EXCERPT: The Higher Good Beyond Good and Bad

I wanted to share this.  As many of you know, I’m seriously working to overcome cancer right now (Imagine three hours of Qigong a day and a complete and total diet shift, and you’ll get an idea).  It has turned my life upside down, but also blessed it on so many levels by opening my eyes to things that needed to change.  So when I read this again today, it really hit home.  I feel more real and filled with Love than I ever have in my life.

 

 

Excerpted from The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. Copyright © 2001 by New World Library

Is there a difference between happiness and inner peace?
Yes. Happiness depends on conditions being perceived as positive; inner peace does not.

 
Is it not possible to attract only positive conditions into our life? If our attitude and our thinking are always positive, we would manifest only positive events and situations, wouldn’t we?
Do you truly know what is positive and what is negative? Do you have the total picture? There have been many people for whom limitation, failure, loss, illness, or pain in whatever form turned out to be their greatest teacher. It taught them to let go of false self-images and superficial ego-dictated goals and desires. It gave them depth, humility, and compassion. It made them more real.
Whenever anything negative happens to you, there is a deep lesson concealed within it, although you may not see it at the time. Even a brief illness or an accident can show you what is real and unreal in your life, what ultimately matters and what doesn’t.
Seen from a higher perspective, conditions are always positive. To be more precise: they are neither positive nor negative. They are as they are. And when you live in complete acceptance of what is — which is the only sane way to live — there is no "good" or "bad" in your life anymore. There is only a higher good — which includes the "bad." Seen from the perspective of the mind, however, there is good-bad, like-dislike, love-hate. Hence, in the Book of Genesis, it is said that Adam and Eve were no longer allowed to dwell in "paradise" when they "ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil."

I am an Intentional Lifestyles Advocate…

(Originally published for The Liberty Project)

“Stand behind any protest you make with some action that helps solve it.

Otherwise you are only giving yourself the power to complain.”

It increasingly seems that civilization is facing too many woes.  We are surrounded by cumbersome and outworn systems that have been broken by greed and a consumer mentality.  But blame at this point is futile.  And unless you take action on behalf of change, protesting to the same mindset that has either created or turned their eyes from woe in the name of material gain only feeds the world’s problems more of your energy.  As Einstein suggested, problems cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.  Thus it amounts to insanity for us to keep waiting for the profit-driven Hearts to have an epiphany and aim for a trajectory other than their own gain.

So, what action can we take?  What functional solutions are there in the face of such complex, world-wide challenges?  How do we heal the rifts that alienate us from one another, from the natural world and from our greater hopes and dreams?

We begin with the understanding that the answers are subjective.  Meaning, we all want and need different things so the concerns of each person, each household, each community, and each region are going to be different.  This also means that because we want people to be able to know the freedom of expressing themselves authentically, the answers won’t require us to establish a critical mass or convince a large group to change their ways.  But because the answers are subjective, they must start from within our own lives.  And within our own life, they must be born from inside of us, out from our Heart.

This means that you have the power right now, today, to start changing your experience of the world.  Think about the choices you can make to bring your life and your Inner Truth into a greater sense of accord.  Withdraw your support from all those things you would protest and see changed.  Release from your life what isn’t working or doesn’t fulfill you.  Stand-up for the sort of world you envision in your Heart and thoughts.

But don’t stop there.  For what is certain is that the world doesn’t really change one person at a time, unless that person is networking with others.  This is because the Human organism is a living system, which like any living system requires a certain amount of unity and exchange to not only stay organized but to change and evolve.  Thus the Human is truly a social organism with very real social needs.  This tells us that in whatever problem we’re looking to solve, community (or common unity) is part of the solution.

Once we have figured out what it is we need to make our own life authentic we must network.  We must find others who share our common cause and vision of what’s possible and foster critical relationships with them.  We must collaborate and experiment.  We must become pioneers and pathfinders together, forging a way to put our shared ideals and mindset into practice.

Of course we must also consider that the social organism is likewise a living system, requiring a condition of interdependence, accord and interaction with the surrounding substrate.  That is to say, we all live on and from the Earth.  As much as we need to cooperate with one another, we need to cooperate with the world around us just as much.  For we can’t live an authentic life if we fail to consider that which is natural and intrinsic to the composition of the Whole.

There are no blanket answers or tried recipes.  But in every change we are able to make, the possibility of success is greatly pronounced by assuring that you account for three factors – how you will express your Inner Truth, how you will join in that expression with others who desire the same experience or outcome and how you will account for the interwoven world-at-large in any desire you express.

