Reflections on Self-Love - Loving Others - Saving Fall Colors

We were fogged in this morning but it burned off and it's so glorious outside, I can hardly bear to be indoors! So I'm going to keep this short.

Those fall colors we have here at the moment are spectacular.

We are soaking those colors in, imprinting them on the insides of our eyelids, to sustain us through the coming winter months, with the lessening of earthly color. (It's true, even in the winter, we get some spectacular skies here.)

I'm going to follow Tina's lead and keep this post short and sweet, but today's reflection on self-love has to do with loving others. Tina asks: "How are you going to show love to someone this weekend? We have numerous people in our lives to love - be open to all!"

Well, for me, it has to start with Phil, with snuggling in bed this morning and not getting up until almost 8; with giving thanks for getting to spend my days beside such a remarkable human being.  I am gradually getting to know more people here in Homer, but I have so many people that are so dear to me in places that I have lived prior to Alaska. Almost every week, I think of picking up the phone and calling one or another of them. I do manage to talk to my mum, who is a wise and wonderful woman, every single week. But otherwise, I really have not been good at calling my friends and telling them I love them. So, this weekend I'm going to do some of that. We even have free minutes on the cellphone at the weekend, so then the only excuse is that the cellphone doesn't work very well at home!

Especially since having gotten internet at home, I am pretty good at keeping up with people by email, and I consider many of my blog and other long-distance friends as very dear to me too. I hope that writing a daily post in support of 30 days of self-love can be construed as an expression of love to everyone who cares to read and join in.  That piece of advice comes into play again, that the best gift you can give to others is to take the best care of yourself. I have found this daily post to be a real help with my own mindfulness in a self-love process, even while chelating and getting to that time of the month where I might be feeling worse about myself or cranky. 

Thanks and love to Tina for the inspiration!

Reflection on Self Love - Body Parts Again; Psychic Moments; Fall Colors

Happy Friday!

Once again, the weather didn't co-operate, so we stayed around Homer, but we did go for a beautiful hike in the hills, above the fog, and saw some wonderful colors.

Here's that same view from when we hiked up there in mid-August - so quickly summer becomes autumn here!

Today's reflection on self-love - back to body parts! Argh... I'm not feeling good about myself today, just generally out of sorts. Been working too hard, getting anxious about our trip to Oregon that's coming up so soon and all the chores still to do here before everything freezes.

Here's the 'body parts' post from last week, where I highlighted hands, nose and lips.
And here's the one from two weeks ago, where I highlighted ears, brain and heart.

Today, my first though was to do hands , but no fair since I did them last week. My fingers have just been tapping out miles and miles with all the work I've been doing typing away!
Ok, so instead, today I celebrate my wrists. They are so mobile and flexible, and they do such hard work as a conduit for all those nervous and muscular impulses coming from my brain. They are narrow and shapely, and they let me know when I need to take a break.
And I thank my eyes. Nowadays, since I had Lasik two years ago, they see extremely keenly; but even back when they were myopic and astigmatic, they were - and are - keenly observant and good at picking things out and spotting things, whether typos in a manuscript I'm editing or the movement of a deer hundreds of yards away.
My feet also do a wonderful job. They connect me to the ground. They give me so much information about what is all around me. They carry me over all kinds of rocky terrain - tussocks in boggy terrain in the hills, boulders and pebbles on the beach. Great gratitude to them!

Here is angelica going to seed with some fireweed turning autumnal behind it.

There was some discussion on Averie's blog about psychic moments and impulses a couple days ago.
I had two psychic moments yesterday, one good, one bad. The good one: night before last, I was sweeping some dirt off our bed in the loft by hand, and my wedding ring went flying off into the dark. The next morning, and off and on all day, I looked around for it but didn't find it. Then, in the evening, I was sitting at the computer on the couch and it suddenly occurred to me that I still hadn't found it. I then looked up and looked directly at it - and it was hidden under something, barely visible and probably not visible from any other angle!

So it's back in place, as I show this nagoonberry from our hike -

Then, the bad premonition: I was making bread for Phil, and as I did my usual dance backing away from the initial cloud of flour to avoid breathing it in, I found myself thinking about the dangers of cross-contamination and wondering how other allergic folks who fix gluten food for their partners manage. A minute later, the sack of flour fell over and tipped flour all over my new batch of no-sugar energy bars that was drying in front of the heater! A total loss - Phil isn't interested in eating them and there was nothing he could suggest for getting the flour off that I was comfortable with. Gluten means 'glue' - you don't get flour off something once it's all over it!

