FYI

- Natalia Rose-

"Since we cannot live for even a few minutes without oxygen, it's no surprise that shallow breathing leads to premature aging and even premature death."
-Albert Camus-

"In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer."
-H.G.Wells-

"When I see an adult on a bicycle, I have hope for the human race."
-A.Simms-

"At just twenty-two weeks old, an average UK citizen will be responsible for the equivalent emissions of the greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, which someone in Tanzania will generate in their whole lifetimes."
Invincible summer cherrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrries!

it's our party

Friday night I attended a discussion about Transition Town Asheville, our local movement toward co-creating a sustainable Asheville beyond peak oil. A timely gathering with the torture of and in the Gulf continuing, the meeting was actually a talk given by a gentleman and self-proclaimed creator of sustainability Michael Brownlee of Transition Boulder. Passionate and grounding, moving and frustrating, I became more passionate about living in Asheville; more grounded in simplifying my life; moved to act; and frustrated with myself and my society for being where we are, forgetting our Momma and living vicariously through the Big names in Hollywood and Wall Street.

Transition Asheville is taking off in Asheville. The idea of moving toward local resilience fascinates me. Who would we be as a collective if we learned to look into each other's eyes and be honest and fair?

(This is what happened when I was away from home on Sunday.)

Our friend Albert Einstein once noticed that "Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius --- and a lot of courage --- to move in the opposite direction." .........been drawn to the simple, the empty, the spacious, the natural. Putting things in garage sales; getting rid, dropping things off at Goodwill empowers, that's my experience. Why do we all have so much stuff? We're surrounded by stuff all the time!

Are you familiar with June Berries? They are sweet berries that resemble blueberries. There are two varieties familiar to me Princess Diana and Prince William. Seriously. On my walks with S, over the years in this neighborhood I call home/community, June Berries are around. Mike and his wife grow them; the Organic Mechanic planted them out front their newish building, and I just met the man who lives in the house with the perfect sized back yard with two bushes bursting with them.

I eyed these bushes a few days ago and I soon found myself Knocking on his door and Asking him if he knew of his very berries. He was well aware of them, having just come from picking some himself and agreeing to let me in his yard to pick some myself. He even handed me a catalog of fruit-bearing plants. Sweetness doubled and tripled!

I'm finding out how to be more honest with myself and in turn with you. Finding ways to look into myself and at the same time look into the eyes of the people around me and admit, there you are, and here I am and what can I do for you?

"Nothing succeeds like success" in this. I'm doing it when I remember to do it and reaping the rewards. There you are. Here I am. And What fun might having less control be? Not just fun, but subtle and illuminating and enrichingly sweet. I think of clouds and outta control puppies and trees blown by the wind. It's our party, this life, and it's always time to cheer for Heisenberg!

In over my head

Hello again; can you tell I'm wondering which way to go? I find that I don't think I'm expert enough to write anything that matters or that anyone wants to read. But putting that to the side, let's see........................Innocence................................................how sweet it is.

I'm reminded again and again on my walks with Scout, many that I take more for me than for him, of innocence. With all the blooming and esteem that the lavender and rosemary and growing vegetables like chard exude, I am reminded of how beautiful and easy innocence is.

Simplicity
Gullibility
Unworldliness
Greenness

I can remember having those characteristics, and maybe I still have them, but I pretend not to. Over the weekend, I spouted more than once to more than one person just how complicated life is. Read any non-fiction book and you succumb to the complexity of whatever the subject is.

But really who wants to be unworldly?

If you're reading this, you've probably tried to be more knowing and worldly than you really are. I know I do, and I wonder why I do that? Insecurity!?

There's a lot I don't know and books are one way to find out. I am reading lots of books. They lie all around my house; I bring them upstairs, and then need them downstairs.

One :: Diet for a Hot Planet is a new book out by Anna Lappe, the daughter of the doyen Francis Moore Lappe who wrote Diet for a Small Planet published in 1971.

Two :: Raw Food::Life Force Energy by Natalia Rose which I bought two years ago at TJMaxx at a reduced price. It's a wonder of a book; if you know of a good juicer, let me know. I've been looking at ebay auctions; lost out on one I would have liked, so I seek further.