It all boils down to living with conscious, well-focused intentions.  This is why we say that intentional lifestyles are the solution and call ourselves intentional lifestyle advocates.  Living with intention isn’t just a nice idea or a philosophy for the future.  It is a necessity.  Now.  If there is to be any sort of far-reaching solution, it is this.

Spring is Here… But… One more Winter tidbit

 

On the weekend I talked to some friends in Arizona.  Surprise, surprise, they were getting blasted with snow.  After getting off the phone I decided to write this post although the snow has melted here.    We have peas, onions, garlic, leek, beets, carrots, lettuce, some brassicas and a host of herbs coming up – so looking out the window it strikes me as funny that I waited until the snow was gone to write a post about it.  Especially when it stuck around for four months.  But it’s still snowing for some, right?  And for others, this gives you plenty of time to plan for next year.

When we were facing winter last year – our first winter in this region of the country -  we were told that we would end up snowbound from the main road if we didn’t purchase a large, powerful snow-blower.  After watching one in action, I was not impressed.  In fact, the idea slightly depressed me.  Did I honestly want to spend the peace of the early morning mixing fuel and starting a loud, belching engine?  It ruined the picture in my head.  How do the Amish remove snow, I wondered?

A quick search of the internet led me to this – the Snow Wolf (aka Wovel ):

We were pretty skeptical at first, but after watching all sorts of videos on the Wovel in action and reading reviews from various sites we decided to give it a try.  We ordered one, complete with the optional protective guard and ice-chipper plate.  A small fraction of the price of a large snow-blower!

Out of the box it took us several hours to assemble.  I admit, I had some serious doubts.  Somehow it had escaped me that the wheel spokes and shovel were plastic.  But now I’m here to tell you that it works!  We got through a mountain winter, sometimes with several feet on the ground, never snowbound, never even delayed by the snow – no fuel to buy, no belching engine.  Just good old-fashioned Human Power.

Update 4/2– Garam Masala, Candles and Soap

For the most part I have been focusing on spending time with my family and healing.  Every little moment seems to matter so much more.  It feels so good to just be able to cook a meal or spend time relaxing with my DH, I can’t even tell you.  Things I might have taken a bit for granted just a month ago.

One of the interests I’ve entertained myself with is spices.  Or rather, spice blends.  There’s been several but I’ll tell you about my favorite one.  I was liking  paneer (cheese) so much (both the making and the eating) I started diving into Indian Cooking blogs and Indian-fusion sorts of recipes for other dishes that included or complemented it.  Of course then I needed garam masala (lit. “hot mixture”), which I haven’t found locally.  So I took to making my own from the items I easily had on hand.  Eventually I will use whole spices as fresh and local as possible, roasted and/or ground myself to match the quality and freshness of the homemade paneer, but for now, after several attempts, our favorite quick mix is this:

Mix equal portions of ground cinnamon, coriander, ginger, and cayenne pepper.  Add a double portion of ground cumin.  Add a half-portion each of ground black peppercorns, cardamom and all-spice.  Store in a glass jar or other airtight container in a cool, dry place.

Naturally, then, when a friend shared their abundance of fresh, baby spinach I turned to Indian Fare.  I’d bookmarked several spinach and potato dishes that reminded me of a dish I’d enjoyed back when I lived in Arizona and combined them to produce what I was looking for.  The results turned out so delicious I’ve made them several times in the past two weeks!  The closest recipe is here.  The changes I made are that I used my processor to do the grating.  I cooked the spinach along with four large potatoes, peeled and diced, in a large skillet with minimal water and a lid (to get the potatoes cooked quicker with less water).  I also added a grated carrot, a clove of minced garlic, salt, pepper and a few sprigs of fresh parsley to the spinach and potato mixture (it all gets blended up together at the end).  I omitted the cayenne but instead used 2 tsp. of my garam masala spice mix.  And I used sour cream instead of evaporated milk.  The best way I’ve ever served spinach – hands down!

Since the last update I’ve also completed two exciting indoor craft projects with my Dear Husband I want to share.  Candles and Soap.

