Food for the Soul and Body

I'm stretching Weekend Cooking as far as it will go!

For many years I have been doing a yoga exercise on youtube with a fellow called Bhaskar Goswami. Recently, he began a series especially for this time. Every day is different, and ends with a very special story and /or meditation. I could do all of them except the couple days it was floor work. He is a wonderful teacher. I'll tell you how to find him in a minute, but I want to tell you a story he told one day. I put it up on Instagram, as well.

Jack Cornfield speaks of a time when he was studying in a monastery for many, many years under a great master. One day the master was going for a walk in the forest with his students following. And the master suddenly stopped and pointed at a boulder, a massive rock, and he asked the question, "Is that boulder heavy?" The students very sincerely nodded, saying, "Yes, master, the boulder is very heavy." And the master responded, "Not if you don't lift it." 

Bhaskar went on to connect this to what we are all living through as a way to say not to worry about every horror that we read about, but to take what we need from the news reports and not let the rest give us too much anxiety.

I subscribe to "daana" on youtube which is where you will find him. And here is the first "Home Health Practice during Coronavirus". He is going to continue with a "musing" one day a week, and a practice another day. 

Today'video -- Peace sung by Norah Jones

There's a place that I know
Where the sycamores grow
And daffodils have their fun
Where the cares of the day
Seem to slowly fade away
In the glow of the evening sun
Peace, when the day is done

If I go there real late;
Let my mind meditate
On everything to be done
If I search deep inside;
Let my conscience be my guide
Then the answers are sure to come
Don't have to worry none

When you find peace of mind
Leave your worries behind
Don't say that it can't be done
With a new point of view
Life's true meaning comes to you
And the freedom you seek is won
Peace is for everyone
Peace is for everyone
Peace is for everyone

Local restaurants

All the restaurants and bars in the state have been ordered to close. So the local eateries are offering take-out only. There are all kinds of options. You can go in and pick it up, or they will leave the food outside for you to pick up, or they will bring it out to your car, and at least one has a delivery service and more are considering it.

My plan is to get take-out a few times a week to support our local restaurants. Yesterday we got delicious homemade Irish soda bread from our town restaurant run by a mother and daughter of Irish heritage. If we ate meat, we could have gotten corned beef and cabbage along with it.

Tonight we got pizza, and Tom got beer from the local brewery, which will also deliver if you want. Each place was very grateful.

Tom's

Mine - Lucy is all for supporting local restaurants!

Going back to older days

I am feeling a wee bit brilliant today. Here is how it all began. I buy Kleenex from Amazon. They come in packages of four, and cost no more than at my local Walmart. But buying them online saves me driving a dozen miles, parking, making my way through the store.

When I looked today, they were not available. So I put on my thinking cap and remembered that when I was a girl, my father always had a handkerchief. I tried to find a photo of him with it in his breast pocket, but I guess he must have kept it in his side pocket.

So I visited Amazon, and found several offerings of cotton handkerchiefs. I read some reviews, made my choice, and ordered. I am just so tickled!

As I was writing this, I checked back to be sure that I had been right about the package of four (I was), and, lo and behold they are available again so I bought eight boxes. I figured they will suffice for the nationwide lack of toilet paper, even on Amazon where I usually buy it.

Winter activity

Not the human kind, but the animal kind. There is a lot of living that goes on in wintertime under the snow.

Molehills

A little trail with a hole at the end. Squirrel, chipmunk?

It is lovely seeing the vegetable garden again! There are a few deer tracks in there.

This may not look cheerful to those of you who have blooms now, but to me it is lovely! And even if snow comes again, it won't last. The saying here is that the back of winter is broken.

Today's poem by Iva E. Reed

I haven't posted a poem by this woman in a lot of years. She was a friend of ours who has since died. You may find more of her poems here on the blog by going to the Poems button under the blog header picture, and then scrolling down to her name. I have been thinking of this poem for a few days as I've been seeing more crows. I know they are around in winter, but it is only in March that they begin showing themselves.

Crow in March

Heard a crow this morning!

what a great sound
when winter is still
thick and cold and white
upon the ground.

Iva Everesta Reed


I did a search and found her obituary. What a life she led!

Iva Reed

Iva Everesta Reed

Passed away in San Francisco on October 15, 2014.
Iva Everesta Reed was born December 25, 1924, one of eight children, to Adelaide Kaziah Woods and Dwight Reed, in the tiny town of Landaff, New Hampshire, in the foothills of the White Mountains. She graduated valedictorian of her high school class in Lisbon, N.H., and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Iowa with a BA in Sociology in 1948. She studied for a Master's Degree in Sociology at the University of New Hampshire.

As a young woman living in Boston, she acted in soap operas on the ABC and NBC TV networks while supporting herself as a waitress, hat checker, and part-time office worker in order to pursue her love of theatre. She played the lead in a live production of Joan of Arc in Summer Stock, Westborough, MA. In later years, she lived and worked in New York, where she became a member of the Communist Party and worked for political causes with Black activists in Harlem. She also lived for a time in Columbia, Missouri.

In 1958, she moved to San Francisco, where, in 1979, she published a book of poetry, Time Before Winter. Many of the poems in the volume express through a child's eyes Iva's love of the natural world in the White Mountains where she grew up. Many are whimsical stories about the wild animals she saw in the woods and fields she played in as a child, others a poignant search for meaning in a world of loss.

Iva is survived by her niece, Sue Malone, of Jacksonville, Florida, and by myriad other nieces and nephews scattered across the country. She will rest in peace with her parents at the Landaff Center Hill Cemetery in New Hampshire.

Published in San Francisco Chronicle on Oct. 26, 2014

Quote du jour/John Galsworthy

From In Chancery, published 1920.

A character is pondering the death of Queen Victoria who lived from 1819 to 1901.

"Never again would a Queen reign so long, or people have a chance to see so much history buried for their money."

She reigned for 63 years and 7 months.

It just shows that we can never know what may happen in the future. Queen Elizabeth II celebrated her Diamond Jubilee (60 years) in 2012, and five years later celebrated her Sapphire Jubilee. It is remarkable. And all due to unexpected circumstances. Who knew that Edward VIII would abdicate and George VI would die?

Galsworthy at 65.