We took a lot of pictures this Thanksgiving. Me and Teagan and Garth. We set up my phone which has this really cool app that let's you set a timer and take like thirty some odd pictures at a time, one after the other. So we did that and captured us. And - as you can see - captured Phoenix and Nava, too. Though Phoenix looks a bit like we took a tiger image and photoshopped it in. Which I like. It makes me laugh.
We did a lot of laughing this Thanksgiving together. And talking. And cooking yummy food that was not traditional Thanksgiving food. Instead we made a broccoli dish with curry and coconut milk that invoked a bit of a Thai flavor. We made a mushroom salad that was warm and so the lettuce was warm, too. We made pumpkin soup, so that was somewhat in keeping with the holiday. We had roasted potatoes. And yes, I made a Turkey which I accidentally cooked belly side up - she looked the same from both angles, that funky bird - and she ended up cooking very well upside down. So perhaps saying we did not make traditional food is not quite correct, It's more like we took a few things that were Thanksgiving themed and merged them with new ideas that resonated with us on this day. As it was with our thoughts around this day of giving thanks. Because we talked - both on this day and leading up to our celebration together - about what Thanksgiving has meant in the past and what it means to us now. Because we felt - and feel still as we move forward in this not so easy time for humanity - that the stories of Thanksgiving past are not the stories that hold true for us. As in the three of us and in all of us as that collective we. And because of this, the shift in focus and meaning, Teagan found us a Thanksgiving prayer to read together before we started our Thanksgiving meal. We read around the table, taking turns in an order that Teagan prepared before we prepared our meal together. She choose our parts wisely, the words we invoked fell gently from our hearts. I want to share these words with you. And also the sweet and true poem that she - my thoughtful and powerful and oh so wise daughter - shared with us before we embarked on the reading of this prayer. Here are her words: Today, we are all one. Today, we are all human. Today, I love you. Today, I am so happy to be sharing today with you. Today, I remember the origins of this holiday, and choose to allow the past to rest and for new meaning of the present to emerge. Today, change is a natural process. Today, I share my love, support, prayers and gratitude for all Native American people. Today, I share my love, support, prayers and gratitude for those fighting for their land. Today, I share my love, support, prayers and gratitude for those blessed enough to be living in peace. Today, I share my love, support, prayers and gratitude for those caught in the struggle of acceptance and respect. Today, I share my love, support, prayers and gratitude for those spreading energy of acceptance and respect. Today, I honor you, your people, your land, and your strength, and give thanks to you for being a part of this world and for showing up so fully. Today, we honor ourselves, for the miracle of being the only “me" there will ever be, for our minds, bodies, spirits, and hearts. Today, we give thanks, for being surrounded by those we love. Today, joy, love, and acceptance is unbiased, and any discomfort, pain, and confusion we may feel, is acknowledged as perfect, okay, and part of the human experience, not rejected, denied, or made to be fuel for anger or resentment. Today we love, today we are present, today we honor ourselves, and each other, from this house, to every other. And here is the prayer: Thanksgiving Address Greetings to the Natural World The People Today we have gathered and we see that the cycles of life continue. We have been given the duty to live in balance and harmony with each other and all living things. So now, we bring our minds together as one as we give greetings and thanks to each other as people. Now our minds are one. The Earth Mother We are all thankful to our Mother, the Earth, for she gives us all that we need for life. She supports our feet as we walk about upon her. It gives us joy that she continues to care for us as she has from the beginning of time. To our mother, we send greetings and thanks. Now our minds are one. The Waters We give thanks to all the waters of the world for quenching our thirst and providing us with strength. Water is life. We know its power in many forms-waterfalls and rain, mists and streams, rivers and oceans. With one mind, we send greetings and thanks to the spirit of Water. Now our minds are one. The Fish We turn our minds to the all the Fish life in the water. They were instructed to cleanse and purify the water. They also give themselves to us as food. We are grateful that we can still find pure water. So, we turn now to the Fish and send our greetings and thanks. Now our minds are one. The Plants Now we turn toward the vast fields of Plant life. As far as the eye can see, the Plants grow, working many wonders. They sustain many life forms. With our minds gathered together, we give thanks and look forward to seeing Plant life for many generations to come. Now our minds