BE-ing Rooted: a Practice in Essential Living

Monday, June 15, 2020

Zenith

Apache Plume (Fallugia paradoxa)
The white flowers, which look very much like small white roses,
are pretty much done having given way to the plumes:
stunning and celebratory.

June 20, 2020, is the Summer Solstice, signaling, in the Northern Hemisphere, the zenith of Summer. It is the longest day of the year with an early dawn and late sunset.

Universally humans cherish the warmth and light of this time of the year.

Usually it is a time of great celebration. Today amidst a global pandemic, which has no end in sight, and an unprecedented uprising against police brutality, this Summer Solstice seems like a time of great grief and raging. As Starhawk who is celebrating her 69th birthday this week, says, "Consciousness is shifting now, like I've never seen before in half a century or more activism."

Street painting on Pine St. in Capitol Hill Occupy Protest, Seattle, WA

And for this we can all celebrate!

"I'm into 'thoughts'.

It's like you channel your thoughts

in the right direction,

and if you think you channel your thoughts

in the right direct,

and if you think it has a chance of happening,

it has a better chance of happening.

If you don't, it has less a chance of happening,"

Joe Maddon

So we will be experiencing the Summer Solstice, a new moon, a solar eclipse which is not visible here in the United States, Father's Day, plus Starhawk's birthday all this week. As we channel our thoughts at this trying time in the "right" direction, may we all celebrate with a big belly

Thursday, June 4, 2020

Prickly

Now this is prickly!
Santa Fe Cholla ( Opuntia viridiflora)
in which the Curved billed Thashers build their nests.

It seems that individuals everywhere in this country are prickly from sheltering in place, from the uncertainty of the future, from the lack of hugs and missing life as it once was. The pandemic has altered our familiar, comfortable way of life. People are unwilling to BE in the present. Some refuse to wear masks and social distance. Even some people are spitting on employees at the stores that have are opened.

Another truly prickly plant!
Prickly Pear (Opuntia phaeacantha)

Humans, at least in our country of the United States, are in general unable to BE still. Perhaps this Ute prayer could offer a path to stillness (and a way to BE in the world as it is now):

"Earth teach me stillness

as the grasses are stilled with light.

Indian Ricegrass (Achnatherum hymenoides

that the native peoples gathered and ground.

Earth teach me suffering

as old stones suffer with memory.

Earth teach me humility

as blossoms are humble with beginning.

Pink Wild Snapdragon (Penstemon palmeri)

Antelope Horn Milkweed (Asclepias asperula)

Rocky Mountain (Penstemon strictus)

and

Chocolate Daisy (Berlandiera lyrata)

Yes! the Daisies actually have a chocolate fragrance.

Earth teach me caring

as the mother who secures her young.

Earth teach me courage

as the tree which stands all alone.

Pinon Pine (Pinus edulis)

Earth teach me limitation

as the ant which crawls on the ground.

Earth teach me freedom

as the eagle which soars in the sky.

Earth teach me resignation

as the leaves which die in the fall.

Earth teach me regeneration

as the seed which rises in the Spring.

Earth teach me to forget myself

as melted snow forgets its life.

Earth teach me to remember kindness

as dry fields weep with rain."

Ute Prayer

Through stillness I believe we humans can alter our course forward and change how we behave as humans living upon Mother Earth. I am hopeful we can "forget" our individualistic selves, see the bigger picture and

Monday, May 11, 2020

Invitation

Fendler’s Sundrops (Calylophus hartwegii fendleri)

beginning to bloom in the front yard.

I love this plant with its bloom time spanning late Spring

and into the Fall until the first frost.

Inviting each and every one of you to cake and tea . . . virtual, of course.

Steamed Orange Tea Cake

2 T. softened organic unsalted butter for buttering the glass bundt pan.

2 1/2 C. organic sprouted spelt flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. sea salt

Mix together the above 4 ingredients in bowl.

5 organic duck eggs at room temperature

Beat the eggs vigorously with electric mixer set on highest speed for about 5 minutes so the eggs are light and lemon colored tripling in volume.

1 C. organic maple sugar

Add to eggs and beat for 3 minutes.

1 C. organic Greek yogurt Beat well into eggs.

2 tsp. organic vanilla extract Beat well into egg/yogurt mixture.

