Well, it's been over a week since my last post. I have been busy thinking about many other things in my life, but as I sat down today I realized that as always there have still been things happening in my life which relate to how I think about animals, and God. Thanksgiving is coming up, which is awesome because I firmly believe that gratitude is one of the biggest keys to happiness. We could all do with a little more of it, myself included, especially now while I'm worrying about the future.
One of the most basic things we all take for granted is the opportunity to keep living. Most of us, as far as we know, will wake up tomorrow with the same freedom to go out and seek our destinies in the world, to keep learning, loving, and experiencing all the things we thirst after in order to improve ourselves and our relationships with others. We have the right to live and to live happily. It's something I know I sometimes forget to be thankful for, especially when life is stressful.
I'm really excited for thanksgiving this year, not just because it is a break from school but because both my family back in Utah and my second family up here in Washington are (so I heard) thinking about or planning on having a vegetarian thanksgiving. Which means two great things, one being that I don't have to be around meat during the festivities, and the other being that this celebration of life will not involve unnecessary death. It also cheered me to hear of people leaving the local Co-Op with expensive non-factory raised turkeys, because if they're going to insist on eating turkey, at least they're not supporting this kind of cruelty.
I recently read a blog post from a fellow vegan in Bellingham (whose blog is called Vegan in Bellingham) about how she decided to give up meat because of one thanksgiving when she watched the tradition of the President pardoning the turkey on TV. I guess this happens every year--a turkey is taken out of the factory and the President formally pardons it, meaning it won't be slaughtered for meat. Whether the turkey lives a long, full life afterward is another story, but in any case I'm sure the President probably still has turkey (just a different turkey) for dinner anyway.
I wish I had the money to sponsor a rescued turkey, but it's $30... that would just be the icing on the happy cake of a nonviolent Thanksgiving. Still, I can't complain. Things are getting better all the time! *cue Beatles music*
This all hits home so much harder because recently yet another undercover video investigation of a factory farm was put up by Mercy for Animals about an egg farm which supplies McDonalds with a lot of the eggs it uses in its McMuffins and such. It's a typical factory farm from what I can see, and a lot of the cruelty charges were for typical factory practices such as suffocating the male chicks in plastic bags, keeping hens in battery cages with open sores and sharing the small space with birds who had already died and begun rotting, workers burning the beaks off the chicks. That's all normal factory procedure. It's always hard sharing these types of videos with friends because I know they're terrible to watch and everyone's first instinct is to believe that this is an isolated incident and the workers were just bad people. We don't want to believe that this is normal and happening all the time. But it is.
I know those are chickens, and I was talking about turkeys earlier, but a life is a life, so I think about them the same way. And anyway people probably eat eggs and chickens more often than they eat turkeys, so arguably the special focus on turkey in this season is just a relatively small addition to the already constant cycle of death and torment going on.
It was actually a video of an egg "farm" like the one in that video which prompted me to make the transition from vegetarian to vegan. I saw a short clip in the artistic film Baraka (a film I would highly recommend by the way. Be warned, there is no dialogue. It's very abstract but powerful.) The clip was relatively tame as far as being graphic went, but it still gave the idea of how harmful it is for both humans and animals to see living things as mere objects or numbers. In the part where the chicks are being sent spinning down a funnel to be sorted on conveyor belts, my classmates (in my Art History class at BYU-Hawaii) laughed. I couldn't tell if they honestly thought it was funny, or if it was a "that is too bizarre to be real" laugh. Either way, I remember instantly deciding I would never buy factory eggs again.
That was about this time of the year, 2 years ago. I made a resolution that by January I would also cut out all factory dairy as well, and anything that had dairy and eggs in it that couldn't be traced to a smaller, less cruel farm. I have never regretted that decision. Do I sometimes miss certain foods? Every once in a while. But at times like this I can only rejoice knowing that my happiness and life does not have to come at so high a cost.
