Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, or Words? Help Me Choose My Mascot!

Good morning! Sunshine morning today, and a meeting of poets to look forward to.


Today's prompt: Give yourself, your condition, or your health focus a mascot. WEGO represents the concept of a mascot as part of our "branding," to make ourselves more recognizable and visually appealing. That's all well and good; but to me, even more important in the concept of a mascot is the idea of something that transmutes the focuses of my writing into a symbol, that encapsulates my best self, that offers protection.


So, I have several candidates for a mascot, some of which you've seen already. I'd love your thoughts as to which one should be "the mascot"--please let me know!

Animal 

My fluffy "security duster" is an obvious candidate for blog mascot. It's my favorite green, symbolizing growth, nature, renewal. Its tactile appeal takes me out of my head; also takes me out of the moment of emotional torment.

I put it in the "animal" category because that's where humans originally come across soft fleecy fluffiness. I'm not much of an animal lover/pet person, but I recognize the value of pet therapy and how animals can take us out of our heads.


Turtle totem--a couple years ago, I had a vision in which I was "given" the turtle as a totem and protective animal. This worked all kinds of ways. At the time, I was undergoing chelation for heavy metal toxicity: the word "chelation" comes from the Greek word for "turtle." The Latin for turtle, testudo, is also the word for a military formation in which a unit of infantry close ranks and make a wall and roof with their shields. Thorough protection. And it was explained to me in the vision that, per the Aesop fable, I was constantly being "the hare," rushing rushing striving pushing, and needed to allow more "tortoise" into my modus operandi.


Phil had given me these bone turtles from China--I wore one around my neck for a while, but couldn't find an aesthetically pleasing way to use it as a pendant.

 Vegetable

Continuing the green theme of my security duster, an aloe plant seems like a pretty obvious potential mascot.

It grows expansively with little soil, needs little fuel--just like me! It has healing properties and wisdom within its leaves. There is so much more happening under the surface (more on that in the "Words" category). It is patient and enduring, and its bitterness and astringency are bracing and medicinal.

Mineral

Two candidates for the "mineral" category also.

First, my "three-ring circus" ring.

That was my engagement ring--it cost $1 at a thrift store but we love it, so don't tell anyone! I'm wearing it as my wedding ring right now, because my actual wedding ring, which was always too big, kept falling off, and I didn't want to lose it.


This is a candidate for a mascot because of the three intertwined rings--different realities intersecting with one another, touching one another, circles completing themselves but impinging on others--all good reflections for me in terms of thinking about how my presence in the world affects other people, how my actions affect others, how different facets of my own complex self are mutually influencing.


The other "mineral" candidate--I mentioned in my Ten Essentials post how much I love collecting rocks, and my particular penchant for rocks with holes in them. One of the "holey' rocks Phil and Terry found for me on their hikes two weekends ago was smaller than any I've found yet--here it is with my pinkie for scale (and my pinkies are tiny!)--

Like the turtles above, I've wondered about making this into a pendant and wearing it, but don't have the talent to know how to make it look nicer than a rock on a string around my neck! I love how round this one is, how it looks almost like a face in repose. The juxtaposition of the solidity of rock with a space of "nothing" bored right through it is a call to meditation similar to the interlooped circles of my ring.

Words

Finally, since I'm a "words" person first and foremost, my initial reaction to this prompt was that I already had a mascot: it's the tagline at the top of this page! "The unapparent harmony is more powerful than the apparent one," Heraclitus' fragment 36. Not only does this explain the (possibly not catchy or sexy) name of my blog; it also offers an explanation for the quest for balance that inspires all of my conscious actions--and yes, I perpetrate all too many unconscious actions!

What do you think? Please tell me which of these would be the best mascot! Any advice from you jewelry-makers out there on how to make the rock into a pendant would be welcome also. And shares of what your mascot would be. Much love.

Prompt Housekeeping! And Cosying Up to Fat HAWMC #23

^ Another fun ambiguous title! If you could see the mess that is my house, though, you'd know what a big joke "prompt housekeeping" is around here too!


But on this "anything goes" HAWMC day, I want to share some updates on how the prompts and my responses to them have helped me in my life.


First, though, can I get a "YAY"?! Last night, I sent in my eighth and final "packet" of my first year MFA to my mentor! This was an ambitious packet, including a Sonnet Crown and an intense 24-page personal essay (covering some of the health-related stuff we're talking about this month, amongst other things), and my critical papers each compassed not one but two collections by the authors in question. When I went to bed having sent it all off, my saying "I write with my ears" came back to me, as I lay awake listening to various phrases and stanzas from the essays and poems I'd just sent off playing back in my head. That's one big obligation accomplished--and I'm so looking forward to writing and reading more, addressing those piles of needy poem drafts.