are one. The Food Plants With one mind, we turn to honor and thank all the Food Plants we harvest from the garden. Since the beginning of time, the grains, vegetables, beans and berries have helped the people survive. Many other living things draw strength from them too. We gather all the Plant Foods together as one and send them a greeting of thanks. Now our minds are one. The Medicine Herbs Now we turn to all the Medicine herbs of the world. From the beginning they were instructed to take away sickness. They are always waiting and ready to heal us. We are happy there are still among us those special few who remember how to use these plants for healing. With one mind, we send greetings and thanks to the Medicines and to the keepers of the Medicines. Now our minds are one. The Animals We gather our minds together to send greetings and thanks to all the Animal life in the world. They have many things to teach us as people. We are honored by them when they give up their lives so we may use their bodies as food for our people. We see them near our homes and in the deep forests. We are glad they are still here and we hope that it will always be so. Now our minds are one. The Trees We now turn our thoughts to the Trees. The Earth has many families of Trees who have their own instructions and uses. Some provide us with shelter and shade, others with fruit, beauty and other useful things. Many people of the world use a Tree as a symbol of peace and strength. With one mind, we greet and thank the Tree life. Now our minds are one. The Birds We put our minds together as one and thank all the Birds who move and fly about over our heads. The Creator gave them beautiful songs. Each day they remind us to enjoy and appreciate life. The Eagle was chosen to be their leader. To all the Birds-from the smallest to the largest-we send our joyful greetings and thanks. Now our minds are one. The Four Winds We are all thankful to the powers we know as the Four Winds. We hear their voices in the moving air as they refresh us and purify the air we breathe. They help us to bring the change of seasons. From the four directions they come, bringing us messages and giving us strength. With one mind, we send our greetings and thanks to the Four Winds. Now our minds are one. The Thunderers Now we turn to the west where our grandfathers, the Thunder Beings, live. With lightning and thundering voices, they bring with them the water that renews life. We are thankful that they keep those evil things made by Okwiseres underground. We bring our minds together as one to send greetings and thanks to our Grandfathers, the Thunderers. Now our minds are one. The Sun We now send greetings and thanks to our eldest Brother, the Sun. Each day without fail he travels the sky from east to west, bringing the light of a new day. He is the source of all the fires of life. With one mind, we send greetings and thanks to our Brother, the Sun. Now our minds are one. Grandmother Moon We put our minds together to give thanks to our oldest Grandmother, the Moon, who lights the night-time sky. She is the leader of woman all over the world, and she governs the movement of the ocean tides. By her changing face we measure time, and it is the Moon who watches over the arrival of children here on Earth. With one mind, we send greetings and thanks to our Grandmother, the Moon. Now our minds are one. The Stars We give thanks to the Stars who are spread across the sky like jewelry. We see them in the night, helping the Moon to light the darkness and bringing dew to the gardens and growing things. When we travel at night, they guide us home. With our minds gathered together as one, we send greetings and thanks to the Stars. Now our minds are one. The Enlightened Teachers We gather our minds to greet and thank the enlightened Teachers who have come to help throughout the ages. When we forget how to live in harmony, they remind us of the way we were instructed to live as people. With one mind, we send greetings and thanks to these caring teachers. Now our minds are one. The Creator Now we turn our thoughts to the creator, or Great Spirit, and send greetings and thanks for all the gifts of Creation. Everything we need to live a good life is here on this Mother Earth. For all the love that is still around us, we gather our minds together as one and send our choicest words of greetings and thanks to the Creator. Now our minds are one. Closing Words We have now arrived at the place where we end our words. Of all the things we have named, it was not our intention to leave anything out. If something was forgotten, we leave it to each individual to send such greetings and thanks in their own way. Now our minds are one
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So this dress. I love it. Obviously, since I am writing a post about it. I bought it over the summer in anticipation of my trip to the east coast cold and an event that I just went to a week ago. And now, as I head to my west coast home the weather will start to turn into cooler nights so I can wear it still. So this is really good. Because I really love my clothes. How much, you ask? Allow me to explain. But first, a bit of info to set the stage, so you get the full picture...