Three :: Gardening with Wildlife, A Complete Guide to Attracting and Enjoying The Fascinating Creatures In Your Backyard ... A National Wildlife Federation book that is not on Amazon. Here's where we are :: "June has been called the high tide of nature's year. Every form of wildlife seems to be active. Sit on the bench in your garden, stay quiet, listen, and keep your eyes wide open. As you 'hear life murmur and see it glisten,' you'll be surprised how much of the nature lore pictured in this book you can discover for yourself."

In different ways, they are all my favorites right now. And having books is one more way I seek knowing so that I can pretend I know things I don't.

I'm in over my head, though, lacking innocence.

mythic poetry

"In the beginning was the One, and It was infinite in all directions, neither male nor female. But It was alone, and loneliness is not good for the soul. Alone, the divine being yearned to love and be loved, to know and be known, to touch and be touched. And so It split Itself in two. One half male and the other female. The male half we call Shiva----pure, formless, unmoving spirit. The female half we call Shakti, our mother, who is matter and energy and form. Shiva and Shakti have always been one and will always be one, but to our eyes, they appear as two. The minute those two caught sight of each other, they fell in love and had no greater desire than to reunite. Always, we desire the opposite of what we have. This is how things are, even with the gods. The one wanted to become two, and the two wanted to return to their former oneness. Shiva desired Shakti, and she desired him. ...And because we are the children of these lovers, we too yearn for sacred union. "Tat twam asi," say the scriptures, "you are that." You are that divine light playing with itself, always creating, always molding, always seeking shape and form and expression. Therefore, you see, we must honor desire. Without desire there is no creation. This is why we tell our stories about desire and love."

-From Aphrodite's Daughters by Jalaja Bonheim

A movie review that Sounds and Feels like one I'd like to see follows after Scout's cute image:

• Poetry, directed by Lee Changdong — "It has a very simple-seeming premise. It's about an old woman in her '60s who's retired and on a pension, and who works as a maid to help support her grandson. Because her life is slightly boring and [she's] looking for something, she decides to take a poetry-writing workshop. And the poetry professor tells her that she needs to see life as it is. And what gradually happens over the next two hours is, she starts to see that. Her grandson gets involved in a scandal; the way that the parents try to deal with the scandal is kind of nasty. And in fact, she reveals herself to have a much deeper, richer and bigger inner life than you would have imagined. ... And along the way, she learns to see things she hadn't seen before. ... It's a movie centered on people writing poetry, or trying to write poetry, that uses the idea of poetry to take you into a way of seeing the world in a richer and more profound way. I think it was probably one of the two or three most admired films [at Cannes]." -Reviewed by John Powers of NPR

This is what there is to say today

MONDAY OR TUESDAY

by Virginia Woolf

Lazy and indifferent, shaking space easily from his wings, knowing his way, the heron passes over the church beneath the sky. White and distant, absorbed in itself, endlessly the sky covers and uncovers, moves and remains. A lake? Blot the shores of it out! A mountain? Oh, perfect—the sun gold on its slopes. Down that falls. Ferns then, or white feathers, for ever and ever——

Desiring truth, awaiting it, laboriously distilling a few words, for ever desiring—(a cry starts to the left, another to the right. Wheels strike divergently. Omnibuses conglomerate in conflict)—for ever desiring—(the clock asseverates with twelve distinct strokes that it is midday; light sheds gold scales; children swarm)—for ever desiring truth. Red is the dome; coins hang on the trees; smoke trails from the chimneys; bark, shout, cry “Iron for sale”—and truth?

Radiating to a point men’s feet and women’s feet, black or gold-encrusted—(This foggy weather—Sugar? No, thank you—The commonwealth of the future)—the firelight darting and making the room red, save for the black figures and their bright eyes, while outside a van discharges, Miss Thingummy drinks tea at her desk, and plate-glass preserves fur coats——

Flaunted, leaf-light, drifting at corners, blown across the wheels, silver-splashed, home or not home, gathered, scattered, squandered in separate scales, swept up, down, torn, sunk, assembled—and truth?