With the candles we were able to perfect our mix, method and container/wick widths to get a pour we like and can predict.  They burn clean, even and slow with a gentle pear scent. Next time we will use a bit shorter jar.  These are 20-hour candles.  I really wish you could smell them:

DH and I had planned our soap adventure for awhile now, but like many things lately it needed to be postponed.  We were spurred into action by a request from a friend for all-natural, lemon guest soaps.  Thus, these lemon bars were born:

 

Our soap is a blend of organic goat milk, vegetable glycerin, coconut oil and soy protein.  Natural iron oxide powder produces the yellow color.  Light use of lemon essential oil (5X) provides the desired properties and scent.  It wasn’t as much work as we anticipated and the results were definitely worth it. I think we’ve been bit by the soap-making bug…our list of ideas to try is growing!

Given all the possibilities I don’t know that lemon would have ever placed among my picks, but I already plan on making more for myself when my own sample runs out!  Even though we kept the scent on the fainter side of things, there is something just perfect about the rejuvenating pick-me-up of the lemon when I wash my face in the morning!

Ramblings: Equinox, Light and Dark, Day and Night, and Keeping Things the Same or Not

Although I’m still in recovery phase and sometimes reduced to typing one-handed, I need to write like I need to breathe, especially when I have so many things queued in my mind to share!

Yesterday (at the time of writing this) was Spring Equinox.  It was beautiful here, and mostly sunny:

The roads have rivulets running through them and every day I look out my window to see the patch of exposed earth expanded and the snow, in retreat.  The morning silence has been replaced by a morning song that makes my heart giddy with anticipation.  Yesterday was especially alive.  I saw Loons returning to the pond next-door for the first time; and familiar Stellar Jays back in the trees that skirt the house.  I also made friends with this Robin, who stretched its wings and pulled at the long stalks of dried grass, but didn’t fly away even when the dogs came out barking.

We decided to make Equinox a relaxed, family-focused day.  There was a nice breakfast, conversation and music, and hanging out on the deck just to enjoy the invigorating warmth of sunlight’s visible resurrection on earth.  A brief wind swept through the valley, across the hills, and took the power with it, altering dinner plans.  Of course the vote resulted in forgoing the granny stove and firing-up the BBQ, which then necessitated a “quick trip” to the closest store – 12 miles and 25 minutes north of here.  And there commenced the first part of our adventure – getting down the hill and into town, a large portion of that road being unpaved and water-logged, in the little Hyundai rental car my husband had driven home while the 4×4 was getting fixed from its rather fortunate intersection with a guardrail.  (Fortunate because the guardrail didn’t waiver in its charge of guarding against the cliff and deep river below.)  The Hyundai, too, didn’t waiver.   In fact, we couldn’t believe how well it did in this environment and it was nice not to watch the gas gauge dropping as we drove!

The trip was as breathtaking as ever; we hadn’t been for almost a month and the changes were striking.  They have the river at the lowest I’ve ever seen it in preparation for all the melt water, to the point that it is mostly divided in two:

When we got there the store had a sign on the door, “Closed due to a power outage.  See you tomorrow.”  I hadn’t thought of that!  The beauty of small-town life!  I voted for returning home and firing up the granny stove, but was out voted.  Thus we continued on to the main town, now nearly 40 miles away down the other side of the river.  The highway we were driving on is only a mile due east of “our road” which lines the west-side of the river, but  the two roads seem to be a world different in terms of, well, everything – the forests are different, the topography is different,  the geology is different, of course the views are different…even the play of light and shadow looks entirely different to me.

We took the the time to stop directly across the river from “our hill.”  Our hill is the land immediately on the other side of the water, on the left. (Above)  The spot where we stopped happens to be a popular boat launch.  There is a map for this place that demonstrates the circle formed by the north and south bridges, the highway and our road, encouraging travelers to drive the scenic circle – the very thing we were doing, even if that hadn’t been our aim.  It seemed strange to encourage travelers to do this, however, given that a third of the trip would be across a washboard of non-maintained dirt; but OK.  It is exceptionally beautiful country and the school bus drives that section of dirt road everyday, so why not include it in the scenic route I guess.

