard this morning:

Be still. Enjoy this moment. Things will become clear and you will know, without any doubt, what to do next. Patience, dear one. Patience.
Have much Joy!!! It will certainly be worth waiting for, as you know!

….Write
..... be with horses ~ on all levels
…talk with Melody
……connect with that woman you met and her trainer
…don’t sit on your butt, you have things to do
..life is more than just paying the bills !!! …please move out of that paradigm, you know this to be true.
…..We Love You 

And so it is, for now.
Years ago, when my sister handed me Lakota’s lead rope, she said, “this horse will teach you patience”
It is amazing to me how all lessons are intertwined…….

* annette

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

The Creator

I love this writing world

   you pick up a pen

and wala

   magic wand like

you create.

 

A blank page fills with wonder

   of past, present, and what’s to come,

nothing to something.

   It moves through you

from imagination to existence.

 

Are we so different from The Creator?

 

Ah, but we get to realize,

   become

an awakened part of her

   endless dance.

 

Dance free

   awakening on the face of this time

eons have called forth

   your pen to wake up to.

 

Mary

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Sweet Peas


One of the first to show themselves in the Spring

Their green tendrils running as if they are in a race

Reaching for anything to cling to; lacking discrimination

Shooting for the stars, they don’t let up.

Finally, the flowers start to present themselves;

Shades of pink, pink and white, with an occasional all-white.

In a vase they are a dramatic, graceful play of elegance.

As I enjoy these bouquets, I begin to wonder about their roots.

I hear they have become invasive

In older Boulder these roots are holding us up, they have become
The foundations of our homes.

Are they attempting to strangle us? Choke our pipes?

The time has come to give them less free rein.

We are in a transition of letting go of old controls within
ourselves; maybe we can pass this control energy on to
sweet pea roots, creating new foundations, dissolving the
old mesh of roots for a new approach to living.

Patricia
7/12/09

Monday, July 13, 2009

The Unpaved Road


This used to be a dirt road. Boone, like Daniel Boone, the pioneer woodsman. There was a beaver dam across this creek and we would test the winter ice on the resulting pond, creeping towards the non-square, non-regular structure that the beavers had built. Now it is an unobstructed creek in a contained woods. It used to be wild. Now, we can cross wheelchair accessible, wooden foot bridges over the water, where once we used to show our prowess by balancing across it on any fallen tree we happened to find.

The hill where I went tobogganing now has a concrete water reservoir capping it's top. The Home Depot stands where the next hill used to be. Forty years later, I squint to remember the outlines of untamed land that used to be there, before the interstate freeway began to flow by with its unending sound of rubber on concrete.

One day, back when it was wilder, as I walked that unpaved road, a butterfly landed on my finger. I was in college then. Battered by the realities of the sexual revolution. Blue jeans. Braless. Tired from too many psychedelics. Long, untamed hair. Still-- the innocent butterfly landed on my finger. She delicately licked my skin, barely a tickle from her proboscis tongue. She found some kind of nectar in me, some sweet flower of possibility, and she stayed for many precious minutes. We fed each other there, in the quiet, wild world of Boone.

--by Terra Rafael

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Flies

Flies

Listening to the flies buzz about my bed, I am reminded of an incident that changed my perception and my relationship to a most vilified manifestation of the Creator’s consciousness.

There was a time, long ago, when I was living on an island in the Mediterranean Ocean, Ibiza. One evening I was attempting to write a letter and the flies were so thick on my paper that I was having trouble moving my pen across the page. I picked up a newspaper and rolled it into a weapon of mass destruction. Running around the room like a crazed woman, I swatted every little black winged creature I could encounter. Then, suddenly, I saw myself as in a snapshot. I was shocked! There was this uncontrolled wild death machine rampaging through house and it was I.

In that moment I knew that complete extermination of all the flies in the world was impossible. I needed to change my relationship with flies. As if, by magic, I stopped hating flies. I began to appreciate how they dance in a shaft of sunlight. The buzz portends warm summer days when lazy and snoozey, I drift into an afternoon reverie. They have their place in the breakdown of organic matter, a natural recycling system.

Now, in truth, I am not so patient that I do not flick them away when they land on my nose. I do not like the really big noisy ones dive-bombing me when I am trying to read. I am disgusted to see a slab of meat covered with flies in an open-air market in India. However, something has shifted. They do not bother me as they did.

So tonight, I lie with my window open to the sounds of the creek and visitors of various sizes and colors join me and my bedside light. The ubiquitous flies make their presence known and I marvel that they have become my friends.