So, this thanksgiving, in whatever way you deem most in line with your own heart, give thanks for life. For the opportunity to keep learning and discovering new ways to be fulfilled. For a life that was meant to be lived to the fullest. For the ability to wake up every day to a new day, to seek happiness, to learn, and to comfort one another. In many ways even the most miserable times of our lives are bliss compared to the fate of some other souls. God gave life and a desire for love to all of us, and what a gift it is.
Kohlrabi!
I had Kohlrabi for the very first time today. I didn't know anything about it when we picked one up at the Farmer's Market last weekend, so here's a little bit of info. Apparently, its name is German for "cabbage-turnip". When it's raw it kinda tastes like broccoli stems. The one we got was purple, like this (except bigger):
Apparently they're more commonly all green like these ones:
So I asked the best cook I knew (Danielle's Oma) how to cook it (though apparently you can eat it raw like carrot sticks and such), and armed with that knowledge and some helpful tips from the internetz, I made this!
And it was good too!
So here's what I used:
1 Kohlrabi (one bulb? not sure what it's called)
Half an onion
2 or 3 cloves of garlic
A few tablespoons of Earth Balance
A few tablespoons of flour
Some water
Garlic salt
Okay. So I chopped up the onion and the garlic, then I cut the leafy stems off the kohlrabi and then cut the ...bulb thing... into quarters. Then I peeled the quarters because I was afraid the skins might be too woody to eat. Then I took each quarter and sliced it up julienne style. Chopped up the stems of the leaves. Then, using a handy trick I just learned from the internet, I rolled all the leaves up together and then sliced the roll thinly... that made slicing thin strip a lot easier than trying to do it while the leaves were laying flat! Why haven't I been doing this the whole time? Anyway...
So using a medium or large pot, I melted some globs of Earth Balance on medium heat and sauteed the onions in it until translucent, then the garlic. Then I added the stems and the julienne sticks of the kohlrabi but not the leaves, and stirred it all up. I then took a spoon and used it to sprinkle some flour over the whole dish, 2-3 spoonfuls, stirring between each one so that it would get incorporated with the "butter". If it's not getting incorporated, add more oil or earth balance. Then I added some water and covered it all with a lid to let it simmer and steam, stirring every 1 or 2 minutes and adding more water if it boils out. Once the kohlrabi sticks weren't loudly crunchy anymore, I added the leaves with a little bit more Earth Balance and sprinkled garlic salt all over it, stirred it up, and steamed/simmered it for a few more minutes.
Then it was done! The flour made a kind of creamy sauce. Kind of a nice comfort food for a rainy, miserable November day like today.
Apparently they're more commonly all green like these ones:
So I asked the best cook I knew (Danielle's Oma) how to cook it (though apparently you can eat it raw like carrot sticks and such), and armed with that knowledge and some helpful tips from the internetz, I made this!
So here's what I used:
1 Kohlrabi (one bulb? not sure what it's called)
Half an onion
2 or 3 cloves of garlic
A few tablespoons of Earth Balance
A few tablespoons of flour
Some water
Garlic salt
Okay. So I chopped up the onion and the garlic, then I cut the leafy stems off the kohlrabi and then cut the ...bulb thing... into quarters. Then I peeled the quarters because I was afraid the skins might be too woody to eat. Then I took each quarter and sliced it up julienne style. Chopped up the stems of the leaves. Then, using a handy trick I just learned from the internet, I rolled all the leaves up together and then sliced the roll thinly... that made slicing thin strip a lot easier than trying to do it while the leaves were laying flat! Why haven't I been doing this the whole time? Anyway...