From this map I also learned that it’s exactly 66.6 miles for us to do the circle – from our door and back around.  Seemingly a strange and particular number for display on a map.  Also my anniversary numbers, so maybe it was fate.  However this wasn’t the distance for us right now, as when we got to the place where we’d need to turn to cross back over the river (at the southern bridge), we went the opposite way, another 15 miles further east to town.  All said and done our “quick trip to the store” turned into a four hour expedition.  In the end it was still a day of fun and we had our BBQ.  We even splurged on a seven-layer chocolate cake from the bakery to add to our celebration.  We enjoyed the glorious day, and witnessed the awakening world first hand.  Of course everyone was up until Midnight…

Speaking of which.  I think I know our “neighbors” on the hill are rather suspicious of the fact that we don’t set our bedtime by the sun.  We were told, kindly but pointedly, that going to bed at sunset is “going to bed on time.”   In testament to this, there are no outside lights here, on the property or anywhere around, really.  The previous owners assured us that there is simply no need;  “everyone is in bed when it gets dark.”  In fact, I can’t think of a home with a bright porch light that isn’t a vacation home.  Even the two large bridges remain unidentified by miscellaneous lights or reflectors; even the busiest roads are kept pitch black at night.  I thought I had lived in the middle of nowhere before, but this is truly the rugged, wild wilderness complete with mountain lions, wolves and bears.  There are times when everything is simply the same shade of dark; a little light could be a handy thing.  Don’t get me wrong.  I’m definitely not a move-to-the-country-and-light-it-up-like-the-city type of girl; I prefer the light of the stars.  But I assure you that the Fed Ex man delivering a package in the middle of winter would have really appreciated better a bit of visibility as he traipsed up through the woods.

While most of the westernized world is just coming back around to the notion of living off-grid, here they have never forgotten it.  The oldest generation of locals tend to have spent their childhoods on a remote homestead in one of the lush valleys or carved out of the woods and hills.  The back-to-the-landers came and filled in some of the spaces, mostly in the 70’s.  People my age were raised by them.  The grid didn’t even exist on this road until the mid-80’s.  So it’s a new thing.  And if that sounds sarcastic, it’s truly not.  The large workshop is better supplied with hanging oil lamps than it is with electric lights, and that’s something I love about this place.

So no sooner had I concluded that the seeming local resistance to too many light bulbs was a product of their strong off-grid genetics, I realized that even then it boils down to just what the previous owners assured, "everyone is in bed when it gets dark.”  Which is simply another way of saying, “we live by the sun.” Because, you see, we’re not talking about a heritage of off-grid systems with the modern benefits of LEDs and large solar arrays; were talking about woodstoves and oil lamps, generators, 12-Volt and/or the occasional small solar panel.  And the barnyard stirs long before daylight does so it just makes sense to go to bed with the sun, or soon thereafter.

When you go to bed with the sun, what constitutes getting up on time, I wondered?  It turns out that for most of year, for most of my neighbors that answer is 4 am.  That might explain those strangely popular early morning drop-overs!  And this may actually be one of the few places where Daylight Savings Time, though I detest it, manages to make sense to the majority.

Although my husband works more than a full-time job, with strange hours to boot, and although it was a Saturday, one of our favorite folks up here half-jokingly let us know that not being “up, at ‘em and ready to converse” with him at 7 am (the time it happened to be when he stopped in for coffee) could only mean we were “living the life of Riley.”  His tone didn’t make it sound like a positive thing.  He made it sound like we’d put ourselves in danger of catching the plague; dejected and full of warning.  As he climbed back into his old farm truck, I wanted to interject that it was quite an assumption that I even had a functional comprehension of some idiom from before my time, especially at such an hour of the morning, but I held back the feistiness.  I really just wanted to crawl back into bed while the sun was still low enough behind the trees  to not wake the kids.  And I didn’t feel guilty for it, either.  We are quiet and hard-working, but we are night owls all the same.  I’m not up partying; it’s like my brain kicks into gear as soon as the sun goes down.  Should I blame a childhood spent in Las Vegas?  I don’t know.  But I do strangely sleep best with sunlight streaming through my window and my greatest moments of inspiration tend to unfold from epiphanies at a quarter-till-three in the morning.  I have always been that way.

The previous owners both kept full-time jobs as they shaped the 20 acres of productive homestead from raw forest land – of course that required getting up at four and going to bed with the sun. Yes, we’ve put in our own hard work to get to this dream of ours – but good neighbor doesn’t know that.  To him it must look like we have it rather easy coming up here and living a schedule shaped by our preferences as much as by our needs.  

On the undercurrent of this is that we are the first to buy one of the established homesteads up on this hill; literally the first family to come live among the originals who migrated here together as back-to-landers in the 1970s.  That explains a lot.  At the heart of it,  good neighbor simply wants to assure the blood, sweat and tears that he witnessed being poured into this place across thirty-odd years aren’t wasted.  He wants us to see the true value in what we have.  He worries when we’re “burning daylight” with sleep.

