Happy New Year & a Recipe

Homemade Elderberry Syrup

It is the first day of 2014 and I feel hopeful anticipation for the year ahead. I don't know why but I like the clear line of a new year and a fresh start. Each day we have this opportunity, the chance to begin again, to breathe in the possibility, to bear witness to life unfolding around us and the life unfolding within us but on New Years day it feels even more significant to me.

Today I began my day at my work table in our shared office/guest bedroom with a cup of coffee and my journal.  I wrote about purpose, what I think mine is and how to live it in this coming year.  Part of that purpose is healing, myself and others, and part of that purpose is sharing.  The sharing part is often hard for me as I second guess myself and concern myself that others will say "on what authority is she saying this". The truth is most of what I share is universal knowledge though, shared as seen through my own experience. In alignment with my desire to live my purpose, and to heal and to share, today I am sharing a recipe for Elderberry Syrup.

I learned about Elderberries last year when I attended one of several local herb classes.  The owner of the farm and teacher of the class mentioned making homemade elderberry syrup for the cold and flu season. The elderberry comes from a small tree/bush and is well known in the herbal community for its ability to boost the immune system preventing and shortening the length of the flue and colds. They are a rich source of bioflavonoids and antioxidants as well as the nutrients potassium, beta carotene, calcium, phosphorus and vitamin C.  

It is so funny how once you hear about something of interest, all of a sudden you see and hear about it all around you. I soon found dried elderberries in my favorite local health/grocery store when looking in their bulk section and even purchased a syrup from this store as well when I was sick and looking for homeopathic solutions.

As Alan has been fighting a cold for 2+ weeks and I felt the symptoms beginning myself,  I decided to try making the syrup myself using a recipe from Mountain Rose Herbs. I cut the recipe in half as I purchased the elderberries locally and the store I shop at was running low. After seeing a display of organic elderberry syrup for $21, buying the small amount of dried berries and cutting the recipe in half was a no-brainer.  I was low on honey and bought a huge jar for $16 but the organic dried elderberries, cloves, and cinnamon sticks were less than $2.00 total. Even if you don't already have honey on hand this is still a very economical recipe as it produces a lot of syrup (3.5 cups).  Some people really love the flavor of the syrup and add it to everything from pancakes to oatmeal but I find it a bit medicinal and am still getting used to it. I think next time I may omit the cloves.  Although the cloves and cinnamon may be used as a natural preservative so I need to do a bit more research first.

Ginger, Raw Honey, Elderberries, Cinnamon, and Cloves

Here is the recipe as found on Mountain Rose Herbs site.  As I mentioned, I cut the recipe in half and it still produced approximately 1.5 cups of syrup.

Please note that elderberry is not safe for pregnant or nursing women, that you should do your own research before taking any types of herbs to ensure that they do not interact with any conditions you have or medications you may take and that honey is not appropriate for children under the age of 2 years old.

Elderberry Syrup Recipe

- 1 cup fresh or 1/2 cup dried organic Elderberries (harvest blue or black, avoid poisonous reds)

- 3 cups water

- 1 cup raw local honey

- 1 organic Cinnamon stick, 3 organic Cloves, and organic Ginger (optional)

Place berries, water, and spices in a saucepan. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer for 30 minutes. Smash the berries to release remaining juice and strain the mixture. (discard cooked berries/cloves/ginger/cinnamon) Allow liquid to cool and stir in honey. Will last for 2-3 months stored in the fridge.

Hope you have a Happy and Healthy 2014!

Then and Now

From a recent morning run, I stopped and gently lifted this snail to the grass in the direction it was headed.  It reminds me of myself these days...slow and steady and a lover of shells.

It has been a long time since I have visited these pages.  Coming back felt hard, and I felt deterred many times from entering this space again.  What would I say, where would I start? I even thought of starting all over, at a new address but decided that this space was not done, that there had simply been a pause.  And so I begin again (again) starting with a  summary of then and of now, a glimpse of the months in-between.

