hommage à la nature

“…the realization, intimately personal, that there is a real dignity in human toil, that labor with the hands has a real worth in terms of ones physical and spiritual well being….this joy in some ways is so personal it’s incommunicable.”

Angelo Pelligrini from The Unprejudiced Palate.

Once again I have arrived in the southwest French countryside.  April showers have dampened the colza, rapeseed, meadows for three weeks.  The magical Gers is slowly awakening from its winter slumber.

Idyllically situated on the Auzoue River, the fortified village of Forcés, a 12th century, circular bastide, hosts one of the most visited flower markets in the department.

The theme this year was bees, abeilles.

French country gardens are usually a colorful mélange of flowers, herbs, medicinal plants and dwarf fruit trees.

Whimsy is an intrinsic part of designing a French country garden.

My two local helpers who carried my purchases to the car, happy to help the belle americaine for a few euros.

april fools

‘The first of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year.”

Mark Twain

Seattle, Washington

April Fool’s Day began in 1582, under the reign of Charles the IX of France, some years after Pope Gregory introduced a new calendar to the world.  The old calendar celebrated New Year’s Day on April 1st.  The new calendar celebrated New Year’s Day on January 1st. Some people didn’t hear of the change because news traveled slowly and others refused to believe their world could be turned upside down by a Papal decree and simply refused to acknowledge it.  These people were called April Fools.

Barcelona, Spain

In France, April 1st is sometimes called Poisson de Avril.  Children fool their friends by taping a paper fish to their backs.  When the child discovers that he’s been made a fool of, the children yell, “Poisson de Avril!”  because young naive fish are easily tricked into being caught.  Everyone laughs at the joke and it is generally a harmless prank.

Avignon, France

Those who believe in the alchemy of the Tarot believe in the archetypes the cards represent. The cards embody the collective unconscious or the world’s soul in a vast library of images and knowledge.  The Fool is one of the major Tarot cards, but is never “foolish”in the contemporary sense of the word.  The Fool is a magical survivor and though often oblivious to the world’s dangers he perseveres on his quest for the holy grail of enlightenment.

University District, Seattle

The Fool takes risks and often doesn’t care about what other people think. Fools aren’t restricted by society’s beliefs and know anything is possible because they are unafraid of adventure and are protected by their inventiveness.  Being labeled a “Fool” isn’t necessarily derogatory; it can be complimentary, for the Fool is forever newly born.

la vie quotidienne

Beauty cannot be explained, it can only be experienced.

Zen saying.

We live in the digital age of unrelenting stress, manipulated desires and confessional intimacy, an age in which society intrudes insidiously, seducing or paralyzing us into submission. We are left thinking we can have everything, but paradoxically feel we are nothing but empty vessels. We have become afflicted by the illness of the affluent and have lost ourselves in the ornamental maze of the irrelevant.  Finding beauty in the every day (la vie quotidienne) can be a way back to ourselves.

Opening our eyes and engaging with beauty makes us happy to be alive, less anxious and angry.  Connecting with the beautiful evokes feelings of gratitude, well-being, sincerity and is more likely to encourage us to random acts of kindness.

We have all been attracted to a landscape: rolling hills, oceans, rivers, flowers and blue skies flecked with white clouds or the cotton candy colors of the sunset.  Nothing is more intrinsically satisfying or nourishing. Why? Because we feel primevally fed.  Standing in a redwood forest humbles us to our core.  The ability to choose beauty is what makes us human.

How can you create beauty in your life?  By looking for beauty wherever you can.  A Swedish study of over 12,000 people found that those who go to the theatre, concerts, art exhibitions or take walks in nature are happier and live longer .  So, unplug the television, turn off the radio, put down the newspaper and dance till you’re tired, sing till you’re hoarse, pick up a book or read a poem whenever you can.  Pursuing beauty is the best medicine for what ails you.

le secret de l’amour

In our life there is a single color as on an artist’s palette which provides the meaning of life and art.  It is the color of love.