So using a medium or large pot, I melted some globs of Earth Balance on medium heat and sauteed the onions in it until translucent, then the garlic. Then I added the stems and the julienne sticks of the kohlrabi but not the leaves, and stirred it all up. I then took a spoon and used it to sprinkle some flour over the whole dish, 2-3 spoonfuls, stirring between each one so that it would get incorporated with the "butter". If it's not getting incorporated, add more oil or earth balance. Then I added some water and covered it all with a lid to let it simmer and steam, stirring every 1 or 2 minutes and adding more water if it boils out. Once the kohlrabi sticks weren't loudly crunchy anymore, I added the leaves with a little bit more Earth Balance and sprinkled garlic salt all over it, stirred it up, and steamed/simmered it for a few more minutes.
Then it was done! The flour made a kind of creamy sauce. Kind of a nice comfort food for a rainy, miserable November day like today.
Creamy Pasta Sauces
So lately we've been trying different ways to make creamy pasta sauces without using tomatoes, since Danielle is more into alfredo-y stuff than marinara-y stuff. The first try was a complete success thanks to the Post Punk Kitchen's amazing Cream Red Chard Linguine recipe, where the creaminess is cashew-based and alfredo-like. I used fettuccine noodles instead of linguine, and sherry instead of red wine. Oh man... it was delicious.
Then we tried using the Pesto Soup recipe to make a sauce to put over Rising Moon Organics Spinach Florentine Ravioli and that was delicious too. There the creaminess was cauliflower based.
Feeling encouraged, yesterday when my original plans for lunch (lentil sloppy joes) fell through, I decided to use some of the sweet meat squash to try and make a creamy squash-based pasta sauce. I figured if I found a couple of recipes and then used the basic idea of the pesto soup sauce recipe, it should work.
Here's what the finished product looked like. I feel like it needs something more to it, flavor-wise, but the consistency was really good.
So I took a look at this recipe and this one too. And then here's basically what I did:
Chopped half a very large onion, about equivalent to one large onion... then 3 cloves of garlic. Peeled about a pound or two of the squash and chopped it into 1/2 to 1 inch pieces, chopped 2 carrots into small pieces, and chopped up a bit of fresh rosemary too.
In a big pot, sauteed the onion in olive oil until translucent, then added garlic until fragrant, then added a cup of broth (made with Better than Bouillon's No Chicken Base), 1 1/2 tablespoons of dried basil, a pinch of thyme, and the rosemary. Put in the squash, stirred it around, and it looked like there wasn't enough liquid so I poured in a little bit of almond milk, then covered it and let it simmer until the squash and carrots were soft. While this was going on, I chopped up two leaves of kale and mixed together a little over half of another cup of broth with about half a tablespoon of cornstarch. I also started cooking my pasta (I used penne). When hte squash and carrots were soft I stirred in the cornstarchy broth and then let it boil uncovered for a while until it was slightly thickened. Then I poured it by halves into a blender (be careful to let the steam out) to make it all smooth and creamy, and poured it back into the pot with the kale to let it wilt and soften the leaves. Drained the pasta and stirred it in with the sauce. Added garlic salt as needed, and when Danielle got home she put in a little cube of frozen basil to add more flavor. I also put a little bit of nutritional yeast on mine, but it didn't make much difference with the taste actually...
So, a cooking experiment which was a semi-success but leaves a lot of room for improvement. If anyone tries this and comes up with a way to make it taste more like BAM THAT WAS GOOD let me know xD
Then we tried using the Pesto Soup recipe to make a sauce to put over Rising Moon Organics Spinach Florentine Ravioli and that was delicious too. There the creaminess was cauliflower based.
Feeling encouraged, yesterday when my original plans for lunch (lentil sloppy joes) fell through, I decided to use some of the sweet meat squash to try and make a creamy squash-based pasta sauce. I figured if I found a couple of recipes and then used the basic idea of the pesto soup sauce recipe, it should work.
Here's what the finished product looked like. I feel like it needs something more to it, flavor-wise, but the consistency was really good.
So I took a look at this recipe and this one too. And then here's basically what I did:
Chopped half a very large onion, about equivalent to one large onion... then 3 cloves of garlic. Peeled about a pound or two of the squash and chopped it into 1/2 to 1 inch pieces, chopped 2 carrots into small pieces, and chopped up a bit of fresh rosemary too.