The previous owners were nice enough to leave us with a folder of pages that constitute a basic manual on how to run the place.  And perhaps more importantly; how not to offend. The pages tells us how to keep the lights and water running, the house warm and the critters at bay.  When it comes to not setting ourselves apart from the neighbors, it illuminates the appropriate timing for certain events (like shoveling out the mailbox and burning leaves).  But then, stressed by letters large and bold is this:  “Don’t forget to make it your own.”

It’s a sentiment I truly appreciate.  They have passed the torch and it’s up to us what happens next.  They are fully anticipating their energy to change form.  Now, just knowing that the other so-called “newcomer” we’ve met has lived on our road for 19 years and owns two of the ten businesses in town, I’m guessing they may be predominately alone in their thinking – but it is at least nice to know that they aren’t expecting us to keep  things the same.  I believe they recognize that we have our own big dreams.

While we plan on living within a functional, bioregional network of others, which naturally requires a certain foundation of integration, (which I am eager for and strive to remain conscious of), we are all about doing things with a new mindset. I think there’s been plenty of opportunities to see by now that problems aren’t truly resolved by the same mentality that created them and the time has come to shake-up the pattern.  In other words, if the powers-that-be are saying the answer is ‘Z’ – I say scratch that and let’s try A, B, and C first, instead.  We need new solutions born from new directions of thinking.  We need to transcend the ingrained construct.  We need to satisfy our hearts by valuing ourselves above material gain.  Thus we appear to be charged with cultivating the potentials that make our lives truly our own, in true service to our actual needs and what actually fulfills us.

The former owners looked at these acres of wild woods and dreamed of its potential as a homestead.  We look at this homestead and dream of its potential as a sustainable community.  Stay tuned.

Weekly Update – 3/8

I suppose my weekly update should rightfully be called a monthly update.  I can’t believe we’re all the way back to the Full Moon again, now in Virgo!

Not to be too heavy, but since the last time I posted I was diagnosed with a rare sort of cancer and have had surgery to remove the singular tumor.  I spent a week away from most of my family at a large hospital two hours away and am still at the beginning of the recovery-phase.  It has all happened very fast, but the prognosis is good.  I am feeling both “lucky" and well-loved.

I made the decision to go ahead and mention this here because DH and I are convinced it would have all been much worse, and perhaps more similar to what we were told to expect, if it wasn’t for a product called Terramin Clay (Calcium Montmorillonite).  This is because we had originally been operating under the presumption that I had a cyst which ruptured beneath my skin and my research was for natural home remedies to draw-together and pull-out an infection of this sort.  I initially tried a daily compress of Epsom salts and later a compress of wool-felt soaked in cold-pressed castor oil (i.e. “the Edgar Cayce Remedy”), which may have added to my results.  However, we didn’t notice dramatic changes until the Terramin.

Based on what I read about the clay I started ingesting a teaspoon mixed into 8 oz. of water or orange juice every morning.  I much preferred the taste of it when mixed with orange juice, but mixing the fine powder with water allowed me to brush my teeth with the remaining “grit” in the bottom of the glass.  Being gritty and all, you might imagine that it would be too abrasive to scrub your teeth with, but it isn’t.  The clay is highly absorbent and any grit turns soft on contact.  Studies show that it actually helps harden tooth enamel through remineralization;  I found more than one person claiming that it had completely repaired not only their enamel but large cavities as well.

Although most commonly used for internal applications, I also started applying a thick paste of it to the distressed area that I would let dry and tighten and pull like a face mask might.  This was why I’d purchased Terramin in the first place.  I’d read that the negative charges on the clay give it the ability to adsorb or attract positively charged toxic matter like a magnet.  It seemed perfectly suited to ridding my body of what I thought was the ruptured cyst.  After just four days the affected area was reduced to a third of its former size.  It was indeed drawing together and pulling outward!  I used clay for the eight days preceding my visit to the doctor, and every day both reduced and condensed the lump.

Fast forward to after surgery.  Now we know that what we thought was a subcutaneous rupture was really a quickly growing tumor, spreading – and we know that we watched the Terramin Clay reverse the process before our eyes! Even the surgeon reports that the tumor turned out to be surprisingly self-contained, pulling away from the muscle instead of rooting down into it, which in the end was my saving grace from a much worse scenario.  So of course I think this clay deserves a study.  And a medal.  And more people getting to know it.

