Solstice, Christmas, Remembering the Deceased

This was sunrise on solstice day. Just had to share. From inside this house's arctic entry, complete with icicles. It warmed up to 12 degrees this morning!

When I was growing up, my family celebrated Christmas in a non-religious but spiritually aware way, although "spiritual" is a scare-quotes word for my parents. I'm just using it as a quick index of the tapping into collective consciousness of the stasis and preparation for forward momentum lent by the Solstice, as well as harmonization with the celebratory mood all around us.

But one tradition I want to honor is this: we always made a toast (regardless of what was being drunk) to "absent friends." Christmas is obviously a celebration of birth and new beginnings at the darkest time--in Romance languages at least, the name of Christmas refers to birth (Noel, Natale, Navidad, etc...) But since it's the time where energy, life force, dwindles, diminishes to vanishing point, it seems right to me to remember those who left us this year as well. 
So, here I am wearing a jacket that Larry gave me as a gift some years ago.

Around my neck is a chain from my grandmother, and on it an old Iraqi gold ornament intended to be worn, several of them, in the hair. There are little leaves of beaten gold at the bottom, together with an old coin, and they would have jingled in the hair slightly as the wearer moved about. And check out the intricacy of curled gold on the main "bulb" itself.

It's a little too three-dimensional to wear all the time, I'm finding, but oh my I love it so much. Christmas, remembering my Iraqi-Jewish grandmother, my artist brother in law... I feel gratitude and warmth; gratitude also for my home away from home friends and family here, who fit me in so graciously.
Love, warmth, renewal to everyone. 

Solstice Settling and Sprouting

I returned to Alaska in the middle of the first big snow of what had thus far been a mild winter. In the week that I've been back there's already been a couple feet of snow, some extreme cold, and a thaw to rain, piles of snow melting and whooshing off the steep roofs, icing up on the roads...and it's supposed to freeze back down and snow all over again by the end of today. I've been swiftly reminded of how important weather and the weather forecast become during the winters here--more so than it would somewhere with a less maritime and so changeable climate.

Fortunately, the place I'm blessed to be house-sitting this winter is snug, comfortable, and beautiful, so I won't at all mind being snowed in for a few days should that happen.
Here's the view from a window, with Mount Augustine out in the ocean, and the full moon. 

And from another direction, sunrise...

In this season of least light, the colors forced through the spectrum at this latitude are spectacular. Reputedly the north-facing window in this house has stadium-side view of the Northern Lights when they're out, so that's something I look forward to in the next month or so when that tends to happen.

It's quiet up here, even remote-feeling, although it is also right at that pinnacle of the bluff where there are updrafts and, from the highway, you can see the ravens levitating and floating and playing in those drafts. I've heard chickadees and pheasants, seen the lift-drag of pheasant tracks close to the house. When I headed out on snowshoes after a big snowfall, I wandered off the road and crossed the tracks of a large moose.

I'm cultivating some life indoors as vibrant company for the winter also. One of the first things I did was shred up a cabbage, add a bit of raw sauerkraut juice, and set it to kraut--vibrant bacteria. And then I've been making sprouts. There's buckwheat on the left and fenugreek on the right, both of which are cheap and sprout super-readily. 

I sprouted just a little buckwheat, about a quarter cup, because I wasn't sure if I'd tolerate it and I'm not really tolerating much of anything very well right now.
Was pleased to find, as I'd expected, that it's dry enough here that I could dry the sprouted buckwheat just leaving it in a warm place in the room; no dehydrator necessary.

The quarter-cup of buckwheat blended with three large dates (two and a half would have sufficed) and some cinnamon to make six little bliss balls--with no fat, if that's your bag. Each of them just a small amount of buckwheat, and so far so good tolerance-wise, but maybe that's not enough to really be able to tell.

As for the fenugreek, which I've been sprouting and eating for years, my friend Ofek in Israel tipped me off to a special property it has, which may not be surprising given its mucilaginous character.
When you blend up sprouted fenugreek in a Vitamix or similar with a bit of water, it foams up like crazy, so that it ends up looking like irish moss...

...of course, though, it's not neutral flavored like irish moss; it has fenugreek's signature pungent, curry-like taste. It could be overwhelming all by itself, although obviously the added moisture cuts it. Pretty good with some sauerkraut, avocado, and green powders. The Arab Israelis and the Yemenis make a sort of salsa with it called hilbeh, which I didn't get to try while I was in Israel, but which sounds somewhat reminiscent of Moroccan harissa. It's often offered as a hot relish at falafel stands, so since I tend to go for spicy it's reasonably likely that I've tried it in the past all unaware.
Traditionally this is a time of year that I enjoy playing with food and making goodies, as this blog can amply testify! This year, between having just been gone, getting used to staying in a different place, and the fact that my own body isn't getting along that great with food, I haven't yet figured out what sort of playing I can do for holiday gifts and for fun. But this new foamy substance, with the challenge of its intense and specific flavor, is a challenge indeed. 
Dare I say "watch this space"?