In a big pot, sauteed the onion in olive oil until translucent, then added garlic until fragrant, then added a cup of broth (made with Better than Bouillon's No Chicken Base), 1 1/2 tablespoons of dried basil, a pinch of thyme, and the rosemary. Put in the squash, stirred it around, and it looked like there wasn't enough liquid so I poured in a little bit of almond milk, then covered it and let it simmer until the squash and carrots were soft. While this was going on, I chopped up two leaves of kale and mixed together a little over half of another cup of broth with about half a tablespoon of cornstarch. I also started cooking my pasta (I used penne). When hte squash and carrots were soft I stirred in the cornstarchy broth and then let it boil uncovered for a while until it was slightly thickened. Then I poured it by halves into a blender (be careful to let the steam out) to make it all smooth and creamy, and poured it back into the pot with the kale to let it wilt and soften the leaves. Drained the pasta and stirred it in with the sauce. Added garlic salt as needed, and when Danielle got home she put in a little cube of frozen basil to add more flavor. I also put a little bit of nutritional yeast on mine, but it didn't make much difference with the taste actually...
So, a cooking experiment which was a semi-success but leaves a lot of room for improvement. If anyone tries this and comes up with a way to make it taste more like BAM THAT WAS GOOD let me know xD
Just Loving Life
Amazingly, in the middle of all my school stress, I am still really enjoying life lately. Almost all of that enjoyment is closely associated with cooking, the changing seasons, and animals. No joke. Well, and beautifully done Hetalia fanart music videos, but that's totally off-topic....
Last weekend Danielle's Oma (aka German Grandma) came up to visit us and we made her lunch. Recently we've started to try out free recipes from The Post-Punk Kitchen website, which is by the same people who did Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar. Suffice it to say that it's all delicious so far. For this lunch we made Pesto Soup with Gnocchi, Beans & Greens, along with home-made veggie spring rolls. Danielle did basically all the work with the soup and I put the spring rolls together (they had lettuce, mint, cilantro, cucumbers, rice noodles, pickled carrots and daikon).
When we went on an early morning walk/bike ride in the cold November air to Haggen to get rainbow chard and other stuff that we needed, we were both having a fan attack over the vegetables. Sometimes vegetables and fruits are just so beautiful you have to stop and BE AMAZED. Srsly.
The lunch was delicious and then we went to the Bellingham Farmer's Market to see what we could find. Some really nice guy gave Oma a large sweet meat squash for like 3 bucks or 3.50 or something like that! It was big enough that we split it between ourselves when we got back to the apartment.
Even though it was a little smaller this time, there was still plenty of colorful produce.
We had a good time hanging out at Value Village and got some "new" sweaters now that it's getting super cold. I also got a purple scarf xD !
On Sunday I was walking home from church and there was a deer on the trail. We locked eyes for almost a full minute and it actually took a step toward me rather than away. Seemed very unafraid, but I kept a respectful distance anyway. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera with me at the time. Here's one of a young buck I took a few weeks ago by the Institute.
I also recently witnessed some interesting things in the sky. Today there was a hawk circling over campus, close enough that I could see the spots on its wings. It was beautiful. Last week when I was walking to the bus station, a large flock of pidgeons (I'm pretty sure anyway) burst out from under a nearby alcove and proceeded to spiral rhythmically through the sky, in perfect tandem with one another, for nearly a full minute before they left the area directly above the street I was on. It was mesmerizing to watch. Then just the other day a facebook friend posted a video of a huge flock of starlings "dancing". It was a bit like watching those huge groups of little fish in the ocean on the Discovery Channel. You know, the ones that form up into very specific shapes in Finding Nemo? Well, this was certainly even more impressive and astonishing. Are they doing it just for the joy of flying, of cooperation? That was the thought which popped into my head as I watched the pidgeons. I always have to wonder what the cause of such incredible behavior is.
