The key.

Thanksgiving has come and gone, food and family enjoyed.  My niece and her husband hosted the bounteous feast.  Though now 'eating for two,' she was unable to finish her plate.  Seated next to her, I scavenged some morsels of stuffing, gravy, and flesh, carrion for the tarrion.  Then later pie for all.  And great parlor games!

Though food is what many think about over the holidays, I do not intend to dwell on my particular dietary peccadilloes.  I think my readership has already had their fill of that.  Or at least I'll try not to dwell on what it is we eat and drink, so much as how.

The recent New Yorker magazine was dedicated to food, as it usually is this season.  One article followed the story of René Redzepi, proprietor of Noma, a gourmet food restaurant in Denmark, where 90% of its food comes from local sources, and a significant portion of that foraged in the wilds nearby.  Mushrooms, berries, even the occasional insect (though this is in the 'alpha' phase as far as I could tell), added fresh, cooked, or preserved by pickling or drying.  The restaurant is rated 'best in the world,' apparently for the second year running by the über-exclusive British Restaurant magazine.  The article was very interesting, but in the end, though I am fond of local food in general, and intrigued by foraged food in particular, I did not feel inspired to dash off to Copenhagen on the next flight.  Instead, my appetite was stirred for the contents of my own refrigerator (which my wife will tell you can be rather scant - actually, no, she will tell you it is always scant).

Another fascinating article had to do with a coffee grower in El Salvadore who produces high altitude and shade-grown beans, meticulously hand-picked three or more times (sequentially to get the ripest 'cherries' - that is, the round pods in which two coffee beans ripen).  Aida Batlle, the grower, a woman in a field dominated by men, is also a connoisseur, and a vanguard in what is now referred to as the 'third wave' of coffee.  The first being the Maxwell House bilge water served from percolators - or Folgers Instant - drunk by our parents' generation.  The second wave took the dark, or French roasted coffees of southern Europe, in particular from Italy, often espressed, and sometimes sweetened or mixed with steamed or foamed milk.  This is the coffee that Starbucks and other cafés popularized.  And some say bastardized in the process.

The third wave is supposedly closer to the roots of where coffee originated in what is now Ethiopia, millennia ago.  The coffee is roasted mildly, and added to boiled water, and sometimes pressed or poured through a sieve.  'Cuppers' then will taste the various varietals in a fashion similar to fine wines.  Hints of caramel, or chocolate-covered strawberries, say, or the aftertaste of créme brulée are detected.  Or how about 'remember that time we were stranded in Morocco mid-summer with the musky smell of camel dung heavy in the stagnant air...  And the pipe tobacco from the cart driver?'  (This last one was mine, but the impression I got was that a 'cupper' could say such a thing without breaking character.)  This third-wave eschews anything dairy or sweet in their oh-so-precious cups.  A frappucino is considered a crime against humanity.

And reading the article I was inspired to try such a fancy brew.  But then again, I don't drink much coffee, and I like latte when I do.  I really like it, and I refuse to think the lesser of myself for it.  On the other hand, I suppose I would give the Batlle coffee a try.  The article said it was available at Caribou cafés, but I don't get there very often, maybe twice a decade.  I'll wait and see if this so called 'third-wave' lasts.

This fascination with the latest greatest taste - local or exotic, traditional or new wave - has me noticing something about my breakfast.  And for this, I need to go into my aforementioned verboten area of what I eat.  27 of my breakfasts out of 28 consist of granola (most often the inexpensive Giant brand - which ain't that bad really), some 'Kashi' Seven Grain cereal (similar to Grape Nuts), and several dollops of yogurt stirred in. I will vary the kind of yogurt - traditional, greek, goat - and vary the relative amounts of the dry stuff.  So that, though the menu item reads identically, each day it is slightly unique.  Which has seemed a desirable strategy.  For, as you may be aware, eating the same dang thing each morning can become tiresome.  As I munch on the contents of my feed trough, I snort at the porcine behemoth next to me:  'Oink, don't they have anything else at this giant factory farm?  I never would have agreed to vacation here if I'd known.'  Munch munch...

However, it ain't necessarily so!  It's not what's in the trough, it's what's in the heart.  It could be exactly the same each day, and if I am truly alive and present, so also will my meal be.  What miracle is this:  notice this hand that holds the spoon, it lifts and guides it magically into my open mouth, just after I've swallowed!  And these teeth that crunch and munch, as this tongue deftly dodges the 'guillotine' as it pushes and prods the larger morsels into the grinder!  What a symphony!