A new job after an 804 day sabbatical. 
The ebb and flow and tides of this new season of life.
Running the dark city streets, alone,  before the sun began to rise until I lost my nerve. 
Closing on the sale of our old home.
Joining a gym to take the place of the lost nerve.
Tears of doubt.
Lost days that I did not own.
Longing for a garden.
Joining an herb guild.
Taking classes about herbs and fermentation and cheese making.
Finding joy in juicing fresh concoctions of vegetables, herbs, roots, and fruits.
Volunteering at a music festival with my sister.
Planting pots of lemon balm, thyme, dill, basil, scented geranium, heirloom tomatoes, and pink vinca's to fill my need to nurture and for green and for life.
Joyous moments of gratitude.
Two half-marathons ran with my brother.
Long hikes through the mountains on warm and humid weekends.
A long labor day weekend at the beach spent reading, sketching, and relaxing.
Learning to play golf (and actually enjoying it).
A birthday celebrated with loved ones and cake.
Trying to recognize the person in the mirror with new lines and droopy eyes and to make peace that the person staring back is really me.
Running the dark city streets, alone, finding new nerves and resolve.
Giving myself a birthday gift, Creative Spark, taught by the inspiring Tara Leaver.
Unearthing something that was misplaced and learning new methods for play.
Always searching for the light.

Just Floating Along

The new year has arrived and I feel unprepared,  somewhat lost and very uncertain at the moment. I am just now feeling a bit healthier after battling the flu since Christmas evening.  Each day I have woke up and felt a bit better only to find myself exhausted and congested by late morning.  And I still have not made it back to my home yet as my sister in law needed help this week with her dogs so I am in their home away from the anchoring of books and paint and bits of projects.

The sun is shining today and since I finally found the camera that had been tucked away by Alan for safe keeping during our move, I think I will head out with Butters for a walk in one of my favorite parks.  Perhaps there amongst the sunshine and trees and little wild things I will find the rhythm in my heart I know is missing.  Everything is not ok in my universe but somehow I know I will be ok, and that feeling is making all the difference in the world.

Here are a few other things that I have felt drawn to the past few days:

This blog on herbal remedies: http://blueridgeschool.org/blog/2013/01/03/herbs-for-muscle-pain

This yoga video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcC8hZPwj6w

This abstract painter:  http://www.nicholaswilton.com/


Wishing you a day of found rhythm and your very own heart song.

This One Wild and Precious Life

 

I finally got around to adding one of my most favorite lines of poetry (from Mary Oliver's The Summer Day) to canvas and know that this will be one of many works I add for inspiration in my home.  I love poetry and quotes and special strings of words that arouse my spirit and find that all too often I keep them hidden in the pages of my journal where there are not reflected upon as often as I would like.  Now I can take my favorite ones and rotate them and even give them away as they feel called to be with someone else that needs them.

This morning after a long walk with Miss Butters I sat down with a cup of heavily creamed but still quite strong coffee and Susannah Conways workbook,UNRAVELLING THE YEAR AHEAD 2013 (which also spends time reflecting upon the current year).  Please check out this link for yourself and make time for this wonderful exercise...I promise you will find all kinds of secrets within your soul just waiting to be written upon the page:   http://www.susannahconway.com/2012/12/2013-workbook/

I needed this reflection after the past 3 weeks of packing and moving and travelling back and forth between homes.  A new family has moved into our old home and I have fingers crossed that in the new year this will be their new home, full of their new dreams.  It is another chapter in my life, and a huge one in my married life, that is now over.  Alan built the home for us right after we were married and we had many dreams of the life that would be lived there, some of which came to be and some that are still to be realized and written. 

Writing about the year and gently reflecting upon it helped me to seek closure and celebration for this beautiful and messy life. This afternoon feels lighter somehow and there is the taste of possibility and a vision of a new path forming in my mind for our future.  I dream of a bungalow near the sea with an herb garden and a vegetable garden in lieu of a lawn.  There is an idea of community involvement and community gardens and paintings hung in cafes. There are renewed dreams of a child and morning walks and evening lullaby's.  There is a sense of hope that I will find the truest sense of love and belonging within myself and there is a vision of a book being written on the same table shared with paints and bobbles of other creations. 

I wish you the warmest of holidays snuggled up with your favorite loves and the bright possibility of an abundantly wild and precious New Year.  xoxo

Day Eight: Favorite Things-Awareness

It is not what you look at that matters, it is what you see.  Henry David Thoreau

Morning Run:  Fall Light flooding the Earth

This life goes by so fast and it is easy to get so caught up in to do lists and in tomorrow and next week and even yesterdays that we miss what is right in front of us.

A wild flower pushing up out of the cracked concrete sidewalk teaching us lessons of resilience and determination and beauty in unexpected places.  A shimmer of light higher in the trees indicating fall is here.  The look from a pet, child, lover or friend as they stare at us in longing that goes unnoticed. 

And it can be just as much what we don't feel as it can be what we don't see.  We don't feel gratitude because we feel scarcity because everything is  moving so fast.  We don't feel love from the pet, child, lover or friend because we are so busy getting from one thing to the next until we fall into bed and get up and start all over again.