It is already getting toward the end of the colorful leaves, and I'm sad that I haven't taken more good pictures, but that's part of what makes autumn special--it's fleeting, but it always comes back next year.
Last weekend Danielle's Oma (aka German Grandma) came up to visit us and we made her lunch. Recently we've started to try out free recipes from The Post-Punk Kitchen website, which is by the same people who did Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar. Suffice it to say that it's all delicious so far. For this lunch we made Pesto Soup with Gnocchi, Beans & Greens, along with home-made veggie spring rolls. Danielle did basically all the work with the soup and I put the spring rolls together (they had lettuce, mint, cilantro, cucumbers, rice noodles, pickled carrots and daikon).
When we went on an early morning walk/bike ride in the cold November air to Haggen to get rainbow chard and other stuff that we needed, we were both having a fan attack over the vegetables. Sometimes vegetables and fruits are just so beautiful you have to stop and BE AMAZED. Srsly.
The lunch was delicious and then we went to the Bellingham Farmer's Market to see what we could find. Some really nice guy gave Oma a large sweet meat squash for like 3 bucks or 3.50 or something like that! It was big enough that we split it between ourselves when we got back to the apartment.
 |
| Please excuse the dorky crazed look. |
On Sunday I was walking home from church and there was a deer on the trail. We locked eyes for almost a full minute and it actually took a step toward me rather than away. Seemed very unafraid, but I kept a respectful distance anyway. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera with me at the time. Here's one of a young buck I took a few weeks ago by the Institute.
It is already getting toward the end of the colorful leaves, and I'm sad that I haven't taken more good pictures, but that's part of what makes autumn special--it's fleeting, but it always comes back next year.
Cooking Can Be Spiritual?! NO WAI.
I've been having a tough time lately, emotionally. Trying to figure out how to get home for Christmas, how to have enough money to get back up here in January and get a job so I can stay for the rest of the schoolyear... it's all pretty annoying and stressful, on top of midterm stress. And in the middle of all of that having a brain which tends to latch onto inconvenient contradictions and questions about religious, social, and cultural issues (one example: gender & sexuality issues and mormonism... not a fun topic). I've been lucky to have lots of little things which have been cheering me up, like having a nice dinner with my visiting teacher last night (though that too was fraught with some awkward moments) and actually (sort of) having a social life all of a sudden... where did that come from? xD (a social life meaning only that I talk to people in classes and on the bus, someone actually came over to my apartment for dinner last week, and then this week someone invited themselves over for next week).
Still, when I headed home from institute today I felt like all I wanted to do was curl up in a blanket and bury myself in a pile of pillows. And maybe cry (yeah I'm a baby okay deal with it). Knew I should make dinner so I wandered aimlessly around the co-op on the way home and finally got some potatoes and an onion so I could make this recipe from a fellow Bellinghamster's vegan blog. I've been craving such potatoes for a while (mom calls them scalloped potatoes).
Here's a bad flash-y picture of the finished product (already cut into--we were hungry!)
(Some quick notes on my recipe variations: I didn't have any parsley so I used chopped bits of fresh rosemary and dried basil. Also put in only 1 1/2 onions since I get so tired of buying onions all the time... we use so many of them! I used 3 or 4 large potatoes but there was some left over once my casserole dish was full. I also didn't have garlic powder so I chopped several small-medium cloves of garlic and added a bunch of garlic salt. Made my own unsweetened almond milk in the blender. Added a tiny sprinkling of Follow Your Heart cheddar on top.)
The funny thing about all the cooking I've been doing lately, is that it has become a de-stresser for me for some reason. It has also become a handy form of procrastination. I come home from a tense day at school--oh, I need to make food! Better get on that right away, homework will have to wait... 30 minutes to 2 hours later... food's done, now I have to eat, maybe we'll watch a movie while we're eating... then it's time to do dishes. Eh there's a few hours left before bedtime, I can cram it all in then right?