I hate throwing stuff out, and got pretty morose over that, I'm afraid! Could not find a funny side to it, and having had a premonition a moment before almost made it worse. They were specifically to have food for our trip today, so since we didn't go, it wasn't so bad. But grrrrr! That kind of thing brings home to me the frustrating parts of living in such a small space that you can barely turn around without banging  into something, with no water except what you haul in, etc, etc. Fortunately, when I get on that tack it's very easy for me to think of lots of good things about living here to counter that with, so that's what I'm aiming to do.

Love to all!

Reflections on Self Love: Eating Naturally

Another overly busy day, so again this is going to be a brief check-in with reflections on self love. And we might take our postponed trip across the bay tomorrow, fog permitting, so I don't even know if I'll get to post tomorrow, but I'll surely try and read the post before we leave so that I can reflect on it.

(latest batch of no-sugar cookies, super-simple, chia-sweet, flax meal, shredded coconut, ground walnuts, a little carob) 

Well, I love the wonderful serendipity of the ways that these posts feed into one another! Today's post is about eating naturally and finding a comfortable relationship with food and how to make dietary choices. Tina asks, "Have you experienced any shifts in how you view food? What are the biggest influences in your food choices?"

And here I was at the naturopath's for a good chunk of time this morning, and we talked quite a bit about some of that. Not what I eat but how I eat. I've been frustrated because of feeling like I've gained some weight; he says that I'm approaching a healthy weight. But he also says that because of my long starvation history, my body's pathways will be predisposed to store fuel as fat rather than build muscles, simply because storing fat is efficient and it's used to expecting 'famine.' The important take-home message was that the longer I continue not to starve myself, for any reason or pretext, the sooner my metabolism will get back on track, and so the easier it will be to build muscle and lose weight. He warned me that if I go back to self-starvation as soon as we're finished with the whole series of chelation/yeast killing/etc, I'll go straight back to square one with the metabolic and hormonal problems. 

The sane side of myself also knows that I'm into the 'water retaining' end of the month (plus chelating bloats me) and he added that women with hormonal imbalances tend to retain more water at those times, that I could bet on a fluctuation of a good 5-10lbs! Since I'm not very big to begin with, that's a huge fluctuation. And it's another thing that will even out, the longer I continue to eat regularly. 

So, that ties in with yesterday's reflection on perseverance also! To keep on eating regularly, no matter what the 'demon' says, no matter what, and to trust that my metabolism will right itself, that I will continue to be able to exercise more, that eventually I'll feel comfortable in my body.

I'm working on a big shift in how I view food: from a scary, deceptive enemy to a kind of medicine and sometimes a source of pleasure. Most of the 'pleasure' foods I make are for other people and I don't partake, but just recently, especially since having the Vita-Mix, I've been wanting to enjoy food more.

My food choices are influenced by… that could be a long list. Fresh is important.

Plant-based is important. How it feels in my tummy is very important. A big shift in my food choices has been toward fat and protein and away from sugar. I used to fear fat and avoid it completely, and even though my guts aren't great now, I feel so much better minimizing sugar than I did when I ate almost exclusively fruit. Sometimes I'm drawn to something just because it tastes good, but I've had so many bad experiences with things that tasted good in the moment and made me sick afterwards that I'm wary of that most of the time. But if there are things that taste good but that also have medicinal qualities that I'm aware of (like fermented foods with probiotics, spices with antioxidants and healing powers, etc), I'm much more likely to really go with them.

Thanks for reading - please share your own ideas too!

Reflections on Self-Love: Perseverance and Climbing Coconut Trees

Hi everyone!

Did you see who won my Amazing Grass giveaway? Congrats to the winners and thanks to all. I hope to do another giveaway soon.

Crazy-busy here in Ela-la-land today, so I'm just looking in quickly to share my thoughts on today's reflection on self-love: Perseverance. Tina points out that most things that are worthwhile are worth making an effort for: that we might not even value them as much if we didn't have to work for them. What do you think? I'm not entirely convinced, but there's surely some truth to it. Tina asks, "What ways have you seen the benefit of perseverance in your life?"A good thing to ponder on, to find some tools with which to remind ourselves how to endure and see things through.