At the beginning of last week, I was a mess. I was afraid to go to my writers groups on Monday and Tuesday--afraid that something ugly would spill out of me. Well, thanks to a couple of the prompts on here, I came home from the Monday night group feeling much better. On the thirty-minute walk to that meeting, I realized I was singing rembetika songs by Vasilis Tzitzannis. I love that music, but it has a strong association with a very dark time in my life. I changed channel--to my theme song! I was sorry not to have made up my own song, but love that I reconnected with this happy Hebrew children's song that could be construed as a metaphor for my own crazy whirlings. So yes, I walked on down to town singing "Uga uga uuga" to myself--lucky it's a small town and no one else was on the street! And I felt lighter-spirited when I arrived at the meeting than if I'd been singing "periplanomenos, distichismenos..." (wandering far from home, out of luck...) all the way there.


I also took my fluffy duster with me to the meeting and clutched it the whole time. That helped, too.

Cosying up to Fat

Although I'm sorry it worried a few people, my "crisis" post was an opportunity to be frank and open about a difficult subject that I've been very tempted to dodge and soft-pedal. It's harder to do that when people you care about are affected by concern--but I still seem capable of dodging! That said, let's be glad for small successes. I haven't doubled my food intake yet, but I am eating significantly more.

I've also chosen to think of this situation as an opportunity to figure out my ideal macronutrient ratios, since I'm working pretty much from the ground up. For whatever it's worth, whenever I do "body-typing" tests, whether they be ayurvedic, adrenal, slow/fast oxidizer, or whatever else, I always test out as someone who would do better with more fat in the diet, protein too. The first time my Naturopath laid eyes on me two years ago (when I'd lost too much weight, but in reference to my bloodwork rather than my appearance), he said "you need to eat more fat--protein too, but fat. Fat." I know from my brutal low-carb stint that this does not mean don't eat carbs at all... On the other hand, what do I always end up eating? CARBS--mostly non-starchy veggies, making up the difference with fruit and starchy veggies; dried fruit for a quick fix. What am I phobic of? FAT! And what do I have trouble digesting, except for spirulina/chlorella? Protein...

So, I've invited myself to cosy up to fat, bearing in mind its greater caloric density. As hard as I'm finding it to increase caloric intake, if I can add in some fat, thereby adding calories with little volume, that might work well. The trouble with this is that the only fats I'm comfortable eating are coconut and flax/chia/hemp. And last time around, when I first started with my Naturopath, I ate a lot of coconut oil, not as much as he wanted me to, but way lots for my body, mostly in recipes like this mint chocolate bark, which also included nuts and seeds. I wasn't eating a lot of calories overall, but eating these kinds of thing every day, I gained much more weight than was comfortable for me, which ultimately led me back to where I am now. Amber was talking about coconut on her blog recently, and I expressed my frustration at having gained so much weight eating it a couple years ago when everyone always says it's impossible to gain weight on. We agreed that it was possibly due to the lack of fiber in the straight oil (plus my serpentine metabolism). So this time around, I'm going for more fibrous versions of coconut!

Yesterday's breakfast was carrot 'slaw with the addition of a couple grams of shredded coconut--chewy, coconutty, add cardamom--yummy!

 Today's breakfast was shredded jicama with a little nut milk (1/4 cup unsweetened almond breeze, which really doesn't have many almonds in it!), with a couple grams shredded coconut, a teaspoon of maca, and a few cacao nibs. Since I think maca and coconut are such a delicious combination, I added a couple drops of medicine flower coconut flavor extract also. Also yummy!

Coconut butter, aka creamed coconut, aka coconut spread, also has all the fiber intact! I mentioned that this is one way you can get it...

You can also simply make it yourself in the food processor or vitamix from shredded coconut, just like making any other nut butter! But yesterday, I opened my jar of Wilderness Family's version, and measured out a careful teaspoonful to add to my spirulina smoothie!

After my train wreck day last week, I also pulled out my algae oil DHA/EPA supplement. I recognize that a good omega-3 profile is positively correlated with good brain function--good mental health and mood balance too, for that matter. I haven't been eating much flax/chia/hemp at all lately, so it seemed a good idea to start on that supplement again. It tastes disgusting, but I think I've been functioning better since then.

Are YOU cosy with fat?