Prema Rose
7/10/09

Saturday, July 11, 2009

The Day After Independence Day

I sat in the bleachers at Folsom Stadium last night with a young Asian friend of my daughter, a Mexican family with very small children in front me, as I listened with a new ear to the singing of the Star Spangled Banner…words I’ve heard my whole life, and have thought about here and there…but this was different. I saw all of us living with freedoms that so many in the world would, and have, died for. I thought of all the families in the stadium from different countries and traditions embracing my country’s Independence Day celebration because they had wanted to be here, wanted this for themselves and for their families.

I have no illusions about the imperfections of our system. I’ve railed against it time and time again, because I hold to the ideal of what we could be. What our country can evolve to. I’ve had to make peace with the fact that I might not see it in my lifetime, yet I hold it for the future generations to get there.

For many years, one of my sons and I debated, sometime heatedly, about the state of affairs in the U.S. I was less than scathing sometimes, sometimes not, about policies and greed, war and power. He’s very Republican in his thinking, and I am not. I’ve always been against war and power-over politics.

Last night, tears came to my eyes as I watched the flag furling on the field, held by a ring of citizens, said the Pledge of Allegiance along with everyone else for the first time in years. I had begun to see myself as a global citizen and not nationalistically American.

But last night was different. This son is in a protective detail right now across the world from me, and I felt I was holding his place, here in his/my country, and it filled me with such feelings, I tried not to cry, just leak a few tears.
I saw his patriotism and felt it in myself for the first time, maybe ever, in that way. I felt what he was sacrificing his time away from his young family for. I suddenly heard all the conversations we had had, in which he was saying how easily I could be peaceful because I had others guarding my shores and my sleeping children. And I saw the truth in what he said.

This is a very unpopular opinion for most of the people in the city I live in…it’s a very pro-peace, non-violent, new-age/schmoo-age population for a good part. Yet I realized that in order to get there, that evolved humanitarianism, that future peace that has to be cultivated, we have to maintain the culture, the body of freedom we all enjoy, so that it exists into the future.

We have to protect this ideal of freedom that so many have died for. We have to hold that tiny flame in our hearts so that it can grow and blossom into what I’ve always dreamed it could be…a world united in freedom and peace.
For now, I hold that space for my son while he protects my shores.

Jyoti

Friday, July 10, 2009

Again

I shall pick my golden pear
When I am old and life is fair
And dragons roam among the trees
While daisies bow to blowing breeze
There I shall roam with grace and ease
Again…

Long after wars and poverty have taken hold upon the land
I will make my prayers of sand
And pray that life will change the lie
Before the children die
Again…

Before I am old
And my soul is sold
Again…

I shall pick my golden pear
And live…
Again…

Jesse

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Questions ?????

Writing prompt: write about questions …..

I have so many questions; I don’t know where to begin.

I was fine before him, why does it all feel so “not quite right” now?
How come I have so little excitement for that which is around me?
If not my job, I love my little farm, so many things to be thankful for.
Do I need new vitamins? More supplements? A magic pill?
I am newly in love with a wonderful man.
Right? Right!!!!
It feels so much better when we are together.

When one prays for something,
why is it so hard to imagine that it really has been answered?
Trust?
Remembrance of past failures? … for sure.
It does not look exactly as I envisioned.
Is it really Wisconsin vs. Colorado?

BUT,
If not him, then who?
If not now, then when?
Should he come, or should I go?

I cannot listen to the voices of others,
For they have not heard, and cannot understand, my prayers.
It is not their investment.
This is mine.

There is really only one question worth asking,
“What is the next thing I need to know or do to be in a state of divine grace?”
And then listen ….. be still and listen to my inner knowing.

* annette
(next week …. the answer )

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Turning Point

My turning point
Sheered off.
What was sheered?
Oh-just everything I’d thought.
Thought, believed.

But through the eyes of your dying breath
I saw
beyond
Beyond the small mind and all its investments
and how poor those investments were.

To the light shinning through the face
to touch a place
of grace.

Swan sitting in the suns rays
to illumine
what previously lied false

Angels come in all sizes and situations
This one dangled
in the dance of death
and opened doors
and doors
and doors.