But in all seriousness, cooking is becoming a haven for me. I'm someone who struggles at being in the moment... I worry a lot about the past and the future. Cooking somehow puts me in the right frame of mind. While I'm washing and cutting up vegetables, my mind calms down and focuses on the task, the moment at hand. The same thing sometimes happens when I'm washing dishes, though not as often. Maybe it has something to do with being a part of a life-cycle process.
While I was slicing the potatoes, I suddenly became aware of how much my mind had calmed, and how peaceful I felt. I was tapping into a sense of continuity. The potato I held in my hand came from a plant that had constructed itself out of water and sunlight and minerals from the earth... honestly, quite a miracle when you think about it. Now I was part of that process somehow. It's difficult to explain. Sometimes I feel like we make life so complicated, when at its best it is beautifully simple in its complexity. There are patterns; we ourselves, as well as something even so simple as a potato, have complicated cellular structures, but I guess sometimes we lose the beauty of just being a part of this intricate and breathtaking web of life.
I remember in my East Asian Art History class at BYU-H, hearing about a particular Buddhist sect which believed that sudden enlightenment could be achieved through repetitive, mundane actions, such as sweeping the floor. There's a famous ink painting of a leader of this sect chopping bamboo, as one example.
Maybe there's something to this idea. Perhaps that is why many people feel a kind of joy when they are exercising, especially outdoors--it frees their mind and makes them aware of their physical surroundings, their interconnectedness, through the air they breathe and the reality of their own sweat and aches. Maybe that's the same reason many people say that they often feel closer to God while hiking in the mountains than they do while sitting in a chapel.
Last spring, when I was in a particularly dark and chaotic place mentally, I suddenly decided I wanted to have a garden. Living in an apartment, that makes things a little more difficult, but Danielle's mom said I could use some of her big plastic pots and so I impulsively bought a 50-lbs bag of soil from the local nursery (getting it home was another adventure entirely) and some seeds and went to work. It seemed like an irrational thing to do... it used more money, and cut into my precious study time. But filling the pots, pushing the seeds under with numb fingers (it was still very cold outside), watering... these moments were full of a peace I couldn't find anywhere else. And then the sprouts started to come up.
Every time I came home from school or left the apartment, this beautiful growing life was waiting for me by the door. Something about the simple process of watching them grow really put some light back into me, and I think was one of the main reasons I made it through that time. Those sprouts were a promise of cycles, of things getting better, warmer, brighter.
Eventually my garden got so big the fire department threatened to haul all the pots away if I didn't move them off the walkway!
I could go on with even more specific stories of times in Hawaii when meeting eyes with a bird (or a dog or a gecko or a mouse) gave me something like a spiritual breath of fresh air, a sense of communion with something larger than myself, like stepping into the edge of the ocean. That was a time of special awakening in me, of discovering a sense of family with the rest of the natural world.
Overall I guess my point with this post is to re-affirm to myself that God is out there, and that his presence, his spirit which connects everything living, is present for me to find in even so humble a thing as a potato, if I am willing to just calm my mind down enough to see it. This aspect of God, this beautiful life-force of joy and love which causes plants to reach for the light and moves human hearts to compassion, is not judgmental or wrathful (apart from the kind of heartbroken "how could this happen?" anger a kind person feels while looking upon violence). So when I trap myself in these mental obstacle courses of trying to reconcile all the tedious bits of doctrine which don't seem at first glance to line up to my conscience, I just have to take a deep breath of Life and chop some potatoes, plant some seeds, pet a cat, or go take a hike.
Still, when I headed home from institute today I felt like all I wanted to do was curl up in a blanket and bury myself in a pile of pillows. And maybe cry (yeah I'm a baby okay deal with it). Knew I should make dinner so I wandered aimlessly around the co-op on the way home and finally got some potatoes and an onion so I could make this recipe from a fellow Bellinghamster's vegan blog. I've been craving such potatoes for a while (mom calls them scalloped potatoes).
