The View From Here/Up For This Week; Our Outward Beauty (Reflections on Self Love)

The View From Here

Happy Monday to All! A quick stop-press on my Amazing Grass Giveaway: I had originally said that I would run the giveaway until tomorrow, Tuesday September 14th. However, Phil and I may go across the bay tomorrow to look for some late-fruiting currants. If so, and if we don't get back by the end of the day, I may not be here to do the random selection of a winner! So it may turn out that the giveaway runs through Wednesday 15th. I hope this is ok for everyone!

I've been blogging every day lately in honor of the 30 Days of Reflection on Self Love - I'll re-evaluate that pace at the end of the month (and if I'm gone tomorrow, I may have to miss a day, but will try to cram it in unless we have to camp), but at the moment, it feels like a bit too much, quantity over quality for me a little bit - we've had a lot of guests and chores. So apologize if these aren't great posts - some days, it won't be much more than the day's reflection on self love.

So, today's reflection: Tina points out that "we must not forget that outward appearance does not define our worth as a whole. However, we must also feel free to declare out beauty on the outside. We all desire it…and we all have it! What physical characteristic makes you beautiful?"

Ouch - that's a hard one for me to do. But Phil would say it's only hard for my 'demon' - and he would be right. The part of me that squirms and sighs at that assignment is the part that's always trying to tear me down and never wants to acknowledge that I'm precious in any way. Do we all have a character like that within us? What a good way to quiet it, focusing on these things!

Well, I've always had compliments about my lips - except when I was a little kid and was teased. They're middle-eastern lips - full, the lower slightly fuller than the upper. Good kissing! And even I like my eyes. They're large and not brown, not green, but some of both depending on the light, and often golden.

For 'inner beauty,' or nutritional peace, at least, I've been loving my green smoothies since having changed them up a bit as mentioned before.

A couple nights ago I gathered these wild greens for it:

I was experimenting to see if raspberry leaves as well as the berries would be good in a smoothie. Raspberry leaf tea is a godsend for menstrual cramps, especially mixed with licorice. I wanted a test run for that time of the month, to see if I could just blend and drink them. The raspberry leaves are on the left of the photo. On the right are some stinging nettles. Behind the raspberry leaves are some plantain leaves - it's a ubiquitous weed with loads of good herbal properties; the seeds are almost the same thing as psyllium. And behind the plantain is chickweed. They're all sitting on the solar shower that we warm water in to wash with when it's warm enough here. It's very seldom warm enough for me to stand outside naked on the stoop and wash myself, but Phil does it even in midwinter! I stand inside in a rubbermaid tub! Oh, and the smoothie was great - raspberry leaves and all!

Up for this Week

Like I said, I'll try to keep up the pace with daily reflections on self-love. 

Gorgeous weather again here, although the fog has rolled in from the ocean this afternoon. Such a blessing, this sudden summery weather, more summer than we had all summer!

I found this weevil in our raspberries - I pick really carefully, and it's still astonishing to me how many bugs end up in the berries!

Under magnification, you can see that it has a veritable drill bit on the end of its nose! Evidently, it can bore into anything!

Those are delectable raspberries… I'm so grateful that I can enjoy them.

My First Blog Giveaway! And the Power of Perspective

If I can get blogger to co-operate - here goes with my first ever blog giveaway!

I am so grateful to Amazing Grass for their generosity in sending me so many samples to try out - hope you saw my series of reviews for them last week. Now, we're teaming up for a giveaway! 

More on that in a moment - first, today's reflection on self love - 'How do you witness the power of perspective in your life? Do you currently face something where your perspective could make a difference?

Awe and gratitude to Tina once again for a wonderfully-crafted series of reflections, that have been such a powerful tool in my own work on becoming my best - and we are just coming to the end of our first week.

Cauliflower leaves look so huge in the perspective of chives and carrots. And the thought of the frozen months makes all this fecundity so treasured…

Perspective… We all have our true north, but even true north has its declination. I love that Tina has brought in 'perspective' as a part of this invitation to find our true north. Self love is all about finding the best expression of our own gifts, but perspective invites us to acknowledge that this expression is flexible in different contexts.

I feel that my 'true north' is my poetry writing, and that everything else I do feeds into it somehow. But, as Alaska's Writer Laureate Nancy Lord advised us in the closing speech of the Kachemak Bay Writers Conference back in June, it's good to do 'other writerly things' as well as just writing. Perspective tells me that I can't realistically expect to have wonderful poems springing forth fully formed like Athena from Zeus' head every single day, nor that the process of revision will be as delightful in every case as I often find it to be. 'Other writerly things' include reading, even reading the occasional low-brow genre novel (amazing the kinds of poetic ideas that come from excursions of those kinds), walking in nature, blogging, gardening, interacting with other writers. 

A sense of perspective also dulls the aching edge of perfectionism. Since we are all coming from different perspectives, it's foolish for me to think that everyone who reads my work is going to love it - indeed, it encourages me to stop and think about whether I even want it to appeal to everyone!

The realization that it's OK to have preferences has come very late to me, and it's a precious freedom.

Raspberries are full-on here. I put a handful, that I'd just harvested, in my smoothie this morning, with chia-sweet, a ts of flax, pea protein powder, almond-brazil milk, herbal tea (reishi and fo-ti and chai rooibos), maca and wheatgrass juice. I love how the Vita-Mix can handle all those little seeds and the wonderful, thick, smooth texture of the smoothie!

Because that is how I love to make my smoothies, I chose Amazing Grass' superfood powders to give away (as opposed to the 'made up' meal replacements and energy bars) - I think the superfood powders are just a wonderful 'ingredient' that also stand alone just mixed with water. And so, I'm giving away an 8.5 oz bottle of the 'original' green superfood powder 

and another of the chocolate flavor. 

The chocolate flavor tastes out of this world to me; the original flavor is great too (but not quite chocolate!) but it doesn't have the oat fiber that I, for one, have to treat with caution, so I think it's an even more super product.

Please enter this giveaway and take your chance to enjoy Amazing Grass' great products and generosity!

To Enter:

1 - Mandatory - leave a comment below telling me why you want to win this.

2 - Visit Amazing Grass' website and leave a comment back here telling me which products interest you the most.

3 - Tweet this giveaway with a link and reference me @Ela_HG - and leave a comment here telling me you've done so.

4 - Follow Amazing Grass on twitter and leave a comment here telling me you've done so.

5 - Mention this giveaway on your blog - and leave five entries here saying you've done so.

I'm going to run this for a week and announce the winner next Tuesday. Good luck and thanks!