In other news to share, another product.  I don’t anticipate that will happen very often.  Nutiva Organic, Extra-Virgin Coconut Oil.  (I love their Coconut Manna, too, but that’s another story!)  I buy it in bulk, two 15 oz. containers at a time.  I keep one in a liquid stage and one as a solid and now keep my pantry in a regular supply.  When I get down to scraping the edges of the container, I move it into the bathroom shelves because it is a great thing for lips, skin and hair.

I’ve been experimenting with it in place of butter and shortening in our familiar recipes.  I even chilled it really well and made a killer pie crust for the tastiest pot pie ever, and have used it to make a healthier, hint-of-coconut caramel.  Using the solid oil in place of butter also turned out to be the final tweak to our everyday, sandwich bread recipe which I’ll share here with you in the coming weeks.  Now it is perfect in every way.  The oil adds just a faint undercurrent to the aroma and taste, but really softens the loaves without diminishing their slice-ability.  My plan is to wake-up at the start of our week and replenish the bread box with that week’s supply.  I read of a local mother who makes 16 loaves for her family every Monday morning.  My goal is 4 to 6, depending on the weekly menu.

It’s also been on my list to share with you my ricotta success.  I absolutely love ricotta but unless I find it on a great sale I usually just substitute a farmer’s cheese because it’s easily on-hand.  However, where homemade ricotta is creamy and spreadable, farmer’s cheese (like Paneer mentioned in a previous post) is crumbly and has some melt.

I used the recipe for Fresh Homemade Ricotta at Epicurious.  The second time I made it, I didn’t have the fresh lemon juice and used a mild, white vinegar without thinking too much about it (or I would have used a stronger variety) – but it worked.  I’m planning on buying a chinois to assist in making this ricotta and soon, Greek Yogurt.  It lets you drain as much whey as possible without losing your creaminess.

If your family is anything like my family, you will savor the whey almost as much as you savor the cheese.  I will usually try to incorporate it into the same meal.  For example, if making Mattar Paneer, I will use the whey to cook the rice and lentils that go on the side.  There is nothing else like them!  Or, if making Italian, use the whey as the liquid in your bread recipe.  However, it’s also worth freezing any unused whey in pre-measured, one-cup increments.  I add it to bread or rice pudding, pancakes, hot cereal, tomato soup… I intend to keep experimenting…

Many Blessings.

Weekly Update – 2/8

 

We call our homestead/aspiring intentional community The Liberty Project.  I’ve called this place “Heaven” so many times since diving into our adventure last August that I’m starting to think this blog has just been waiting for me to get here!

Last night we enjoyed the lovely Full Moon in Leo.  Here on the 49th parallel I’m feeling quite happy to see her rise up above the treetops once again!

To honor the Leo-Moon I decided to try something bold and expressive, that I’d never made before.  Roasted grapes!  I’d noticed a trend toward the ingredient and had saved several recipes to try.  In the end I went with a roasted grape, goat cheese, and honey pizza that I adapted from this bruschetta recipe.  Roasted chicken with thyme, lemon, onion and grape adapted from this recipe.  And a sauce for the chicken that I made from the other roasted ingredients pulsed through the blender, white wine, a tablespoon of apricot preserves and a touch of honey.  Spectacular is a good way to describe the meal – just like the Leo Moon!

I also tried an experiment.  For the grapes roasted with the chicken (that I knew would be made into sauce) I used canned grapes instead of fresh.  Canned grapes?!  Why, yes!  You see, back at the end of Fall, after the sweet and savory jams, I canned the last of our grapes – 7 quarts – using an Amish method I’d read about.  Just to try it and see.  That is, the grapes are left whole and kept minimally processed, canned in a water bath and nothing more.  Although most sources report that grapes aren’t so good for canning in this way, I could see how they would fit nicely into our repertoire if it worked out and thankfully we’ve loved them!  I’m going to can grapes again next year, too!  When I open a quart, I strain off the liquid, mix it with just a bit of agave or honey, and pop it into the freezer for an after-dinner grape-ice treat.  Because of the grape’s softness, the seeds are quick to pop out, if they haven’t  already released themselves, and in specific applications they are perfect.  I’ve used them to make a  grape syrup for peanut butter French toast and a grape cake dessert, among other entirely successful ventures.

