My Desire Map 2014

So, following Danielle LaPorte’s ‘Desire Map’ (click the picture to visit her wonderful site) concept, I deliberately chose a series of words that I wanted to …to what? To own, to have, to manifest, to be, to receive? Words that I desire to be part of my life. Feelings that I want to be core and central. Oh, and after plenty of editing and scrawling and rethinking, I found I wanted an alphabetic and alliterative series – at first I thought it might seem a little forced or affected, but words and lists and organization are very authentically me, so I stuck with what I wanted – which after all, IS the point. Here they are, from my paper scribbles, prettied with typography and collaged with digital ephemera!

Aren’t those beautiful ideas to have, hold, and work towards? What are your core desires? Go let Danielle help you find them… and feel free to share them here, too.

Cycles & Circles

Note: No, I don’t live in the Caribbean, nor did we fly there for winter break. Yesterday I received free tickets to a large, expensive, busy water park near my place. Though a great many of the outside attractions were closed ‘for the season’, the Lazy River which flows through the park was heated and the huge interior pools, spas, slides, and play areas were all accessible. Delicious to be outside in winter weather, bare-shouldered, and feel the elements licking at you with the safe warmth just a stroke away…

“A shadow comfo…

“A shadow comfort is anything that masquerades as a cherishing self-care technique but that in fact drains your energy and self-trust. Shadow comforts can take any form; it’s not what you do, it’s why you do it that makes the difference and how it makes you feel.

A time monster is anything you choose to do instead of what you really want to do – check email instead of write your novel, organize your art supplies instead of sketch, do the dishes instead of connect with your partner.”

Jennifer Louden

– See more at: http://jenniferlouden.com/sanity-support-kit/#sthash.YcaIdhBm.dpuf

Ham Gratitude

The problem with simplifying your house and life to such an extent that you only have three forks and two pans (https://masterbard.wordpress.com/2013/11/06/simple-times-three/)  becomes radically apparent when you try to cook a traditional Western Christmas feast in South Korea, using a kitchen equipped with two small burners, a toaster oven, and a microwave.

I know, this is still very much a ‘first-world problem’ here.  I don’t have to feed my child plantain stew over a fire made from goat dung, or even just try to create an edible faux burger from lentils and mustard seed.   And in fact, one of the reasons I so dramatically cut down my possessions, at least in the kitchen to this point, was to try to honour a new life-policy that involves less consumption – both in the metaphorical sense and the literal.   But yes, I’m also wanting to balance that with moving away from a scarcity mentality to one of abundance…a shift that has to happen in the head and heart, a shift that involves gratitude for the things already so blessed with.   So… bearing in mind that this is the kind of feast that happens only seasonally for us, and that we are celebrating the return of the sonshine, let me tell you how – and why – our Christmas dinner turned out.

There were only the three of us as family around the table.  We had a *ham* as the centrepiece of the meal, which doesn’t sound all that special until you understand that my ten-year-old daughter, taking her first bite of it, chewed meditatively and then informed us that it was ‘interesting…sort of a cross between samgyopsal and Spam…’   Yes, dear reader, our household, having lived in Korea for more than half our married lives, is more familiar with Korean belly-bacon and processed pork product than it is with the taste and texture of genuine ham.  It was a treat as rare as lobster or lamb or caviar might be for you, and savoured with bliss.

  I did it up with a classic brown-sugar-dry-mustard glaze, tweaked with pineapple juice, fresh mandarin juice, herb salt, and plumped raisins, then garnished with mini pineapple rings and mandarin segments.  Complex and intense sweet flavour on the outside, succulent savory inside.  Ahhhh.

Homemade sage-and-onion stuffing, from my thirty-five-year-old recipe…crusty on top, soft and fluffy beneath, with grated apple, onion, more raisins, and four kinds of bread.  Steamed broccoli tossed with garlic-and-herb-and-cream-cheese.  Dried cranberry-in-bokbunja/mandarin sauce (bokbunja is a Korean black raspberry cordial that resembles cherry brandy).   Stewed apples, by husband’s special request, with cinnamon and just a dash of Bailey’s Irish Cream.   Golden squash slices, glazed and shriveled into sweet single morsels.  A baked potato (just for me), flaky and steaming, filled with homemade yoghurt-spinach dip.

The pineapple was the only thing out of a can in that meal, and the colours and flavours were a pleasure to eye and mouth.  A child’s prayer began it and sighs of satisfaction ended it.  Abundance.  Left-overs. Pleasure. Christmas breaking of bread together.  Smiles.  Gratitude. Ham. 

 

May your Christmas dinner, your solstice meal, your Kwanzaa celebration, or your Feast of Lights, no matter what you have to eat for it, be as nourishing to body and soul.  May it be with the people you care about.  May there be light and love around the table.

 (and, as my daughter added in her prayer, ‘thank you for cats.’)

Amen.

Simple Living

Simple living doesn’t mean giving up luxuries. It means appreciating the ones you have and choosing to see with new eyes.

A Letter to Charles Eisenstein

Click on the photo to go to Charles’ website. His ideas about economy and money…are radical and ancient, subversive common sense, pure and powerful. I want more people to hear what he has to say.

… divorced pe…

… divorced people were asked what they’d learned about relationships from that experience.

No surprise, they emphasize the importance of “affective affirmation,” which is psych speak for making loving gestures such as kissing, hand-holding, giving compliments, and saying “I love you.” Fact is, people do feel closer to each other when they regularly demonstrate loving feelings.

Orbuch reports that divorced people identified four important ways to show affection:

1. How often a spouse showed love
2. How often a spouse made a person feel good about the kind of person he or she was
3. How often a spouse made a person feel good about having individual ideas and ways of doing things
4. How often a spouse made life interesting or exciting….”

(This is a quote within a quote.  I have to track down the original place I found this yet…but the list itself is so telling and so simple.)

Hildegarde von Bingen

I think Hildegarde would have appreciated the use of natural and recycled materials for this art doll I created in her honour… the wine bottle and the lace would have drawn an approving smile, though the screening scraps for her wings and the cut-up floppy disc turned halo might have puzzled her….

Global Learning

My going-on-ten daughter ‘coined’ this term in our bedtime discussion this evening; I was philosophizing on how I didn’t particularly even like the term ‘homeschool’ and she suggested ‘home learning? Because it’s about LEARNING, Mom…’ I pointed out that she was quite right but that our learning took place all over, not JUST at home. She shot back without a pause, ‘Then it’s GLOBAL learning.’ I was so pleased with her expression – and since we do travel internationally on a regular basis as well as connect with people world-wide through the net – its validity, I didn’t want to disillusion her unique perception of the phrase.