bikram yoga, class 4

my fourth class. a real disappointing class. for several reasons.

first, a woman came in late to class and set her mat directly in front of me. she proceeded to spend the entire class one to three beats off from the rest of the class AND talking to the (admittedly very handsome) teacher. but come on!! it was so distracting. she moved into and came out of postures at different times than the rest of the class, she left the room once, got up and got a tissue once, talked directly to the teacher 3 or 4 times.

in bikram yoga, you're supposed to move together as a class throughout the entire 90 minute class in controlled and precise movements. its not only about doing the postures, its about staying as still as possible between postures despite the sweat and the heat and the discomfort and your clothes sticking to you in the most unfortunate of places. its just part of the practice. and teachers are supposed to keep students accountable to this part of the practice -- reminding students to stay together as a class. even the corpse pose is one you do with precision and control.

the hot (pun intended) teacher, eddie, would not say anything to this woman even though it was obvious it was all a play to get his attention. it was obnoxious but mostly just really distracting.

second, for some reason it seems like the yoga teachers here move faster. there is less time to rest between each posture and so i spent this class especially just feeling like i could never catch up. normally breathing comes natural to me in class, but today i not only was not aware of my breath throughout class i also just couldn't ever get settled into breathing at all. i felt like i spent the whole class trying to catch up.

third, i'm just exhausted today. not sure really why. yesterday i felt great after class. today i just felt angry and bothered and like i just couldn't keep up.

fourth, i've been having a really hard time with anything that has to do with balancing. so many of the first postures -- the standing series; the majority of the class -- are about balancing with a strong, locked standing leg while doing some wild things with the top half of your body. i can't seem to get past the first step of any of the balancing postures. today, because of the distracting woman in front of me -- or actually because of my inability to tune her out -- i fell out of the postures (or couldn't even get into them) even more than in my first class four days ago.

on another note, my headache is still gone. my muscles are feeling less stressed and tight and more open, flexible, clean. i'm still really glad i'm doing this. it is an amazing experience even with the challenges. i can feel my body getting stronger and my life focusing in on the important things -- the things i want and who i am.

my stomach and hips still are pudgy and i wonder how long it will take with a regular practice before i start to see a difference, not only in my physical appearance but in my core strength -- which, once developed will help me go much deeper into all the postures.

on yet another note, i rode my bike to an urban organic farm about a mile from where i'm staying here in austin. i bought fresh heirloom tomatoes (oaxacan jewels), fresh basil, arugula, french sorrel, pigweed amaranth, peaches and cherry tomatoes along with some pickled zucchini sticks. me and amy jones had a great picnic lunch on the UT campus and then repeated the same exact meal for dinner. this is what we had:

• arugula and french sorrel salad with peaches, yellow cherry tomatoes, spicy roasted pumpkin seeds and a sweet vinaigrette
• fresh baked 6th street sourdough bread from sweetish bakery
• sliced oaxacan jewel tomatoes with sea salt, pepper and slivers of basil
• various cheeses, sliced
• a few pieces of fried turkey bacon

it was the most satisfying meal i've had yet this summer. so simple. so many vegetables. so many fresh, crisp flavors.

until tomorrow.

A New Home :)

I haven't posted in a while because I've been in the process of moving . . . again. I've moved everything I own into my parents' house in Dayton, O. It feels good to be here, even though I feel a little funny moving back into my parents house and wouldn't have believed it if you had told me 6 months ago that I would be moving back to southwest Ohio. Funny how life takes you down many paths you never thought it would.

I actually feel really really really relieved to have all my stuff moved into my parents place. Things have been so topsy turvy for me in the past couple (many?) years that having my things here actually makes me feel more grounded than I have in a long time. Like now that my things are all safe in the basement, I can feel more free to roam or settle in or boomerang back and forth between my many different interests. In moving this most recent time, I began to notice a pattern (finally) emerging in my collections -- kitchen stuff, fabric/yarn/sewing supplies, BOOKS and rocks. These are the things I collect. Most of these things are heavy things, which I attribute to my airy Libra self needing to be brought back down to earth from all the flying about I do in my mind, and across the planet. Did I mention how relieved I feel to have all my stuff at my parents house? I love my little dungeon (basement) bedroom/living room/bathroom and the beautiful yard, trees, flowers (blue carpets of squill are the most recent bloomers) and soon the morels will come up under the giant ash trees that dot the property.

I will be starting my annual spring raw food fast soon. I will be posting recipes to go along with it. Simple guides to using raw foods to cleanse the system at the start of a new year. Last year I did this raw food fast and I felt amazing, energetic, clear -- all my muscles felt clean, revived, energized, my mind felt the same. I have treated my body poorly this winter -- getting out of shape, over-indulging my sweet tooth and generally just eating my way through feeling bored, broke and somewhat ill. Blech!!

I will also be starting work on the farms next week -- I will be working primarily on two CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture) called Smaller Footprint and Wild Soil and sometimes at a third CSA called Heart Beet Farms. I can't wait to get my hands dirty and be outside on a regular basis. This winter has lasted far too long and the spring is inching along so slowly, it's about to drive me crazy.

Check back soon for updates on the farms, raw food recipes/spring cleanse and a little story about buzzards.

Three Sisters Stew

I have lots of black beans in my life right now. 3 gallon jugs full of dried black beans (the same amount of garbanzos too) -- more than enough to last me for several years since, of course, beans double in size when cooked. 12 gallons of beans. Well, I have some work ahead of me to find creative uses for these little guys.