The night before the Full Moon we brought home our new doggie, Sara.  Her mother is a purebred Rottweiler and her father, pure Black Lab.  She was born the day after my husband’s birthday back in the first week of November.  We first learned of Sara’s existence on the Winter Solstice, when she was for sale for $200.  My DH had an overwhelming feeling about her; he had long expressed the desire to cross paths with a Rott-mix puppy.  Yet we’d only talked about coming across a rescue (we watch Petfinder.com), and never buying.  On a whim he gave Sara’s seller our number and we left it at that.  Then on the weekend we were surprised with a phone call saying that Sara’s new owner couldn’t give the puppy the attention she needs and that we could have her if we picked her up by Monday, when she was being taken to the shelter.  She’s housebroken and proving to be really smart and great with the kids!

Also in this last week I guess you could say that I’ve been exploring my love for cheese.  This was originally inspired by my addiction to Mattar Paneer and the realization that like everything else, I could make the dish more often for less money and with better quality if I made the Paneer (cheese) myself.  My final product (And I got to choose the source of the milk and it cost less than $2 for a pound.):

This has led me to start delving into other simple cheese recipes like this and this.  And exploring the idea of waxing cheese to store it in the pantry.  I can’t wait to find a great sale on cheese just to try it out!  I’ll let you know how it goes!

Living the Vision

Last June my world was transformed by a seemingly simple event.  I woke-up to an e-mail from Dear Friend Amy passing along a Craigslist ad advertising eight traditional Mongolian Yurts at the insane price of $500 a piece.  I was certain they’d be gone or there’d be some crazy catch, but I immediately grabbed for the phone.  A day later I was sitting beside my husband in the front of a large U-Haul truck, making the eight-hour round trip to Darrington to pick-up our new yurts.  It felt like winning our own private lottery.  We thought we’d be lucky to find one traditional yurt for under $10,000 – but we’d just bought three for under $3000, the entire cost of the trip to retrieve them, included. 

A few months before this moment we’d arrived at the conclusion that a traditional Mongolian Yurt – the type with horsehair ties and no proliferation of metal parts – was the answer to an equation that would get us onto land and closer to our sustainable, intentional community dreams more quickly.  From that conversation we’d both agreed to add a traditional yurt to our individual vision boards.  We didn’t realize until a few days after we’d actually brought the yurts home that both of us had drawn a semi-circle of 3 yurts on our board – not because either of us had anticipated being able to purchase three of them, but to depict the community spirit underlying the vision!  To us this seemed to be a strong confirmation from the Universe to dive into our dream.  Strengthened by a new faith, we sped-up the timeline of our plan and made some bold decisions.

We left the great job, the house we loved, the region we loved, the son in college, the dear friends;and dove in.  It took six-weeks to pull off what we’d been dreaming of for eight years.  Without any significant savings.  Without any clear idea of how it was all going to congeal.  We only knew the general location of where we were heading (we’d narrowed it down to a county, 3 1/2 hours to the east); and that we had three yurts to make it happen.

We started out looking for raw, off-grid land on owner contract, with the side agreement that we would explore any option that presented itself.  We ran ads in the region’s papers, posted to Craigslist and perused land auctions.  We made day trips on days off to explore our findings, the clock now ticking toward a deadline.  Though there was a ton of great off-grid, raw land for homesteading selling on contract, the responses we kept receiving were mostly from other homesteaders heading back to the city and eager to sell.  All of our best options were turning out to be developed properties with amenities we hadn’t anticipated starting out with.  So we changed gears.  A simple shift of focus and we were no longer in the position of just needing to find a place and trust that it would be right; we were now searching for the right place for us.

We finally decided on a rustic A-frame cabin, on 20 wooded acres with a year-around creek.  The payments were really low and the cute factor was high.  Yet our excitement seemed overshadowed by a sense of reluctance we couldn’t put a finger on.  It wasn’t perfect, but two weeks before we’d been eager to live on land with only the most primitive amenities so “issues” seemed more like “resources to work with” to our eyes.  That wasn’t the problem.  For my part of it, I didn’t want to admit that either of us were feeling a “bad vibe” when we’d been riding so high on following our Hearts and feelings of faith and gratitude; I just wanted to stay thankful and receptive for what was coming our way.  But of course the listening was a necessary part of the following (our Hearts)!

We made one last trip.  We looked at the A-frame, several other properties and then the A-frame again.  It still looked like the best option and we still couldn’t put our finger on the source of our reluctance.  As we drove out of town it seemed clear we’d be signing the final papers for the A-frame in the morning.