Here's a bad flash-y picture of the finished product (already cut into--we were hungry!)
(Some quick notes on my recipe variations: I didn't have any parsley so I used chopped bits of fresh rosemary and dried basil. Also put in only 1 1/2 onions since I get so tired of buying onions all the time... we use so many of them! I used 3 or 4 large potatoes but there was some left over once my casserole dish was full. I also didn't have garlic powder so I chopped several small-medium cloves of garlic and added a bunch of garlic salt. Made my own unsweetened almond milk in the blender. Added a tiny sprinkling of Follow Your Heart cheddar on top.)
The funny thing about all the cooking I've been doing lately, is that it has become a de-stresser for me for some reason. It has also become a handy form of procrastination. I come home from a tense day at school--oh, I need to make food! Better get on that right away, homework will have to wait... 30 minutes to 2 hours later... food's done, now I have to eat, maybe we'll watch a movie while we're eating... then it's time to do dishes. Eh there's a few hours left before bedtime, I can cram it all in then right?
But in all seriousness, cooking is becoming a haven for me. I'm someone who struggles at being in the moment... I worry a lot about the past and the future. Cooking somehow puts me in the right frame of mind. While I'm washing and cutting up vegetables, my mind calms down and focuses on the task, the moment at hand. The same thing sometimes happens when I'm washing dishes, though not as often. Maybe it has something to do with being a part of a life-cycle process.
While I was slicing the potatoes, I suddenly became aware of how much my mind had calmed, and how peaceful I felt. I was tapping into a sense of continuity. The potato I held in my hand came from a plant that had constructed itself out of water and sunlight and minerals from the earth... honestly, quite a miracle when you think about it. Now I was part of that process somehow. It's difficult to explain. Sometimes I feel like we make life so complicated, when at its best it is beautifully simple in its complexity. There are patterns; we ourselves, as well as something even so simple as a potato, have complicated cellular structures, but I guess sometimes we lose the beauty of just being a part of this intricate and breathtaking web of life.
I remember in my East Asian Art History class at BYU-H, hearing about a particular Buddhist sect which believed that sudden enlightenment could be achieved through repetitive, mundane actions, such as sweeping the floor. There's a famous ink painting of a leader of this sect chopping bamboo, as one example.
Last spring, when I was in a particularly dark and chaotic place mentally, I suddenly decided I wanted to have a garden. Living in an apartment, that makes things a little more difficult, but Danielle's mom said I could use some of her big plastic pots and so I impulsively bought a 50-lbs bag of soil from the local nursery (getting it home was another adventure entirely) and some seeds and went to work. It seemed like an irrational thing to do... it used more money, and cut into my precious study time. But filling the pots, pushing the seeds under with numb fingers (it was still very cold outside), watering... these moments were full of a peace I couldn't find anywhere else. And then the sprouts started to come up.
Eventually my garden got so big the fire department threatened to haul all the pots away if I didn't move them off the walkway!
I could go on with even more specific stories of times in Hawaii when meeting eyes with a bird (or a dog or a gecko or a mouse) gave me something like a spiritual breath of fresh air, a sense of communion with something larger than myself, like stepping into the edge of the ocean. That was a time of special awakening in me, of discovering a sense of family with the rest of the natural world.
Overall I guess my point with this post is to re-affirm to myself that God is out there, and that his presence, his spirit which connects everything living, is present for me to find in even so humble a thing as a potato, if I am willing to just calm my mind down enough to see it. This aspect of God, this beautiful life-force of joy and love which causes plants to reach for the light and moves human hearts to compassion, is not judgmental or wrathful (apart from the kind of heartbroken "how could this happen?" anger a kind person feels while looking upon violence). So when I trap myself in these mental obstacle courses of trying to reconcile all the tedious bits of doctrine which don't seem at first glance to line up to my conscience, I just have to take a deep breath of Life and chop some potatoes, plant some seeds, pet a cat, or go take a hike.
