Playin’ The Edge

Often from our seeming weaknesses we can learn a new way.  The things we do well, where we have developed our greatest self-confidence, can become habitual, bringing a sense of false security.  They are not where our spiritual life will best open.  If it is our strength to think through things carefully, then thoughts wil not be our best spiritual teacher.  If it is already our way to follow our strong feelings, then feelings are not where we will learn best. 

The place where we can most directly open to the mystery of life is in what we don’t do well, in the places of our struggles and vulnerability.  These places always require surrender and letting go: When we let ourselves become vulnerable, new things can be born in us.  In risking the unknown we gain a sense of life itself.  And most remarkably, that which we have sought is often just here, buried under the problem and the weakness itself.

Jack Kornfield, A Path With Heart

Indian-Style Lentils

Heat a T of oil in a saucepan.  Add a chopped onion and cook until it begins to soften.  Sprinkle with 1 tsp of curry, cumin and coriander, a 1/2 tsp of salt and a sprinkle of pepper. Add a couple nickel-size slices of fresh ginger and squish in 2 cloves of garlic. Add 1 1/2 cups of lentils, 2 c of chicken stock and 2 c water. 

Bring to a boil while you scrub up a couple carrots (if organic, or peel if not organic).  Slice them in.  Let everything simmer with the lid off-center for 30-40 minutes until the lentils are soft.  Feel free to add any other veggies you like.  I added a handful of chopped up cilantro at the end.  Let it cool a bit and it’ll thicken.  Serve over brown rice.  Makes 4-6 servings. 

I’m not one of those folks who can eat the same thing for multiple meals, especially when I’m detoxing, it just depresses me.  So I enjoyed the lentils a couple of times and threw the rest in the freezer for later in the detox.  Another thing I want to try is to water the lentils down some, throw half in the blender and mix it back together for lentil soup. 

Ah it’s that time of year again, I’ve bought the kit and stocked the kitchen.  I’m also enjoying an artery-clogging meal of this amazing baked rigatoni dish I found in a Donna Hay cookbook. 

The pasta is gooed up with ricotta, parmesan, eggs, and sour cream and I added garlic and crisp bacon for good measure.  And I’m getting extra enjoyment cos I won’t be having any of *that* stuff for 12 days.  But it’ll feel good to mark the dismissal of winter food eating and remind myself what a green veg looks like. 

Here’s what I got in case it’s helpful to any other detoxers out there:

- the biggest bag of organic brown rice I could find - repeat it with me “brown rice is a detoxer’s friend”

- puffed rice cereal

- unsweetened plain soy milk (it doesn’t taste great but what else are you going to put on the cereal?)

- frozen veggies for when I get lazy

- frozen fruit for putting on cereal or whirring up a smoothie with soy milk

- eggs (I’m going to fry up some peppers and onions the night before, and then throw them in a container with a beaten egg and cilantro to nuke for breakfast)

- chick peas to make this recipe in the slow cooker

- almond butter to put on anything that doesn’t move for snacktime (or I’ll make oat cakes on the weekend)

- brown rice cakes - see “almond butter”

- pistachios - I noticed these babies hiding on the 20% list of page 13.  You can bet I’m going to be cracking a handful of those babies with a piece of fruit at snacktime

- the costco-size bag of almonds - repeat it with me now “almonds are a detoxer’s friend”

- a box of organic chicken stock (you have to check these carefully to make sure they’re not full of MSG and unprounceable ingredients)

- lentils to make an indian lentil rice thing, stay tuned for the recipe

- ground pork to make some kickin’ thai meatballs, stay tuned for the recipe

- a bag of sliced up cabbage for coleslaw, hopefully I’ll get to that recipe too

- some new vanilla roobois tea to trick myself into thinking I’m drinking red wine (I’ll be much too sober for it to work, but I can try)

I’m feeling virtuous already.

I got a message on Facebook yesterday from Tommy, a classmate from elementary school.  Apparently he’s Tom now but I’ll always think of him as soccer-loving Tommy.  I had a total crush on him in grade 5.  We lost track of each other after grade 7.   It was so good to hear from him. 

I grew up in the burbs outside Vancouver.  He was one of the kids from Barnston Island, a small island in the Fraser River.  There was only one bus that came to our school and it brought the white farm kids and the native kids over on the ferry from the island. 

My friend Corina and I decided to take our bikes there one day.  We rode to the ferry and took it over.  The ferry is actually a tugboat pushing a small barge and it only takes the trip across when people are at one stop or the other waiting for it.  Then we biked the flat country roads passing the farms and fields and houses.  We weren’t really looking but we found Tommy’s house.  His last name was handpainted in black on the mailbox.  Tommy’s house was a really tiny, really rustic place. 

I remember we stopped and looked and we were really surprised.  Me and my friends all had big suburban kind of houses.  For my family it was more about family-size and land availability, not so much the size of our bank account.  But it was my first lesson in Things Aren’t the Same For Everyone. It also gave me the first feeling that Things Are Different If You’re Native.

I have no connection to the place I grew up anymore.  I lived there from age 4 to 21 or so and could not wait to get away.  I moved to the city the minute I could.  My family moved away shortly after and now I’m even farther, on the other side of the country.   I guess that’s why it was good to hear from Tommy.  To feel some connection to a place that was Home at one time.  It sounds like Tommy’s doing great, he’s in Vancouver and still plays soccer.

I drove past the home where I grew up 5 years or so ago.  It’s exactly the same and so is the area.  It’s still a rural suburban kind of place.  The homogenous housing subdivisions haven’t encroached yet.  The Italian family up the road still have sheep in their yard. The 10 acre horse farm is still around the corner. 

Corina is the only other person whose friended me from my elementary days.  She still lives in there and told me that they’re building a new bridge across the Fraser river.  The highway that attaches to it will probably cut right through where I used to live.  I just hope they don’t build it too close to Barnston island.

“Do not try to become anything. Do not make yourself into anything. Do not be a meditator. Do not become enlightened. When you sit, let it be. When you walk, let it be. Grasp at nothing. Resist nothing.”

A Still Forest Pool: The Insight Meditation of Achaan Chah, Jack Kornfield

Have you done the “Sat Nam” meditation before? It rhymes with “But Mom”.  The Kundalini yoga folks use it alot.  I read that it means “I Am That” and I didn’t really get it before.  It also means “That” as in the “Truth” or the “Divine”.  I don’t really get that either, but it came to mind recently.

At work I was moved to sit next to some geeky guys who I didn’t know from Adam.  I wasn’t happy with the change, not the geeky guys so much as the changes.  I said some not-nice things about my new neighbours.  I was angry.  I was in SERIOUS RESIST MODE.