The View From Here/Up For This Week

The View From Here/ Up For This Week

We've gotten a little ahead of ourselves! We spent some of yesterday morning building raised beds and thinking optimistically about planting out some of the seedlings that we planted rather prematurely, maybe even sowing clover seed all over the ground too… And this morning there were three inches of snow on the ground (it snowed like crazy yesterday evening) - every branch and every limb and every bough gilded and filigreed with a crust of fresh snow. 

So yes, the naturopath was right: it's not really spring yet! But - after a slow dawn of monochrome, the sun is bright now, the colors have seeped back into the world, gusts of wind have swept the crusting off from all the surfaces. Every time the snow melts, the temperature warms up some more and the thaws are more rapid. And our rhubarb is budding up from the ground, grass is poking through the snow in places. Phil found nettles growing beyond the sprout stage buried in our pile of topsoil (food for thought: we love nettles but don't want them in our raised beds)!

I think I mentioned somewhere earlier my insight of last summer that living somewhere with as extreme a climate as this would be kind of like traveling without going anywhere because the place itself changes so much around the year. Right now I am experiencing this really intensely. Virtually every day, it seems, we awaken to a new place - sometimes several 'places' within one day.

But meanwhile, nothing gets planted out today! I was telling my dad on the phone yesterday (in response to his surprised query: 'Do you have room for plants indoors?') that at the moment, our cabin resembles a cross between tic-tac-toe and one of those puzzles where you have to slide the tiles around to put the picture together: in order to move at all, we have to pick something up and move it over something, or slide it around something else!

A lentil sprout dropped into the tray of carrot plants and is tall and proud: the carrots are an army of prayerful faithful, arms upstretched toward the ever-increasing light, begging 'outside!'

Up For This Week

Up for this week - there will be another 'Wordstalk' and word-related stuff. I will do one last wrap-up post on the no-sugar treats, although maybe I shouldn't call it 'last' as there is always going to be more to say about it. Like a little recipe book in installments.

I wrote my post on Eating Disorder Recovery Physical Aftermaths off-the-cuff on Saturday and will start by posting a few additional thoughts. It was very intense and poignant for me to write that, and I am feeling some angst and questing feelings about what my duty is regarding this whole issue. The story just never ends: I have thought myself 'completely recovered' several times and it keeps coming back at me. I wonder if it will be easier once all the physical issues are better. But I wish I could have a clearer view of my life purpose, of how to help others not to suffer as I have.

Last week I found myself tremendously inspired by the naturopath and also by a poet-as-performing artist: both are paths that I could imagine wanting to take in order to help others through being my best. I have been a performing artist in an earlier period of my life and also have spent significant time training as a healer. Writing poetry - and performing it aloud - may be what I love to do most of all: but I love the idea of doing healing work too. Here are some more answers to my question 'Why do I want my strength back?'

At the moment, though, I have to rebuild my energy and face up to the fact that whilst I have felt strong and sure that I want to heal and recover, I'm encountering serious blocks and resistance to the idea that gaining weight could be any part of that. Cleansing and purging felt fine and safe as healing work: the naturopath emphasized and re-emphasized building and re-building, and said I'm too thin. (No I'm not!) So, more on that later this week.

Hey - this is Post Number 50 for this blog! Who-hoo!