Just whipped this up and thought I'd share - can't believe how delicious this is!
1 stalk celery with leaves
2 tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 tbsp Flax Oil
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 clove garlic
1 tsp celtic sea salt
juice from 1/4 orange
Coarsly chop celery.
Place all ingredients into blender and pluse/chop for 30 seconds until mixed. It will be chuncky and anslightly thick consistency.
I put this on a salad of mixed spring greens, tomato, cucumber, green pepper, avocado and topped with some raw sunflower seeds for crunch. DELICIOUS!
Let me know how this works for you!
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Saturday, April 2, 2011
I Am the Farmer. I Am the Field. I Am the Hunger.
I grew up in a small town in New Hampshire. When I was growing up I looked out our dining room windows to a pasture where dairy cows grazed. My street had numerous vacant lots as well as larger wooded properties that extended several acres in back of the lawns and formed an interconnected forested matrix of streams, reclaimed farm fields and pastures, dilapidated barns, abandoned farm equipment, dumping grounds, family burial plots, abandoned summer cottages, train tracks, and a quarry.
As a child I played outdoors without direct adult supervision at a rather young age. This was common. My mother routinely sent me out to play and called for me from the front porch to come home at lunch, dinner, or dusk. I roamed the neighborhood, reveling in my freedom and independence. Sometimes I would meet up with the neighbor kids and we'd execute intense imaginary play. There was only one yard was off limits, that of a particularly cranky older childless couple. Adults had an eye out for the kids and could at any time implement justice. The neighborhood was our playground. Other times I ventured off by myself, exploring the woods on my own terms. I walked unfamiliar trails which spit me out into backyards, followed ridges and ravines to new streets and old train tracks. I developed a keep sense of direction and intimacy with the local topography.
One day when I was eight or nine years old I was sitting on a hill overlooking a meadow. Until recently it had been pasture for dairy cows. I gazed out over a spectacular expanse of spring wildflowers. Down through the meadow a slow moving stream meandered, lazily making its way down to a river around the bend. The stream ran like a beautiful healed wound from the northwest corner of the field, which was bounded by train tracks and a state road, diagonally across the land, and exited at the southeast corner bounded by woods. There was an old stone bridge, about four feet wide, that provided the sole stream crossing. Along the stream was a transitional wetland that hosted a stunning array of grasses and dragonflies. At the center of the scene was a lone tree, soaring out of the stream with it's branches extending skyward above the bridge like a giant hand. Its trunk was at least three feet in diameter, demonstrating that it had predated the expansion of the stream, its roots well established in the soil long before it's waters began lapping the bark. Wildflowers extended as far as I could see in all directions. Sitting on the cool earth, the dampness of which was slowly seeping through the seat of my pants, the flowers were at eye level. I lay back, fingers interlaced behind my head, staring up into the brilliant blue sky above, a canopy of golden blossoms framing my field of vision.
I began to hear a low hum. I could hear the trickle of the stream down the hill, the burrowing of the ants beneath, the munching of the grasshoppers, the buzz of the bee and its wings beating as it came in to investigate the flower directly above my eye, effortlessly pausing in space. I was inside an impressionist painting. Boundaries blurred. The individual life units of the flower and the bee could be seen pulsing, beating, inhaling, exhaling in unison. I was everywhere. I was the sky. I was the bee. I was the stream. I was the flower petal. I was nowhere. I was a waterfall of love. I was the energy of the sun arriving from it's violent, erupting, heavenly origin warming, vibrating, and singing an ancient song of longing. Contentment. Stillness. Time dissolving and space converging. Unison.
The bee flew away. As I sat up, looking out at the view, goose bumps rose on my skin. Perhaps it was the cool spring breeze that now picked up, sweeping up the hillside. Perhaps it was the encounter with the Ultimate which had just breathed into me. I was changed.
The psychic imprint of that moment on a hillside overlooking an abandoned farmer's field in springtime splendor forged within me an empathetic listening for environmental and social justice; a particular sensitivity to socio-political injustice, a particular susceptibility to being heartbroken when I encounter hunger, the rape and exploitation of the environment, and the inhumane treatment of any creature. I am the hungry child. I am the ancient tree felled for cow pasture. I am the immigrant worker maimed on the floor of the slaughterhouse assembly line. I am the soil fouled by fumigants. I am the water stagnant and toxic. I am back in the moment of a child on a hillside, all life units beating, breathing, loving as one.