I am not a particularly neat or organized person. And I do not keep a very clean house. It's not like gross dirty, but I don't vacuum a lot. And I never dust. Well, not never, but like maybe once every few months. You know, when it really needs it. And I tend to stack in the sink which is why I also tend to eat standing up and right out of the - for example - peanut butter jar and then jelly jar with a spoon rather than make an actual peanut butter and jelly sandwich as this creates less to clean up which means less in the sink stack. My papers are in one big pile that I then go through after a while and sort - those I need go in a new pile and those I don't go in the trash. The new pile then sits around for a while until I sort it again and finally put what I think I need to hold onto in a drawer. Eventually I go through the drawer... I could go on but I'm guessing you're getting the picture here... But there is one place where I am - and I do not use this word lightly (there is a joke here but I can't quite put it together) - anal about organization and cleanliness: My Closet. Notice the capitals at the beginning of My and the beginning of Closet. This is a mark of honor and respect. My Closet is my safe place. It is also my art gallery. My Clothes and My shoes are art. Truly. You think I am kidding but I really am not. I honestly do not remember when I first starting seeing clothing this way. But I have dresses that I've had since my son was a baby and so we are talking about - at least - twenty- six years now. And these dresses - and coats and tops and pants, and shoes ah shoes we cannot forget those - they are more than just their function. Fabric and design, texture and line, drape and form - this fills me. It is why I buy what I buy and why so many pieces that I have found over the years I have still. Of course there are some things that I don't hang on to for as long as the lives of my children. Some pieces, though still art, are more a poster than a masterpiece. This dress may be that. This dress you see above. I love this dress. I got it at Free People in case you are wondering. I LOVE Free People. When I first discovered this store I was like someone is finally making the clothing that I have been ripping my own clothing up and resewing so that I have have this. In other words, I was ecstatic. To the point that I went and worked for them, only part time since I was lawyering at the time but it was so great because I got a discount and me and my daughters got to go a bit crazy and buy A LOT of clothing. Ok, back to this dress. I like that there is a piece that was bought for my temporary life in Massachusetts that transcends my time there. And so this dress has become symbolic. A fabric metaphor of all the pieces that I layered on my skin, my heart, my soul and my spirit while I was away from home and which I can bring back with me because they will work for me still. Perhaps this is why the dress fits so well. Is it a weed or an opportunity for wishes?
I only recently discovered Spotify. A few months ago actually. It's not that I didn't know about it so perhaps discover is the wrong word. My husband subscribes. As does my kids. And so I knew about it and listened to it through them and they talked about me getting it for quite a while but I didn't. I had cd's that my youngest daughter had made for me and that I listened to in my car when I was not listening to the silence of my drive - the music I prefer. And at home, I don't often think about putting music on. As when I drive, I like the silence. But then I started to plan my trip across the country around the same time that I was going through this painful and also quite beautiful stripping away of many things that no longer served me in that deep way that happens when the me that is truly me started to come through and so the layers that stood between this me and the world needed to fall away. And I needed music for this shedding. And so I turned to Spotify and started to create my playlist. It is called Favorites and I thought it was going to be my only list. But then it got big and I got more comfortable with how this all works and started other lists, too. My Dance list, my Joni Mitchell list and Miley list and Jasmine Thompson list and Suzanne Vega list. My Simon and Garfunkel list and my Covers. One of the songs on my Jasmine Thompson list is Mad World. One of the songs in my Covers playlist is Adam Lambert singing Mad World. I also have Mad World on my Favorites list, sung by Gary Jules. So I've got this song in three places. I obviously like it. So last week, on Wednesday, and Thursday and Friday - for three days in a row - every time I got in my car and turned on my music and clicked on Favorites - where the Gary Jules version lives - and then on shuffle which means that my songs should come out to me different each time, Mad World was the song that came out first. Every time. The first few times I smiled that smile that celebrates the beauty of coincidence because I believe there is no such thing. So I smiled and laughed a bit because the song was so appropriate for this moment in time. And then, when it kept happening, when this beautiful song kept showing up again and again and again, I started listening again to the words - which I knew to sing along to but did not truly know. I listened to the lyrics and I listened to the Jasmine version and the Adam version, too, and then I went on YouTube to listen to other covers to experience this beautiful song through the many different interpretations of melody and mood. And I sat in it. The song. I took in its lyrics and tones and let the music fill me. The sadness in me and the love in me and the hope in me, too. And I realized