Now to recollect by the fireside on the white square of marble. From ivory depths words rising shed their blackness, blossom and penetrate. Fallen the book; in the flame, in the smoke, in the momentary sparks—or now voyaging, the marble square pendant, minarets beneath and the Indian seas, while space rushes blue and stars glint—truth? or now, content with closeness?

Lazy and indifferent the heron returns; the sky veils her stars; then bares them.

the basics

Getting back to the basics of "gardening a life," I thought I would explore the basics; ones that truly are basic to my life: shelter, bread, desire and rest. Can you find which one is not like the others?

Baking this bread a few days ago, my mother came to mind. She taught me and my sister how to make yeast bread many years ago, way before bread machines. What a way to learn patience and letting nature take her course, yeast rising is, though I still have a lot of patience to practice. This easy bread from 101cookbooks.com is really easy and enjoying it and sharing it is too. My friend Scout even likes it with peanut butter. Baking bread is very nourishing, like the *loaf itself. (To *loaf is a verb [ intrans. ] and means to idle one's time away, typically by aimless wandering; the word reminds me of Whitman and "Song of Myself").

My Pretty amazing grandmother turned 95 two days ago---an amazing woman we call "Pretty". By the end of the day when I spoke to her for the second time, she said, I "felt like a bride," her home full of flowers, her phone ringing many times, younger friends all of them wishing her well, loving her well, reminding her how important she is. Beau and Mary Ashley and Chapman visited her, while my Dad and his brothers took her to lunch where she imbibed a vodka/gin martini, her choice beverage, but only 1.-) Here's her Pretty doberge cake---wish we could all have a bite while we're here. Happy Birthday to You!

Part of my ritual of rest is reading before bed. It's basic to my day and I found a poem by Jane Hirshfield that speaks of another kind of basic we don't live without, "heat". How like horses, animals really to be absolutely honest about themselves! Another of Hirshfield's poems that I like is "The Conversation," which I found in a magazine recently while waiting for my student Katherine at the North Asheville Library. Here it is:

The Conversation

A woman moves close:
there is something she wants to say.
The currents take you one direction, her another.
All night you are aware of her presence,
aware of the conversation that did not happen.
Inside it are mountains, birds, a wide river,
a few sparse-leaved trees.
On the rivers, a wooden boat putters.
On its deck, a spider washes its face.
Years from now, the boat will reach a port by the sea,
and the generations of spider descendants upon it
will look out, from their near sighted, eightfold eyes,
at something unanswered.

The phrase "a spider washes its faces" shocks me every time. Seeing that spider wash its face makes me laugh; in my mind's eye and giggling. What animal isn't a beast of burden and beauty? What basic isn't a way to be grateful and satisfied? What bread isn't the best? What bed isn't home? What shelter isn't forever? As Whitman says, "Oh me, Oh life."

evidence

With a mind, you can find evidence for anything. Sometimes, we find what we are looking for by thinking of it. Our evidence is in our minds.

Nature isn't like this. Nature shows its evidence. Natures blooms and blossoms and sprouts and shoots out. Nature's spirit needs no thought. It has no mind. It thinks of no evidence. It is its own. I love that. How natural, how perfect, how real.


The singular and cheerful life
of any flower
in anyone's garden
or any still unowned field

if there are any---
catches me
by the heart,
by its color,

by its obedience
to the holiest of laws;
be alive
until you are not.

Ragweed,
pale violet bull thistle,
morning glories curling
through the field corn;

and those princes of everything green---
the grasses
of which there are truly
an uncountable company,

each
on its singular stem
striving
to rise and ripen.

What, in the earth world,
is there not to be amazed by
and to be steadied by
and to cherish?

Oh, my dear heart,
my own dear heart,
full of hesitations,
questions, choice of directions,

look at the world.
Behold the morning glory,
the meanest flower, the ragweed, the thistle.
Look at the grass.
*Mary Oliver

Back in Asheville, after a trip to New Orleans, I am steadied and grounded again by the trees in blossom, the succulence wateriness, the wind's influence on my face and body as I sit on my porch admiring the lilies in bloom across the street, lilac, rose, purple.