I feel like I have a very important addition to the notion of perseverance, though. By the usual serendipity, it's something that Tina has been talking about too. My refinement is that it is important to persevere, so long as the thing in which you are persisting is a true part of your self-expression: that continuing in it is being true to yourself.  If you persist in things that are not part of that, you can end up changing in ways that you don't wish to, or else feeling like a failure when you have to let it go.

I feel that this is an important caveat, because I have personal experience of having persevered with things that would have been better let go of, because they were not really serving my truest expression and fulfillment. I could list several examples, but I'll offer an amusing one.

When I lived in Hawaii, I very much wanted to be able to freeclimb coconut trees. This is something that only a couple of women were known to have done, and even among the climber men, most preferred to use equipment, although those who freeclimbed took great pride in their ability. When I started in this desire, I was so scrawny, it was just a joke - I could barely hold the position, squatting, legs wrapped round the tree. Perhaps it was a good thing that I had that goal: it encouraged me to work on building my strength, to be willing to eat more. I progressed to some competence in climbing coconut trees using equipment (a tree-stand like hunters use, consisting of two platforms - you pull yourself up by the feet, standing on one platform and pulling up on the other, raising it progressively). I got up some really tall trees, and had a few scary moments like losing the platform and having to shimmy down to it, or getting the saw on my belt caught in the platform and having to hang from one arm to free myself up. I even got quite a bit of paid work as a tree trimmer, which ironically took away from my time practicing my freeclimbing.

Well, I only ever got up one very short tree by freeclimbing, and that was a fluke, because I couldn't do it the next time I tried. And now I live in Alaska and am still working through the health problems that were getting exacerbated as I spent energy I didn't have and got more deficient in existing deficiencies...and sometimes I think about freeclimbing coconut trees and I feel like a failure. But then I have to ask myself, was it an appropriate goal in which to persevere for so long? It was generally understood to be something that is exceptionally hard for female bodies to do at all, and my particular female body has never been a very athletic specimen. That was part of the attraction at one point - to transform that, to do something that was acknowledged to be very hard. But it's also so dangerous! Everyone in that community knew someone who had been paralyzed or worse falling out of a coconut tree. There are rats and centipedes and other biting critters up there that can throw you off your stride. Several people have cut themselves severely whilst sawing down fronds - I have a couple scars of my own like that!

Additionally, I was starting not to recognize myself as I focused on that, and I was also never able to give it exclusive focus, because it wasn't truly central to me. If I had continued, I would probably have had to continue to change my diet to try to build the required muscles - but really no matter what, my back would probably have gone out as badly as it did and prevent me from doing more.

Nowadays, it feels good to persevere in my writing practice, in inventing the best ever raw goodies with no sugar at all, in striving to become a better person, the best I possibly can be. Perseverance tells me that every time I slip up, I have another chance! But it feels so much better to choose my areas of perseverance more truly.

We Didn't Go Across the Bay - Self Love and Finding Joy - How To Lose A Pipe - Amazing Grass Giveaway Winner

Here's why we didn't go across the bay after all today - 

- the fog rolled in! It's amazing - we're literally in a blanket of fog, but it's only about 6 degrees cooler than yesterday, when the sun was out. So I will announce the winner of my Amazing Grass giveaway today after all - at the end of this post!

Some pictures from two days ago when it was unabashedly sunny - potatoes that I tickled out of the ground reflecting the sun -

- and a harvest of spuds!

Tina's reflections on self-love post this morning reminds us to look for joy - and to find it - here and now in what we do with our lives. Her post resonated so perfectly for me: just like her, I'd gone back to bed for some extra snuggling with my husband rather than jump on my work as soon as I got up.

And we've been finding joy in the day even postponing our berry adventures. A potentially very frustrating story: Phil can't find the pipe that runs from our sink, that is failing to drain! He ran it out to the edge of the bluff last fall and insulated it. Now, if we spill water in the sink it doesn't run out, so we have to cart out dishwater in the little basin we keep in the sink. He dug where he thought the pipe was, so that he could unblock it - and he can't find it! 

He dug a hole crotch-deep, and that isn't a pipe down there in the hole, it's a retaining rope. He's been looking and digging on and off for two days, and no sign of the pipe! This could be infuriating and frustrating, but I just think it's too funny. And at this point, Phil's thinking he'll just start over with a whole other pipe and give this one up for lost.

