i'm writing on a strange day, with lots of processings and emotions. the mother of one of my best friends died of cancer today. lots of grieving, sadness at missing her mother's passing by being in montreal with her friends to celebrate old friends and the new lives they've brought into the world. what is the greater wisdom that the universe holds - this turn that she was not there, with her brother, after being at her mother's side consistently since the diagnosis? yet such a gift for us, her friends, to be able to support her. i feel so lucky that i have both my parents in my life. i think i take it for granted that they are there for me, and i for them.

so i found myself home just now reading the shambhala sun magazine on "choosing peace", feeling unpeaceful inside, restless and sad. and i found this:
www.herwildsong.com/journeys.html - women who lead wilderness and healing journeys. it all somehow seems connected to going to greece next week.

as i get ready to go to greece to be in the wilds of the olive harvest, with my hands in the earth and food, with people who are mentors, friends and peers, transforming ourselves transforming our worlds.... i think of wilderness and grieving and healing. and am checking in with my own energies, my organs actually, around what really is next for me in my life and work; what i am truly up for. a diagnosis this week invites me much much deeper into taking care of myself and truly shifting my paradigm of work into that of a balanced and healing life. finally, i see the deeper and wider context of my journey this year - some kind of detailed proof that i have not been crazy, or worse, "lazy."

i was asked "if you were to go to that place, that place beyond denial, even if you were to go ever so briefly to that place of true knowledge, what would it tell you about why your body is where it is?" and what would i do with that knowledge? and then i think, if I had a short time to live, if i were to live as if i was dying, what would i be choosing? and how is this different than today? because most of us are living denying the dying and making choices full of fear that we will not be provided for, with love and grace and abundance, by the cosmos..

so i am going to axladitsa at a critical juncture.

and i am looking forward to healing lands and hands...

saffron defiance

this question of freedom erupts suddenly, comes into sight, after years of repression in Burma. there is a fearless flow of saffron and defiance in the streets of Rangoon. then disbelief, shock in the blindness and violence of an army that asks young men to shoot their fathers, their spiritual selves, their own selves. and i am reminded of a tibetan monk whose response to the question of how he felt about the chinese soliders he witnessed torturing and killing his fathers ~
"what kind of karma are they creating for themselves?" ~
his response leaves me in total amazement. the freedom of his mind and heart, to think and see that far ahead and behind with such open eyes to the interconnectivity of all life, over all time.

this must be freedom. the long view, in the present.
the expansive heart, in service to us all.

then each of us is all of us
the courage and the blindness
the spiritual and the bereft
the all time and the today.

it is a question of balance, an equilibrium of opposites.
more of us must face our shadows and come into the light, and be so courageous everyday ~

Thich Nhat Hahn on spiritual leadership and the monks in Burma,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74o9P6G2y18&feature=dir

when i was in india and walking the himalayas with saklanaji, the 80 year old tree planter, he kept up this call and response to the villages below us which was basically
"wake up! and save the trees! wake up!"
here TNH speaks eloquently about non-violent and compassionate action in Burma, and he is saying basically that we have been waiting for the spiritual leadership in America to wake up!

Alan Clements, activist buddhist, and first ordained american to practice in Burma weighs into this conversation, and is starting a world dharma institute is dedicated to and inspired by Aung San Suu Kyi Burma’s (detained) Nobel Peace laureate and leader of her country’s nonviolent "Revolution of the Spirit. "
http://www.worlddharmaonlineinstitute.com/

Venus' Kitchen

today i lunched, i mean i launched Venus' Kitchen

it's a blog which explores in much more detail my culinary quest to integrate human and ecological systems with spiritual and sustainable practices.... it will have recipes, ideas, links, ingredients for living a yummy life ~ and it will harvest the places i go, the people i meet and the delices that i eat along the way and the special spices each offers into this collective cauldron.

so check it out http://venuskitchen.blogspot.com/
(but you can also click on the link just to the right)