Mary

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Prose - Pizza

I lost my taste for pizza when it made me sick a day or so before I gave birth to my second daughter.
As my daughters were growing up, mainly what they wanted to eat was pizza. I learned to make homemade pizza, a healthier version, with a whole wheat crust. This they weren’t too thrilled about. Eventually, Nick and Willy’s came on the scene with wonderfully flavored pizzas I could tolerate and even enjoy. To me, the secret of a good pizza is not too much sauce or cheese, just enough for flavor. Some would say that’s what pizza is all about.
I have been a cookbook user most of my life, not considering myself a natural chef. But, several years ago I did create a pizza that I love and has become a favorite to share.
First, I use Viccio’s frozen “cornmeal” crust. They also make a “cornmeal and spelt” crust, which is good, but can get too crisp for me. Next, put on your favorite tomato sauce, a thin layer is best. Sauté a cup or two of chopped spinach in olive oil, just until wilted, along with 2 green onions, chopped an inch or more, evenly layer this on top of the sauce. Next comes the shrimp. I always use frozen, making sure its thawed and drained well on a paper towel, about twelve or thirteen shrimp on this size crust. Now, top it all off with feta cheese, I prefer goat or feta, using ¼ - 1/3 cup. And if you would like, a sprinkling of herbs, a little salt and pepper.
I bake it at 450o for about twenty minutes, but if your oven bakes hotter than mine you may try 425o.
This is my kind of pizza, without the wheat, that we tend to overdue in our culture. A fulfilling and well-rounded treat in each slice.
Patricia

Monday, July 6, 2009

Poem - Questions


When Jesus forbade divorce
was he talking about marriage between humans
or was it about our marriage to God?
Is remembering God about our mind, blazing with light
or is it about the pulsation of life, temporarily speaking through our flesh?
Does my heart beat in my chest
or does it beat like angelic wings, opening wide, softening the edges of my world?

--by Terra Rafael

Sunday, July 5, 2009

The Homa

The Homa

The other day we had a remarkable Homa on a farm outside of Longmont, Colorado.
A Homa is an ancient sacred Vedic fire ceremony. There are many offerings to the various aspects of the Divine consciousness that manifest in our existence through a wide panoply of forms. There is a progression through the chanted mantras that bring one into deeper states of awareness of our Divinity. The offerings include fruits, rice, milk, spices, and other items, even a sari. The enormous billows of smoke that rise up from the three fire pits waft over the participants who are sitting on the ground around the Homa. Farther back, there are chairs for those who do not want to sit so close. It is extremely powerful and auspicious to sit right up front.

The ceremony is led by Sri Karunamayi, an Indian saint who is one of the leading Vedic scholars in the world. She is the embodiment of Maha Saraswati, the aspect of Divine Mother who holds knowledge, learning, the sciences, and art, and music. The ritual goes on for several hours and Amma (Mother) chants the whole time, all the while being dowsed with the smoke and the heat of the fire.

How amazed I was to see my grandson, Bodhi, sitting right in front of the fire and Amma! He is my seven-year-old redhead. He stayed there for a couple of hours, taking in the blessings and hardly flinching, as the smoke would envelop him.
He is truly Amma’s child.

Eight years ago, his mother went to Amma to receive her blessing. Doctors had told her that she would not be able to bear a child. She asked Amma for a healthy pregnancy and a healthy baby. My son was on his way out of town that evening, but something made him turn around and come back. That night Bodhi was conceived. Our gratitude to Amma for his presence in our lives is immeasurable. Bodhi and she have a very strong connection throughout many dimensions and my devotion and Seva (service) to her increases yearly.

Prema Rose

Saturday, July 4, 2009

Do you dream...?

Do you dream of a better place?

Where love flows like water

and the droughts of this world

don’t exist?

Do you hope for a world

where kindness and generosity

prevail and are the natural

order of the day?

Where murder and theft

are obsolete concepts

of human behavior?

Do you long for the company

of others and know that

in another place we all

live together in harmony?

Where true human compassion

outlawed long ago

the old ways of the world

and brought us to create

A way of life that nurtures

and includes each soul.

Right now wherever you are

in your dreaming

Take your hopes and longings

and live the way your feelings

tell you is right.

Begin to bring

That other world through

right now, right here

where you find yourself

wherever that is.


Jyoti

Friday, July 3, 2009

As I drive...

As I drive across the east side of Boulder on this soon-to-be 90 degree day, past the brightly colored spectators of Little League Tournament Games, I glance at the sky. The small pieces of clouds have formed themselves in such a way that I see an open-beaked eagle’s head with wings, outstretched to include most, if not all, of the city of Boulder.
I marvel at this vision, grateful to drive under its outstretched wing on my way home.