that this song is the song of the shedding for me of this moment in time just as my playlists that I created over the summer were my soundtrack for my trek across the country. Mad World became about this world, the one we are all in right now. The one that is, well...somewhat mad. I am not surprised that we are where we are, in this land that I live in. We have been here for a long time. We just didn't know it. I wrote about something like this last year, almost to the day, here on this blog. I wrote about the crying of humanity and the sorrow of our planet and ourselves. It was a broader writing. A writing for all the earth. But it holds true when I bring it home to just us here in our own land. I am not surprised that there is sadness and pain, anger and hate in our country. Though I am a bit surprised that we - as in the collective we - are surprised by this. That we think we are immune to this. That the tragedies and dissatisfactions, the trauma and sorrow that we saw from afar - on other lands off other shores - could not touch us here. But it has. It is. We are in it now because we see it now. But we have really been in it for quite some time before now. We just didn't know. Well, some of us did. Those that felt the pain and dissatisfaction, the struggles and the hurt. But a lot of us, we didn't know. We missed the clues, were removed from the truth. And so we needed something big so we could see this. We needed a wake up to what is happening all around us. We needed an upset to our lives so we could see the upset in our lives. And we got it. Finally. We got the trigger that will shift us in this, an election that has shocked us. On both sides of it. Whether on the side that won or the one that did not, we are all a bit surprised, I think, that we are where we are. And now the question is, what do we do. For me, this question must be brought home to what do I do? - because that is really all I can do. I cannot control anything else than what my own actions will be and what my own responses will be to the actions and the reactions that happen around me. So what am I doing? I am sitting in each day as each day comes and being really honest in myself. I am carefully choosing my words while speaking with an open heart. I am learning all that I can from those that have different opinions than mine and holding close friends from both sides of each issue. I am reading and thinking and watching and learning. I am not jumping to conclusions and when I find myself triggered I am exploring this to see if the triggers are a truth or rather an opportunity to move in a different direction. And I am taking in the beautfy of each day. The exquisite, and surprisingly still warm, fall New England Days as I ready myself for my trip back to my west coast home. I am feeling the sun on my skin and the crackle of leaves under my feet. I am thanking each gift of each day and each person that I am blessed to have in my life. I am embracing this Mad World. I invite you to listen with me. The original by Tears For Fears is good. Rob Fadini's version is one of my favorites. We broke bread on Saturday. Actually we made pizza dough/crust but I like the sound of saying breaking bread and all the connotations that go along with that. The sense of community and the connection with each other. The images of warmth and family and the secrets in conversation that settles throughout the meal. The sharing of sustenance that is not just in the food and the winding down of time because the preparing of the food takes time. And so this, the making of pizza dough crust was a breaking of bread in that true form. We met with Richard Bourdon of Berkshire Mountain Bakery. If you live in the Berkshires and have not yet discovered all the yummy breads and crusts, sweets and soups that you can find at this really cool place in Housatonic, then you need to get yourself on over there and check it out. It is good stuff. As is Richard. Good stuff. Good stock. Good man. And smart. We found ourselves with Richard, his friend V, me and my mom and my dad, because my dad bid on a "baking party for four" when he was at the 2015 Berkshire Grown Harvest Supper. Berkshire Grown supports local food and farms. And so my dad bid, and won and then, about a year later, here we were...the three of us for this baking party for four. It wasn't really so much a baking party as a lesson in food and health and well-being intermingled with making pizza crust. And working hard. Seriously! Richard put us to work. After all the kneading of the dough that we started from scratch and the conversation around enzymes and digestion and mold and protein and carbohydrates and fasting and eating and the sharing of some yummy bits of dark chocolate that Richard keeps in this HUGE box and which I would likely finish in a day or two if it were mine, we took these already make crusts that were sitting in their trays and we pounding them very gently and moved them back and forth from fist to fist to expand their size and lay them down all organized and ready, and dripped a bit of oil on each so that they would not rise too much in the oven and then we baked them. Like one hundred of them. ONE HUNDRED! One of them, it just did not do what it was supposed to...or maybe it was one of us who did not...but it would not turn into a nice and round ready to be baked pizza crust, so I turned it into a heart. So actually I think it did become exactly what it was supposed to. It became love. And it was delicious!
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Elizabeth RoseMother, Wife, Friend, Sister, Daughter, Dancer, Rower, Runner, Dog and Cat lover. Archives
October 2024
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