I also have a very large (I mean like 3 times the size of my head) hubbard squash and a container of these weird dry corn kernels that are also quite large compared to the normally tooth sized corn kernels we are used to seeing in the US. they are closer to the size of a dime or even a nickel, than the size of a 10 year old's tooth. This dried corn was procured at a nameless international food market some years ago with no label, so I'm not even sure what to call them, though in my mind I have begun calling this particular ingredient parching corn -- but keep in mind that this is only my own made up name and not based on any kind of research or fact.

So with these three things in mind I decided to make something that I am calling the Three Sisters Stew. Some people may not be familiar with the term three sisters. It was used to describe the trio of corn, beans and squash that native americans began cultivating a few thousand years ago and which sustained them fairly abundantly through the colonial invasion of the 1700's and 1800's, when most native groups were uprooted and forced to take on new agricultural practices in new habitats out of necessity rather than choice.

The three sisters grew well together with corn creating a stalk for beans to grab onto and climb up and with the broad leaves of squash creating a blanket over the surrounding ground that kept moisture in and weeds down. The three complimented each other nutritionally as well, providing many more necessary nutrients than either crop could provide alone. The beans and corn together provided a complete protein and the combination of these with the squash kept the corn from leaching important minerals and nutrients from those whose diet was based on this important early native-to-america grain.

In addition, corn alone can greatly drain nutrients and especially nitrogen from the soil, being a heavy feeder while it grows. The beans fix nitrogen in the soil and so, in addition to providing good nutrition for people, these three sisters also protected the delicate balance of the soil for much longer than a monocrop of any of these three would alone.

In Ohio, there is archaeological evidence of these three sisters being dominant in native gardens dating back to at least 1000 years ago. Currently, Ohio has quite bastardized this tradition by planting huge tracts of genetically modified corn and soy beans primarily used for animal feed -- not together but strictly separated along farm boundaries. Pumpkin farmers plant huge fields of pumpkins for the annual pumpkin mania that happens each fall around Halloween. Most of our other squashes and almost all our edible corn and beans are trucked in from the southwest, California and other countries.

Well, anyway, I'm sure I could go on and on about how I wish the current food system was different -- more localized, less dependent on trucks and pesticides and not threatened by the booming "green" energy of biomass, ethanol and corporate biodiesel, but that's for another time.
Three Sisters Stew

soak 2 cups black beans
and 1 cup dried corn kernels
in 6 cups clean water
soak these overnight

Dump soaking water. Beans and corn should take up 1/3 of your pot. Fill pot to 2/3 full with water and bring to a boil. Boil lightly for up to 6 hours, adding more water if needed. (I tend to boil my beans for a long time or else I have a hard time digesting them appropriately -- in other words they make me fart a lot and make me constipated -- if you don't have this problem then follow whatever guidelines you usually use for cooking dried beans. I think most sources say that soaked beans only have to boil for a couple hours).

While beans and corn are cooking, bake an orange squash in an oven at about 375*. Can Use Hubbard, acorn, butternut or whatever kind of winter squash you have. Cut squash in half and put face down in about 1 inch water and bake til soft. Pull from oven when soft and let cool.

Saute
3 Tbsp. cumin seed
and 1 head of minced garlic in
1/4 cup butter or oil (I like butter better because it has a richer flavor)


At the end of the boiling,

add 4 sheets crumbled nori wrapper or a handful of dulse (a type of seaweed)
add 1/4 - 1/2 cup of brown sugar
add salt to taste
add cayenne pepper to taste


Add
up to 4 cups of the cooked squash
the sauteed garlic, butter and cumin
to the beans and corn.

If you like meat, add some chunks of cooked sausage, pork roast or maybe even chicken.

Let all this cook together for about 1/2 hour and then serve garnished with

chopped parsley
ramps
chives
cilantro

A Plan or a Gorilla In A Pantsuit

I am slowly working my way towards getting everything I want. What an interesting road. This weekend I made a decision. A plan. I'm going to do something. And I feel really good. It is a plan that has been a couple years in the making but it's mine and I'm ready.

The plan is this:

This summer (in 1 month, actually), I will move to Yellow Springs, Ohio. I will start working on 2 different organic farms, both of which I can get to on my bicycle. I will pick up a little work with my father and will start baking goods for the Saturday Farmer's Market. After the growing season, sometime in the fall, maybe October, maybe November, I will put on my walking shoes and head south. This is the part of the plan that has been in the making for some time. I have wanted to travel in Central America and Mexico for a long time but keep putting it off til later. But now (or in the fall really) is the time. I don't know when I will come back northward and at this point it doesn't really matter. It only matters that I head south and keep going til I'm done.

I like this plan. It's simple, easy and feels good in all the right places.

I'm kind of sad to leave Athens behind but it will always be here. And anyway, I was starting to get bored here, mostly cause I've been ignoring that southward pull for too long.

I have also finally resigned myself (happily) to the fact that I am a traveler. It is okay. If I don't keep moving, I begin to wither and die, slowly, imperceptibly, like a locust, I might look alive but if you flick me with your finger, I will shatter into a thousand pieces, the perfectly intact shell giving way to the perfectly hollow insides. That is, if I don't keep moving when I need to, and coming home when I need to. This is my rhythm and I've been doubting it, trying to force myself into forms and molds and patterns that don't suit me, like a gorilla in a pantsuit.