I did this for years.  Oh every once in a while I would catch a glimpse of what seemed to be a still life all around me, a parallel universe of sorts and when I saw it I was often filled with a longing that scared me.  At times (even still)I have an all or nothing personality so I had a hard time incorporating down time and rest and awareness in my old routine.  It is now a part of everyday and it too helps ground me in the present and be thankful for this very moment.  I take daily walks and runs and purposefully listen, look, smell and hear all that I can about my surroundings. 

This evening, or tomorrow morning, or on your your way to work, or to the coffee shop, or lunch please take the moment to see life differently by doing life differently. Make a conscious effort to put away the cell phone or book or radio or i-pod or whatever it is that is distracting you (pacifying you), and just breathe and listen.  Listen to the hum of life around you.  What do you hear?  Are those crickets?  Can you hear the rustle of fall leaves through the trees?

What do you smell? Could it be the earthy and dusty crispness that comes from cooler weather and the leaves changing from green to gold? Is it bacon wafting out to the street from the open windows of your neighbor during a morning walk? Or is it your own cup of coffee you are savoring quietly and with intent on a little corner of carpet with your legs crossed indian style as you wake up to today and all its possibilities? 

What do your eyes notice today that you have overlooked before?  Is the light flooding into the room at a certain tilt that always fills you with a particular happiness that you have not recognized until this very moment? What colors are filling the earth these days; what color are the leaves, what flowers are blooming, is the sky a particular shade of blue?    

Take a different route to work or leave at a different time.  If you work from home, then work from a coffee shop, café, or park for the day.  Or maybe you can get up just 15 minutes earlier and arise with the thought that today is a new beginning, a brand new day and all yours for the taking.  Smile at each person you come into contact with today and really notice them.  Get out of your head (I know it is so hard to do) and look all around you.  

I don’t guarantee this will change your life, just that you will be more aware of your life and present to it and that with practice a more active participant in it.

What do you do in your own life to practice awareness?

New Years Eve

What do I love about New Years Eve?  The raw potential, reading other people's facebook and blog posts and seeing the hope they have, the readiness to let go of what is no longer working for them, the shimmering light at the end of the tunnel,...the freshness of it all. 

On this New Years Eve, I am wishing you healing where it is needed, trust to recognize your dreams, strength to see those dreams come to life, joy in your heart, and a connection with the pulse of life around you that lets you see just how very much a LOVED and NECESSARY part of the universe you are.

I will admit I am going into the New Year with tears and smiles, light and dark, fear and hope...and also the growing (expanding and increasing) knowledge of how very precious this very moment is.

 

The new year is a whisper

in my ear.
So close I turn around smiling
thinking I hear her enter the room.
a breath of fresh air.
a new day.
sunshine and rain and foggy mist rising.
courage to put one foot
in front of the other,
forward going.
the taste of incoming tide
salty and blue,
cleansing.
the currents carrying sea
foam far unto the horizon.
This is as much a blessing for me
as it is for you.
A story more ancient than
light.
Shake out the dust.
Blow the motes a gentle kiss.
You are soft
warm clay.

New Beginnings

The days have been filled with the golden light of fall, new sights from our little slice of the city we are moving to, trays and pails of fresh paint, decision fatigue, installing shelves and lighting and hooks and ceiling fans, exhausted evenings on an inflatable mattress that cause the last bits of the days energy to burst out in giggles, and a birthday to top it all off.

The photo is of my birthday card from Alan.  How appropriate for my birthday and as we are on the cusp of Halloween.  He said that he couldn't quite explain why but it made him think of me.  I smiled because I agree, I see it too though I can't quite put all of the pieces together.  Maybe it is the homemade and sweet mishmash nature of the costume, or the so-happy-you-could-burst grin.  I love capes and masks too so maybe that is what it is.  Perhaps it is just playing make believe and dress up and trying on the persona of who we want to be, in a moment, or for a day or even forever.  It is not quite a cape but I did receive a very much desired sweater poncho as a birthday gift and I plan to wear it as my magic cloak this fall and winter. 

Our move, my birthday, and the shift of seasons all bring with them change.  Our move will bring with it new discoveries in a new city and adjustments as well especially as we get used to not having a yard to call our own.  Birthdays are to me New Years; there is a pause and a chance to reflect as well as a chance to begin again.  And no matter how old I get, Fall still reminds me of going back to school.  I want fresh notebooks to fill and a new pair of shoes to wear and new thoughts to stretch my mind.

I hope you are finding magic in your fall days and just the right amount of change you need to keep things fresh but not chaotic.

Begin Again

 

The smell of cedar

awakens the memory of Self-Reliance.
The similarities between poplar leaves
and manta rays could keep me
occupied until eternity.