And the green tea.  I vary the flavor - jasmine, moroccan mint, genmaicha - and the spoonful of honey - orange blossom, clover, wildflower - but truly these variations are mere window dressing for the wonder of hot essence rising from a cup of golden elixir!

Full disclosure, it is not often that I can be this present.  While eating, I'm usually busy getting my son's bagel ready, or checking the weather forecast on-line, or counting out my week of medicines and supplements, maybe planning or resenting my day ahead;  and true, I will continue to vary the ingredients of my breakfast meal.  But I know from experience that the key to a truly remarkable meal has very little to do with what went into it, and very much to do with my presence of heart, mind, and spirit.  When I accept the invitation to right now, it is truly a present.  To notice what is there in front of me, and not mire in what isn't, seems to be the key.

But like all keys, it is subject to getting lost...and found again, just when you give up looking!

CHANGING

Three babies times
Three years, easily
     equals ten thousand diapers.

One mother times
One year’s rapid decline
     equals one hundred diapers.

One wife times
Two years' gradual decline
     equals one hundred-fifty diapers.

I did not know
Love could be measured
     by wiping shit off of bottoms.

Will I have the courage
Necessary to lie back,
     and have it done for me?

Grub

Profile - a formerly widowed and remarried returned Peace Corps Volunteer who served in Nepal; have been a stay-at-home father for the past 16 years; am afflicted by a serious autoimmune condition, but can manage with a cane or walker; have four children ranging from 14 to 19, three sons and one step-daughter; play guitar (not too well, but enjoy it); live in the mid-atlantic region, but prefer the west coast; have been a vegetarian of various stripe for over 25 years, but currently consider myself a 'carrion-vegetarian,' that is, one who will occasionally eat the flesh of fish, fowl, or beast if it has been leftover and forgotten in the fridge well past anybody's intent to consume.  These are some of the things that I carry.

Sometimes it feels like my life experiences, both big and small, will separate me in ever smaller groupings till this unique little snowflake melts or blows away.  But then I will reach out, talk to another homo sapiens sapiens and find that in fact the chasm which divides really isn't there.  How vast our shared humanity is.  However, there are some issues I might broach that almost without exception will paint me into my tiny idiosyncratic corner.  Such as this post.  Why do I persevere in this manner?  Is it boredom, a desire to shock and awe my dear reader?  To stand up and be counted, occupy myself?  Probably some pedestrian blend of the above, and more.  Or perhaps less.

Without further ado, back to the 'meat' of this post.  What is an entomophagist?  (And, will this discussion wedge me off even further from the 99%?)  It's a nice new (to me) word I recently picked up from an article in the New Yorker with the same title as this post.  And means one who eats insects.  As noted above, I've practiced vegetarianism for much of my life, mostly lacto-ovo, and for some years I also ate fish.  Recently went back off fish, due to the very dire state of worldwide fisheries.  However, I will occasionally eat the leftovers off the plate of a friend or relative, right after they tell the waiter 'sure, I'm done.'  Maybe a crunchy fish head, some fat off of a steak, salmon skin - whatever, before it goes to the trash.  That's me, the last stop before the dumpster.

Well, some many posts ago I mentioned trying the 'chapulines', or grasshopper tacos at the gourmet Mexican restaurant Oyamel here in D.C.  I was working on my 'life list' of bizarre foods (not to mention taking my then girlfriend/now wife Dwan out for a Valentine's day dinner.  Go figure, I ate bugs, and still she married me!).  And they were pretty good.  Recently we returned to the restaurant with a gift card we'd received from a friend.  True confession, I ordered the 'hoppas' again!  To be honest, it didn't taste as good as the first time, so I probably won't be going back for more anytime soon, if ever.

I have a question though, namely, are bugs people too?  That is, are they sentient beings?  And, more specific to my brand of vegetarianism, are they endangered?  According to the New Yorker article (as far as my weak memory serves) they are a very healthy source of protein and other nutrients.  And have been eaten throughout the ages, both cooked and raw, even to this very day in some cultures.  There are even entomophagists in this country, and they meet for occasional cooking competitions, serving up morsels both savory and sweet like the delectable pictured here:

The article claims that insects are an ecological source of these nutrients, but I wonder just how sustainable they would be if everybody started eating them.  I mean a lot of them every day.  And, if they had to be transported hundreds of miles, freezer packed, or otherwise processed, for the average consumer to be able to incorporate them into their busy lives?  (For more about the article, and some cool audio and video, check out:  http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2011/08/eating-insects-entomophagy-video.html - it's pretty short.) 