4 T. finely minced orange zest Fold into egg/yogurt/vanilla mixture.
(remove bitterness by dropping into boiling water for 10 seconds
and draining immediately)

Add juice of 2 organic Valencia oranges into above mixture and beat together well.

Fold in dry ingredients. Pour batter into greased glass bundt pan.

Fill a wok with enough water for steaming and heat until boiling. Place the

glass bundt pan on empty tuna can in the boiling water. Cover wok and steam over high heat for an hour or until the cake springs to the touch. Check the water level after a 1/2 hour; add additional boiling water if necessary to maintain steam. Remove from wok and let cool before removing the cake onto a pretty cake plate. Dust with organic powdered sugar if desired. Cut into slices and serve warm or at room temperature with tea. I like organic Dawn Chorus Tea from Mountain Rose Herbs.

Later to enjoy the remaining cake reheated in a bamboo steamer for 10 minutes.

And as we partake of our cake and tea, let's do some bird watching. We are having spectacular birds with stunning color visit our feeders just now. The Western tanagers sometimes visit singularly but often there are four or five at a time eating the fruit from the fruit suet in a hanging cage as well as eating the organic fresh orange halves put out mostly for the visiting orioles: Bullocks and Scotts who love the fresh orange leaving only the section dividers in each half of orange. We also see daily a plethora of Black- headed Grosbeaks, both male and female.

Desert Beardtongue (Penstemon pseudospectabilis)

with "shocking pink" flowers along the West side of our home.

They bloom profusely in the Spring a

nd again more lightly in the Summer.

It is interesting to me

how the blue-green, triangular leaves

are fused together around the stem.

As we relish our time together sharing steamed orange cake and tea, and watching the abundance of gorgeous birds, may we

Friday, May 1, 2020

Beltane 2020

Johnnie Jump Ups are just such a "happy" flower
blooming profusely and providing
abundant seeds for the following season.

May 1 is Beltane, also know as May Day. It is the Pagan festival of fertility with the Goddess and the Green Man coming together to create new life.

The Goddess sitting among newly emerging Pipevine leaves

with a Pipevine Swallowtail in her hair.

As we are sheltering in place may we recognize the vitalness of connecting with nature. And may we innovate ways of doing so when it would be best not to venture out into the beautiful places nearby when way too many others are doing so. This practice is putting people at risk who live in these sparsely populated areas, and minimizing the possibility of "social distancing."

Chokecherry (Prunus virginiana) in her glorious Spring bloom.

Let us be creative at home with our family ways of connecting with the wild and free energy of nature: create May Day baskets filled with flowers from your yard, build a house for the fairies, plant a flowering plant you would not otherwise choose to do but are drawn to the beauty of the flower, begin a victory garden during the pandemic so as to nurture yourself with fresh produce you might not otherwise feast on, sit outside at sunset and enjoy the glory of seeing the stunning colors created in the evening light. Connecting with nature puts us in touch with our most elemental BEingness. At this time when the "veils are thin" as they are also at Samhain, may we celebrate the miraculous things that can happen.

Go wild today! Staying at home, of course. And as we exuberantly in our own backyards leap up and down, as frisky Spring lambs do, may we happily

Saturday, April 25, 2020

Consciousness

"There appears to be a law that when creatures

have reached the level of consciousness,

as men have, they must become conscious of creation;

they must learn how they fit into it

and what it needs are and what it requires of them,

or else pay a terrible penalty:

the spirit of creation will go out of them,

and they will become destructive;

the very earth will depart from them

and go where they cannot follow."

Wendell Berry in his essay A Native Hill

Dwight Sims' pictures
of the damp sand in
the Santa Fe River bed

Saturday, April 11, 2020

School 's Out

Curved bill Thrashers nesting in cholla

The pandemic has us all sheltering in place. Students at all levels are not physically coming to school and schoolwork at home is done at home.

During sheltering in place let us not lose sight of the real, looming, pervasive crisis that has been set aside and seems all but forgotten during this pandemic: climate crisis.

Shasta patiently waiting on a lush spot of clover
with her very favorite ball
for us to finish our breakfast.
She knows soon we will
go for our morning walk.

Each morning after breakfast we walk with Shasta. Soon after the closing of the schools here in Santa Fe, NM, a teacher posted her message on the East side of the bridge over which we walk to get to the path along the Santa Fe River.