Meanwhile, I got into fenugreek leaves on my trip--after we got back from Israel, ironically; they're readily and very cheaply available at the Indian and Turkish markets near where my parents live. Less pungent than the seed, a little succulent like purslane, delicious. I came home with a big sack of soil yesterday, and am preparing to grow some little greens--fenugreek, red clover.

It feels good to be quiet, alone, and still this solstice (which literally means "sun standing still"). To feel grateful to have such a comfortable and beautiful place to be. To sleep late and not berate myself for it too much. To drink lemon water and nettle tea tinged with Earl Grey. To write. To have dirt on my fingers. To go for a short walk and have dirt under my feet through the washed-out snow. To ponder the problem of my bifurcated blog and how to return to one web home. 
And, to ask the universe, where next? I'm at a still point right now, but this is transition time. I set the intention that when I have to leave this house at the beginning of April I will move smoothly into another house-sitting arrangement, but I will also have some clarity on where I'm headed next. I have no idea, except that it's coming time for me to move away from Alaska. I don't know where. And as the sun holds still, so do I, and for a little time that's okay.

Happy Solstice--I hope yours is peaceful with the stillness that precedes germination.

Last Post from the UK; Memories as Resets

...Or at least, I strongly suspect I won't post here again until I'm back either in or en route to Alaska. I've been trying to make the most of the people I'm with here for the time I still have. I'm also doing some of the Holiday goodies preparations I do every year--nice to be able to do it for my family this time. Lots of cacao butter melting, etc...

Trying to internalize some of the lessons being offered me from nearest and dearest--heaven knows there are always lessons to learn.
My dad offered me an interesting perspective on memory as a conduit to a "system restore" for the state of being. He said that if one can return to one's earliest memories, if they are true memories, then one can return to the experience of the state one was in before any of it got overlaid with all the crap that gets laid down as one moves through life. This offers the possibility of freedom--a fresh start, even--a whole new perspective or lease on life.

So many ways we think of memory. A wax tablet that records impressions and then gets overlaid with other impressions, preserving some of them faithfully, blurring others over.
Will I remember real elephants when I think of Petra years from now?

A filing cabinet in which thoughts and experiences and details get stuffed away, sometimes with an orderly retrieval system, sometimes to be buried in further mounds of paperwork.
A central processing unit with spinning drive that selects from impressions stored hither and thither associated with different parts of the body in which they were experienced.
Sometimes memories are on the tip of conscious retrieval, like a clearing at the end of a slot canyon with a prize edifice filling its vista, elusive and splendid.

Memories can be spatial. Sometimes I walk into a room and don't know what I came in for, but when I return to where I came from, the memory returns. I think that happens to everyone.

Food holds so many memories, and bodies remember food in significant ways. Teach me lessons about memory. The flavor or aroma that takes you back instantly to the first place you encountered it. Something that made you sick as a little kid that you can never stand the taste of again. (My brother still won't eat apples after such an experience when he was maybe four years old.)
Sometimes you can put something in your mouth and spit it out before it's an actual experience. Some things you put in your mouth melt before you can spit them out, and the experience has already become a part of you. The instant you put it in your mouth was a choice, and you can't take it back.

source: http://www.123rf.com/photo_11424837_bunch-of-dates-is-hanging-from-the-palm.html

Do I remember everything I put in my mouth that melted into me before I was aware of how it was creating me?

Dates...dates are always good. Memories of California, Hawaii, Israel always Israel all the way back...Even though there were a couple years I wouldn't let myself eat them, my body remembers them and is grateful.

Right now, my body remembers coconut milk and gets snotty the moment it gets any, since I guess anything you eat almost exclusively for a long period of time your body develops some intolerance for. 

Let me remember this and not spoil dates for myself, or whatever the next thing is.

Are food allergies themselves a form of memory? What if we could remember before we were born, and be able to rewind all the baggage with which we came into this life, start afresh?

Whichever way it is, a memory is a bridge--but between then and now, or between now and now?

So much of these past two months I've spent in the UK and Israel have flown away like water under a bridge (another bridge, or the same bridge?), so many words and movements I'll never remember. I want to make sure to take some true memories with me, godspeed toward dawning of certainty of what my next step should be.

I feel privileged to be so well loved and supported as I negotiate whether I'm passing under a bridge or crossing over it.

Or what the bridge is, or how much I need to know about where it's leading...