I don’t know when I will stop crying

or what the ancient pyramids of Egypt
look like at dusk.

After 9 months of freedom

I do know how to cook.
I know now that I can always
begin again.
 

Healing will be a lifelong journey.

Miniature Tomatoes and Moving my Body

Fresh picked miniature tomatoes, hot from the sun and full of flavor

I am sitting at my desk eating a lunch of delicious raw vegetables and hummus (the miniature tomatoes from my garden taste like they came from Eden) and catching up on some internet browsing.

The recent internet browsings that resonate the most with me today:

• About building a new relationship with your body and with time  http://www.jenlee.net/home/a-week-of-good-things.html 
• This poem..oh my goldeness.... http://emmatree.blogspot.com/2011/06/evening-morning-stillness-flight.html
• This is fun.... http://oneword.com/
• Below average.... http://sivers.org/below-average

 This week I am continuing the 30 Days of Something and find I am pushing myself a little more.  I am still trying to make up my mind about how I feel about this pushing though.  At the beginning of the month I was walking outdoors/indoors, practicing yoga or some type of intentional body movement for at least 20 minutes.  Since last week, I am working out for 10 minutes doing various upper body, lower body, core body, yoga moves or weight lifting and then walking and running 30 minutes. 

I am new to running and really to exercise in general.  I ran all over as a child as well as roamed the neighborhood on my bicycle, but my teenage years were tumultuous to say the least and also the time I started smoking.  I did not play sports in high school and am not generally competitive in that nature so even if circumstances were different I don't know that I would have gotten into sports at the time.  I can be competitive against myself, but it is just not something that generally feels good to me when others are involved.  Flash forward to my freshman year in college when a bunch of the girls on my hall talked me into signing up for intramural soccer.  The first person that I knocked down (by accident) caused me to completely stop and I gasped and helped her up as I apologized over and over again.

In college I also worked out quite a bit at the Nautilus (a local gym) for one year as we were able to sign up for a gym membership and use that as our PE credit.  I enjoyed that because I did compete against myself and it was also the strongest I have been, muscle wise. I took up yoga in my late twenties and followed that for almost 2 years but then got distracted planning a wedding and then my yoga teacher closed his practice and followed his dream on moving to Colorado.

I would like to think I will become stronger now then I have ever been, even stronger than my 20 something self and since starting the 30 Days of Something  I have noticed a few shifts:

• I no longer want music or television or any sound on around me.  Previously I turned on music videos or watched the ticker at the bottom of the screen on CNN and got caught up with the news.  I used all of this activity so I would not become bored.  Now I just feel my body and listen to my breath.  
• I am understanding more about pace.  Monday I felt like I should change my pattern from 30 minutes of walking/running to seeing how long I could sustain the running and asking myself what is hurting first, my legs or my lungs/heart.  
• Now that I don't smoke I find that I can excercise longer and can actual build the intensity.
• Distance is beginning to trump time.  Tuesday I decided to stop measuring the time I was walking/running and to start seeing how far I could walk/run.  I did just over 2 miles in 35 minutes yesterday and today which doesn't seem like much if you are a runner, but for me I see it as an accomplishment.
• Today as I was running I found myself counting to twelve over and over and over again.  It was my way to push through on the run, a form of distractionto help go just a few seconds more before I had to reduce the intensity and return to walking. 

Overall I have a great sense of well being since beginning this challenge and think it must be all those happy endorphins that are being released.  Yeah to happy endorphins I say!!

So on the one hand I have a better sense of well being and know that I am gaining strength (my ultimate goal) and on the other hand I wonder if all of this is just mindless and wasteful.  I am literally running in a loop (on the treadmill) and counting to myself for 30+ minutes.  I guess eating is a different form of running in a loop as well though...you have to keep doing it over and over again to live, and breathing is the same, and really all of life we are running in some kind of "loop".  Maybe what is different is acknowledging it, seeing this pattern for what it is and realizing that even if I was outdoors hiking, if I did that everyday it too would become a loop.  Hmmm.... 

I really do love this 30 days of something challenge as I have now started working out everyday and I know it is possible to make it happen.  There are some other things I really want to make happen as well and the Universe has sent me so many prompts today to begin...to put one foot in front of the other and see where it takes me....to give answer to the questions that are holding me back in other areas of my life. 

Begin is such a green word for me.  I visualize it as a delicate shoot pushing through the earth...a vine reaching for the light... new life pulsating in rhythm to the sun.  I think I will begin by organizing my room and making way for new creations.

What are beginning this week?