Although we were running late, it was still light enough out that we decided to try a new, supposedly more scenic route back home.  It was because of this that we stopped to get gas at a new place; a small junction about 15 miles further into the mountains than where we’d previously ventured.  And it was at this gas station that my husband found the ad.  When he read it to me, the proposition seemed insane.  I protested vigorously.  It appeared to be off in some other county.  We were already further out and the wrong direction from where we wanted to be.  We were already running behind schedule.  The property was still another 17 miles away.  For the price it had to have some horrible quality about it.  I guess I wasn’t being as receptive to exploring options as I thought!  Thankfully he persisted and this is how we found our dream property.

The place had sat empty in the mountain woods for several years, but 30 years ago it had been the flourishing homestead of a bona fide Master Gardener.  Better still, it had been shaped by back-to-the-land intentions and born from community dreams.  It came with producing fruits, nuts, grapes and herbs and amenities like a greenhouse with a seed starting room.  This is where our three yurts have ultimately led us:

We pulled out of Wenatchee in the early morning hours of August 1st, 2011 – and the adventure has yet to stop.  In fact it’s only just beginning.  We’re enjoying the love affair with the ever-changing beauty that surrounds us.  We’ve seen animals we never imagined seeing (think – a sky full of eagles, an elk taller than our truck, a jet black wolf slinking across the snow).  Filled up pantry shelves with the products of our own land that were simply here, ready for harvest in the weeks following our arrival.  Learned what it’s like to “take a trip”  just to get to the store.  I wouldn’t change any of it.

We spent the first 114 days without internet (yes, I counted each one) and only started watching a spot of TV again last week.  Cell phones don’t even work out here.  But I guarantee you that my from-scratch baking and crafting adventures have gone through the roof (a slice of fresh bread or a soy candle, anyone?).  And every single day since August I’ve had something new or interesting to report to my journal.  (Example:  “Day 15 – A clear sky full of the brightest stars I’ve seen since Arizona lured me out the front door.  Found myself in the midst of a yard-full of skunks digging for ground hornets.  Can’t get over their size!  They all immediately raised their tails but thankfully fled the scene without a smell.”)

In the next few months we will have the yurts set up on their floors and others will join us here.  I’ve turned the page from living and envisioning to living the vision.  And because these changes accord with the original intents and purposes underlying this blog, I now hope to turn the same page here as well; documenting and sharing this new lifestyle with you.  Follow your dreams!  Namaste.

Spiritual Sustainability: Save the Earth Without Killing Yourself

I found this thought-provoking article posted to a sustainable communities forum under the title Something to Think About: A Death-Blow to My Sustainable Living Ideal.  Having my own sustainable living ideals, it grabbed my attention; I wondered what a death-blow might represent.

It turns out that in this case the death-blow is a loss of two-thirds the author’s income.  As Amanda Rooker contemplates the discrepancy between her good intentions and the reality she’s faced with, a powerful transformation unfolds – her belief of being too poor and too busy to live sustainably is replaced by the realization that it was, in actuality, her “product-based, practice-based ideal of sustainable living that was not sustainable.”  This leads her to some intriguing revelations about what sustainability truly implies.  In the end, Amanda comes to see sustainability as a spiritual practice and process in parallel to the natural world –

“Even if the body is deficient in many areas, it will only take in what will address the primary deficiency.  Pouring supplements into your body (or in this case adding sustainable practices) to address visible symptoms, is a waste of time, money  and energy.  Only when the core deficiency is met will the body be capable of absorbing what it needs to address the next core need.”

Very refreshing!

Collective Intelligence in Small Groups

My DH works as part of a small, intimate team.  They provide intensive outreach for those with severe mental illness and most of their time is spent on the streets, monitoring and assisting patients who otherwise wouldn’t get care or know how to locate important resources available to them.  This involves a great deal of coordinated effort.  In fact, he often remarks that every aspect of his team’s success relies on superlative coordination;  “We’ve learned to think as one brain.”

Being that I am passionate about Community (the Intentional sort), I am fascinated by collective intelligence and its inherent synergism.  I knew I had to share this article on Collective Intelligence in Small Groups over @Kurzweil as soon as I read it.  It’s based on a study performed by MIT and published by Science that found that the Collective Intelligence Factor in the performance of small Human groups is not correlated with the intelligence of the group members, but with how well the group works together.  Maximum collective intelligence is not born from cognitive ability but from “social sensitivity”, which the study defined as the willingness of the group to take turns and apply their individual skills collectively to solve challenges.