If this sounds like a bit too much bother, for little or no gain, how about this?  Drop a roach into your next smoothie, blend it beyond recognition, and if there is a crunch, tell yourself it's a blackberry seed.  Still feeling skittish?  Maybe start with an ant, and work your way up the food chain?  I can feel the chasm widen as I think of you pondering this...  But wait, let me paraphrase Solzhenitsyn: the line which separates disgusting from delicious runs through the heart of every bug!

Anti-materialistic

You think shopping for the 'guy who has everything is hard'? Try the guy who hates everything! Which would be me.

Well, sorta kinda. Not quite everything, so much as most 'things.' And hate is a bit of an exaggeration.  For my birthday, my wife gave me a compact disc she burned with some of my all time favorite songs.  (Oh right, and a delicious Nepali meal delivered, and cake.  Mmm.)  Those are examples of the kind of 'thing' I like.  Or the letters 'D', 'A', and 'D' that my sons fashioned with their bare hands a few years ago out of the relatively hard sand and sediment layer under the great Salt Lake where we went for a dip.  Or the skateboard broken in half and re-glued into the shape of a heart from Eli.

Certainly there are other 'things' - hand-made or not - that have found their way into my relatively Spartan lifestyle, which have gathered to them feelings and memories.  And a certain emotional gravity that I will not discount.  Or even necessarily feel burdened by. In fact, these are the things that can be triggers for joy, sorrow, poignancy, and other emotions.

However, in general I can be described as 'thing-o-phobic.'  I readily acknowledge that this predilection to eschew the material is not in any way spiritually superior to acquisitiveness.  I find that either direction can be as 'materialistic' as the other.  The degree to which one finds suffering through aversion on the one hand, or clinging on the other seems for all intents and purposes equivalent.  And the challenge at either extreme also seems equal:  can one be surrounded by material possessions without attaching to them?  And by 'attaching to them' I don't mean to value them, or use them, or admire them - but rather to feel an undue sense of grief if they should be lost or broken, which is an inevitable outcome, whether in one's lifetime or after.  And can one live in relative austerity without feeling a sense of moral superiority, and disdain for the few things that do come into one's possession?

Buddhists speak of a 'middle way,' which in this arena might be understood as neither Spartan nor cluttered.  But I think it refers rather to an ease with either extreme (or middle), a peace that is borne of understanding the true nature of all things and non-things.  Namely, that they are in their very nature holy, spirit - just like all of us.  Ultimately we are of this earth, we are this earth, and ultimately we shall lose everything and everyone we know, love, or feel attached to.  Can we know, love, and attach to that which is our timeless perfection?  The god we all already are?

Fund drive!

Yes, it's that time of year here in the D.C. metropolitan area.  Our local station, WAMU is soliciting funds.  And in a time of shrinking governmental support, it's more important than ever.  If you haven't done so already, pick up the phone, or go on-line, and pay until it hurts.

Because public broadcasting - especially NPR and the local affiliates - seems to be the last bastion of independent journalism.  There is an overabundance of opinion (much of it right-wing nut-job).  Our very democracy hangs in the balance.  You know it, I know it, all of us choir members know it, so as the demigoddess Nike says, just do it!

And if you listen regularly to NPR, there is an even more immediate reason to make your donation:  self interest.  Once you've called and made your pledge (or payment), then you can go on listening to the shows - Morning Edition, This American Life, Car Talk, etc. - even as they are holding the telethon.  Then notice the lack of guilt you feel, even as you enjoy the clever promotional 'spots' done by various celebrities.  And not feel the urge to change the channel, or turn off the radio, just to avoid the guilt.

Monsoon

It seems we've had a fortnight or so of sticky humidity and light rain - very reminiscent of the monsoon season in Nepal.  Sure, climate change:  a 'theory', like evolution, contested by many right-wing industrial capitalists and their nut-job lackeys; however, considered an anthropogenic fait accompli by the vast majority of heliocentric-leaning scientists.  Which I am sorry to admit is quite the mouthful of a sentence.  Worry not, such polemic is not the direction in which this post is headed.

Our meditation teacher sometimes intones the acronym 'r-a-i-n.'  We are advised, while sitting in meditation (or running about our days), if an emotional storm or difficult mind-state, or set of problematic circumstances should arise - we are invited to recognize, allow, investigate, and non-identify with these phenomena.  (I'll leave the 'non-identify' word alone, syntactically awkward as it may be.)

WARNING: Pointless and mildly droll paragraph follows...