Jyoti

Thursday, July 2, 2009

Further Memoirs of a Hippie Chick

I went for quite a few years in my hippy days without shaving my legs. Why? Freedom … Laziness … Rebellion … who knows? However, I will never forget my mother telling me over the phone that I would have to shave to be a bridesmaid in my brother’s wedding. It was kind of embarrassing to be in a position where my mother felt it necessary to even bring it up, but at the same time, it totally proved that I was indeed a legitimate and recognized “hippie chick”. It had to be true if even my mother noticed. And I did shave, for my brother, my mom, without a fuss. It was my gift toward my brother’s marital bliss.

Although once I arrived in Missouri and saw the bridesmaid dresses, I realized it was totally a moot point. It was a long pastel blue sun dress with a very wide ruffle ~ the width of the bodice in fact, but demurely off the shoulder. Which I remember distinctly because my mother also insisted on taking me shopping for a strapless bra, even as I argued that the design of the dress completely camouflaged the fact that I had any girl parts that needed to be covered up. However, as part of my “hippie chick” dress code, I often went braless, and my mother was taking no chances. So much preparation for such a momentous day; I was scraped clean, my mother was happy and the bride and groom were blissfully ignorant of my sacrifice.

At some point after several hours into the wedding reception, drinking and dancing the night away, I found myself in the bathroom one stall away from my sister. My very important strapless bra had worked its way down around my waist and was nestled below my ribcage. We were laughing hard as I confessed that I had no idea what to do with it, it would be much more comfortable wrapped around my neck as a stole. Would anyone, beside my mother, notice? We decided to just let it be. We left the bathroom with tears in our eyes, probably presumed to be sentimental sisters of the groom! Only the tips of my toes were visible under the long hem, I can only hope that I remembered to shave them.

* annette

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Raw

This has become my favorite raw recipe. A fresh bunch of kale, washed and dried.
Chop. Chop. Chop. Keep chopping. It’s the hardest part but worth it. You chop till it is very small pieces. Then chop some more. If you like cilantro chop up a bunch of that as well. Just as small as the kale and combine them. You can also use spinach or chard if you don’t have kale on hand or mix in half and half. But I recommend kale the first time. Mostly because you won’t believe you are eating raw kale by the time this is done.

Now have a flat-like bowl and add some olive oil, a fairly good amount. Then some fresh lemon juice, pressed garlic and salt. Mix all these together and then add your chopped - more than you can imagine - kale (and cilantro if you like it.)

Massage. Yes, you heard me right, massage the kale into the olive oil mixture. It’s a bit messy for the hands but great for the kale. It helps to soften and break it down and make it very digestible. And very delicious.

You can’t imagine this till you try it. I promise you won’t believe you are eating raw kale.

1 bunch kale
2 Tbs. olive oil
2 Tbs. lemon juice
1 garlic clove
1/2 tsp. celtic salt

opt. 1/2 bunch cilantro

I never measure and most definitely use much more olive oil garlic and salt. Adjust all the above to your own taste.


This really is amazing, one of my favorite summer side dishes and so healthy.
Try it, I promise it is worth all the chopping.

Mary

Raw

Raw

This has become my favorite raw recipe. A fresh bunch of kale, washed and dried. Chop. Chop. Chop. Keep chopping. It’s the hardest part but worth it. You chop till it is very small pieces. Then chop some more. If you like cilantro chop up a bunch of that as well. Just as small as the kale and combine them. You can also use spinach or chard if you don’t have kale on hand or mix in half and half. But I recommend kale the first time. Mostly because you won’t believe you are eating raw kale by the time this is done.

Now have a flat-like bowl and add some olive oil, a fairly good amount. Then some fresh lemon juice, pressed garlic and salt. Mix all these together and then add your chopped - more than you can imagine - kale (and cilantro if you like it.)

Massage. Yes, you heard me right, massage the kale into the olive oil mixture. It’s a bit messy for the hands but great for the kale. It helps to soften and break it down and make it very digestible. And very delicious.

You can’t imagine this till you try it. I promise you won’t believe you are eating raw kale.

1 bunch kale
2 Tbs. olive oil
2 Tbs. lemon juice
1 garlic clove
1/2 tsp. celtic salt

opt. 1/2 bunch cilantro

I never measure and most definitely use much more olive oil garlic and salt. Adjust all the above to your own taste.


This really is amazing, one of my favorite summer side dishes and so healthy.
Try it, I promise it is worth all the chopping.

Mary