Thich Nhat Hahn has a term, interbeing. We Inter-are. The most difficult work is to maintain openness in our hearts to experience all creatures and the Earth as ourselves. Most of use work diligently our whole lives in order to erect barriers which enable us to live our lives while feeling less and less. The work of living through the wisdom of a soft, loving, and unveiled heart enriches this world for all. It is life affirming. It is life giving. We do and we fail. That is our humanness. But we must be awake. We must keep doing and failing and doing again. To do otherwise is to have squandered the miraculous gift of this precious human life. It is to disregard the unique gift we each are to the Universe.
As a child I played outdoors without direct adult supervision at a rather young age. This was common. My mother routinely sent me out to play and called for me from the front porch to come home at lunch, dinner, or dusk. I roamed the neighborhood, reveling in my freedom and independence. Sometimes I would meet up with the neighbor kids and we'd execute intense imaginary play. There was only one yard was off limits, that of a particularly cranky older childless couple. Adults had an eye out for the kids and could at any time implement justice. The neighborhood was our playground. Other times I ventured off by myself, exploring the woods on my own terms. I walked unfamiliar trails which spit me out into backyards, followed ridges and ravines to new streets and old train tracks. I developed a keep sense of direction and intimacy with the local topography.
One day when I was eight or nine years old I was sitting on a hill overlooking a meadow. Until recently it had been pasture for dairy cows. I gazed out over a spectacular expanse of spring wildflowers. Down through the meadow a slow moving stream meandered, lazily making its way down to a river around the bend. The stream ran like a beautiful healed wound from the northwest corner of the field, which was bounded by train tracks and a state road, diagonally across the land, and exited at the southeast corner bounded by woods. There was an old stone bridge, about four feet wide, that provided the sole stream crossing. Along the stream was a transitional wetland that hosted a stunning array of grasses and dragonflies. At the center of the scene was a lone tree, soaring out of the stream with it's branches extending skyward above the bridge like a giant hand. Its trunk was at least three feet in diameter, demonstrating that it had predated the expansion of the stream, its roots well established in the soil long before it's waters began lapping the bark. Wildflowers extended as far as I could see in all directions. Sitting on the cool earth, the dampness of which was slowly seeping through the seat of my pants, the flowers were at eye level. I lay back, fingers interlaced behind my head, staring up into the brilliant blue sky above, a canopy of golden blossoms framing my field of vision.
I began to hear a low hum. I could hear the trickle of the stream down the hill, the burrowing of the ants beneath, the munching of the grasshoppers, the buzz of the bee and its wings beating as it came in to investigate the flower directly above my eye, effortlessly pausing in space. I was inside an impressionist painting. Boundaries blurred. The individual life units of the flower and the bee could be seen pulsing, beating, inhaling, exhaling in unison. I was everywhere. I was the sky. I was the bee. I was the stream. I was the flower petal. I was nowhere. I was a waterfall of love. I was the energy of the sun arriving from it's violent, erupting, heavenly origin warming, vibrating, and singing an ancient song of longing. Contentment. Stillness. Time dissolving and space converging. Unison.
The bee flew away. As I sat up, looking out at the view, goose bumps rose on my skin. Perhaps it was the cool spring breeze that now picked up, sweeping up the hillside. Perhaps it was the encounter with the Ultimate which had just breathed into me. I was changed.
The psychic imprint of that moment on a hillside overlooking an abandoned farmer's field in springtime splendor forged within me an empathetic listening for environmental and social justice; a particular sensitivity to socio-political injustice, a particular susceptibility to being heartbroken when I encounter hunger, the rape and exploitation of the environment, and the inhumane treatment of any creature. I am the hungry child. I am the ancient tree felled for cow pasture. I am the immigrant worker maimed on the floor of the slaughterhouse assembly line. I am the soil fouled by fumigants. I am the water stagnant and toxic. I am back in the moment of a child on a hillside, all life units beating, breathing, loving as one.
Thich Nhat Hahn has a term, interbeing. We Inter-are. The most difficult work is to maintain openness in our hearts to experience all creatures and the Earth as ourselves. Most of use work diligently our whole lives in order to erect barriers which enable us to live our lives while feeling less and less. The work of living through the wisdom of a soft, loving, and unveiled heart enriches this world for all. It is life affirming. It is life giving. We do and we fail. That is our humanness. But we must be awake. We must keep doing and failing and doing again. To do otherwise is to have squandered the miraculous gift of this precious human life. It is to disregard the unique gift we each are to the Universe.
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