I can think of other helpful acronyms:  non-identify, allow, investigate, let-go (NAIL);  inquire, recognize, allow, non-identify (IRAN);  and while the order of IRAN does actually feel more intuitive to me, the acronym is less alluring than RAIN.

END of distraction.

Eckhart Tolle, latter-day purveyor of Buddho-Christo-Sufist insight, in works such as The Power of Now, uses the phrase 'what you accept, you go beyond' (or something like it).  The idea is not to passively sit back and accept abhorrent conditions, and do nothing about them.  Rather, the pilgrim is instructed to open to the conditions - however beautiful or tragic they may be - just as they present in the moment.  To complain that 'it shouldn't be like this' is to invite suffering, and typically does not lead to wise - and possibly corrective - action.  Accepting the present to be just as it is, allows us to go beyond it, and even sometimes to act wisely.

Saints and monks through the ages have shown such peace and faith in the face of very grave situations.  I read of a Tibetan nun, who, while being tortured, says prayers of loving-kindness for her Chinese captors.  Her mouth is taped shut, but still her lips keep moving.  Clearly, her life of practice in opening to the present moment - come what may - enables her to recognize the dire situation she faces, and instead of wishing it to be other than it is - other than what it simply and irrevocably is at that moment - proceeds instead directly to the only positive action she knows and is able to accomplish.

In our day to day lives, we are generally spared from such harsh or life-threatening situations.  To take a recent commonplace example in my life, I had lost an important piece of jewelry.  You see, our wedding was coming up, only days away, and the evening before, Dwan had asked on the phone - tongue mildly in cheek, though past experience gave her question at least some relevance - 'do you still have your ring?'  I'd said sure - which was technically true - but in fact I couldn't say just then exactly where it was.  Or even approximately.  So I looked and looked and looked, till my eyesight and body were exhausted.  Brushed my teeth, and dropped into bed.

The next morning, I resumed the search, now more frantic, our nuptial event just one day away.  I finally dropped into the recliner, closed my eyes, and a light 'rain' began to fall, almost spontaneously:  Recognize the bodily sensations I perceived due to this loss - a sort of weary tightness in the belly, harshness in the jaw, etc.  Allow the situation to be as it is, for try as I might to change or resist it, this situation was exactly as it was in that moment.  Even my resistance to the situation was just as it was.  Investigate the myriad emotions and mind-states which arose - regret, self-recrimination (how stupid of me!), etc.  Non-identify, or let go of attachment to these emotions, sensations, and thoughts, which you can imagine is much easier said than done.  However, simply opening to such an intention - to see a larger whole in which these stories played themselves out - allowed me to feel just how I was identified with, or attached to, these conditions.  And with such recognition came a release, a letting-go, even if only partially.  As waves and ocean currents rage with a tropical storm on the surface, deep down the fish swim through waters as calmly as ever.

After this little 'meditation,' I dropped to my knees, and crawled over to a sort of hutch/secretary in my bedroom.  I'd already looked in it, so didn't really know what I was doing.  I opened the right cabinet door, and pulled out a small drawstring pouch made in Nepal (there are several other such keepsakes in there).  I could feel there was something in the pouch, reached in, and pulled out a small black velveteen ring sleeve.  Now the warm summer rain felt like elixir.

Though I lost and found one other item this summer in like fashion, I also was unable to find something rather valuable after trying the 'rain method.'  (Fortunately I did accidentally come across it two months after losing it.)  I suppose that two out of three ain't bad, but I think the larger point is, though the process is a rich one, attaching to an outcome - such as locating a lost object - can be perilous.  What we may find instead is a heart that feels, eyes that may cry or smile, and a mind that dreams.  It seems that opening up to our present moment is never wrong.

Tick-Tock

I enter triage, take my number, and sit down.
The man seated to my right is large - in a healthy way - his expression placid and warm.
Drifting through space, I'd felt his gravitational pull:  his planet, his star so familiar.
Perched on each knee is a toddler, leaning back.

   As if from a ventriloquist comes the sound -
   a loud, erratic clock.  The man's eyebrows move:
   not in time,
   as if to bury the trick even deeper.
   It seems unlikely - here, in the hushed and busy  
   hospital - but clearly, it emanates
   from this gentle giant.
   Gentle, timeless giant.
   The sound seems to placate the boys, an ancient lullaby.
   Until the older brother asks - he is three, maybe four -

What's taking mommy so long?
The soft, almost whispered response comes tumbling, bathing baritone like swich licour.
The man and sons rise to fetch her, she's just done at the
window with her chemo appointment check-in;
they walk away, small hands in large.