I was talking before about wanting my plants to go to seed and the growing season being too short and cool - one thing that's gone to seed in a big way has been arugula! I pulled some out today, and will save some of the seeds, but Phil is concerned that if I leave it all to self-seed, we'll have more than we know what to do with next year - the mustard family likes it up here, that arugula got big!

The smoke behind me is a brush-pile that Phil is burning. My man loves him his chainsaw! He'd taken out a bunch of alder trees, that take over everything otherwise, when we started our building project. We'll use the ashes to amend our soil (potash).

For further joy, we went hiking on the beach despite the fog. The picture at the top of this post shows the view. We always find beautiful things when we hike on the beach - it's hard not to bring the whole beach home, there are so many awesome rocks! Here's Phil with the most darling little feather - 

- and then we put it in a little snail-shell we found -

- precious.

Now for the selection of the two winners of the Amazing Grass Giveaway!

Please bear with me if I do this clunkily - I haven't done it before.

There were 38 entries for the giveaway, many of them multiple by a single person, so with two winners, everyone had a fairly good chance.

Using the random number generator at this website, I was given number 11 and number 30. So…comment #11 was by Bitt! And…comment #30 was by Amber Shea! Congratulations to both of you! Please drop me a line with your contact info so that I can get your goodies sent to you.

Have a great evening, everyone! What joy did you find today?

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.

Reflections on Self-Love: Jealousy

I don't really have time to write a post today, but wanted to check in with today's Reflection on Self-Love.

We're getting the whole summer we didn't have these last few days! We went for a hike on the beach and I even forgot to bring the camera - shame on me! Here's the beach viewed from our yard 300ft higher, the very edge of the bluff barely 30 ft from our house!

Today's topic is Jealousy. Tina asks, "In what ways do you encounter jealousy? How can it hold you back? What could you look to in yourself or your life when wishing for what others have?"

This is something that really repays reflection. I especially appreciate what Tina says earlier in the post about focusing on yourself rather than looking to others for validation or invalidation. She says, "Picture your life through a camera lens. Only you should be in focus. Everything else blurs into the background."

For me, this is extremely powerful. I don't think I'm alone in having grown up thinking that focusing on oneself is selfish. It seems like I need to hear repeatedly that 'your job is you,' or to be reminded that the only way that I can be of service to others is when I'm well-cared for and in good shape - and no one else but me is going to make sure of that!

In my life, jealousy is always either ambivalent or extremely childish. It's ambivalent when I envy someone else's achievements or abilities and then in the next beat realize that I wouldn't want to be them, or that I wouldn't want to have precisely those achievements: I'd rather manage it my own way. If I'm not vigilant, that can lead to feeling bad for not having fulfilled my potential; when I'm doing better, it reminds me to keep on working at it! There are lots of things that Phil can do of which I feel jealous at times, from his athletic prowess to his ease and gregariousness around people. But it feels good when I'm able to remind myself that I'm jealous of these things because I admire them very much, and it's great to admire one's husband! And then, I recognize that being at ease around people is something I can work on, and that there are many other things that I love to do, so that I wouldn't want to spend as many hours of the day in intense physical activity as he does.

When my jealousy is childish, it's usually a moment of weakness when I'm questioning my path. Yes, there are times when I envy Phil that he can eat such enormous quantities and very seldom get a stomach ache and never have to worry about body image, and that sometimes he can go long periods without food without his body going into a panic. Sure, I feel jealous of anyone who's naturally slender and doesn't have to worry about what they eat - but this jealousy is all about non-acceptance of myself. When I'm in a more self-accepting mode, I feel grateful for my digestive challenges, because they have enabled me to become a more creative cook, a more compassionate person and have exposed me to all kinds of superfoods I might not otherwise have explored. I haven't yet found a way to feel grateful for having thyroid/adrenal/metabolic problems - but if at some point I'm able to help other people not to go down the road that leads to those things, I might feel grateful for the experience to share.

Not being jealous is all about choosing your own star to aim at and anchor to, rather than taking someone else as an ideal. And as I just suggested, it seems to me that indulging in jealousy is all about not accepting oneself and finding pointers from the outside to beat up on oneself. 

I hope I'll remember this next time I find myself feeling jealousy!

I'm going outside to harvest beets and potatoes now - hope the sun is shining for you too!