Marc Chagall

Les Baux

Les Baux de Provence is a magical limestone village of feudal splendor perched upon a rocky precipice, like a sun bleached skeleton, in the Alpilles mountains overlooking the Val d’enfer, Valley of hell, so called for its dry, rocky, windy environment.   It is blessed with more hours of sunshine than any other départment in the Bouches-du-Rhone region.  The Cours d’Amours, courts of love, were created here around 1150.

Etienne des Baux, the wife of Raymond I des Baux called the first feminist meeting together in history.  Here, refined women of illustrious birth set down the rules for courtly love and discussed the art of loving.  Minstrels, knights and troubadours vied against each other in chivalry, song and poetry.  The winners were awarded a kiss from a lady at court and a crown of peacock feathers.

Since Hippocrates proposed in 450 B.C. that emotions arise from the brain evolutionary psychologists have been looking for the answer to the question, what is love? Although the nature of love is hard to define it has a grammar all its own.  Our ability to find happiness is directly related to unlocking the hidden secrets of love. Who can explain the heart’s mysterious ways?  New scientific discoveries describe how our brains link miraculously to those of the people closest to us in a silent rhythm of wordless ties.  These invisible ties determine our mood, maintain our health and actually change the structure of our brains.  In a very real sense, who we are and who we become, depends upon whom we love.

Two girls discover the secret of life in a sudden line of poetry.

I who don’t know the secret wrote the line.  They told me

(through a third person) they had found it but not what it was not even

what line it was.  No doubt by now, more than a week later, they have forgotten

the secret, the line, the name of the poem.

I love them for finding what I can’t find

and for loving me for the line I wrote and for forgetting it so that

a thousand times till death finds them, they may discover it again

in other lines

in other happenings.  And for wanting to know it,

for assuming there is such a secret,

yes, for that, most of all.

Denise Levertov “The Secret”

Plenty

To The New Year

With what stillness at last you appear in the valley, your first sunlight reaching down to touch the tips of a few high leaves that do not stir, as though they had not noticed and did not know you at all. Then the voice of a dove calls from far away, in itself, to the hush of the morning.  So this is the sound of you, here and now, whether or not anyone hears it.  This is where we have come with our age, our knowledge, such as it is, and our hopes, such as they are, invisible before us, untouched and still possible.

W. S. Merwin

Margestau, Gers

Every year we start out with a set of resolutions, either consciously or unconsciously.  We begin with good intentions and end in defeat because we don’t have a plan.  Having a plan is the first step in making your dreams comes true. This year re-create your life, write a new narrative for yourself and hold it in your heart and mind.

Aux Arbeils, Ayzieu

Windows are perfect metaphors for insight and perception, from the painted windows of Vermeer to the stained glass windows of Chartres Catherdral.  They are the portals thorough which we make the unknown, known.  The world we see through an open window is a reflection of our world within.  Thackeray said, the world is a looking glass and gives back to everyone the reflection of his own thoughts.

Sacre Coeur from Musée d’Orsay

A few weeks ago I was at a bookstore and came across a book called The Secret of the Ages written by Robert Collier in 1926.  It is the book from which the popular sensation, The Secret, and all of the other Law of Attraction books sprung from.  I bought it, read it and realized that there were some simple, common sense truths to be gained from within its covers which mirrored my own conviction that we are each responsible for the quality of our own lives

Alhambra, Spain

Tonight, before you go to sleep, see yourself through your mind’s eye. Concentrate on the one thing you want most out of life, what you want to change or what you want to re-create.  Visualize it and have faith in your creative powers. In the morning make it tangible.  Put it on paper, draw it, write it, collage it, photograph it, paint it.  Then plan how you will achieve your goal.  Analyze the steps involved. Do one thing, every day, towards that goal. Keep going. Don’t procrastinate.  Just one step, every day.  There will be no limit to what you can create.

c’est la vie

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

Maya Angelou

People will especially never forget how you made them feel when inside your home. Regardless of their outward appearances our homes can make all who enter feel welcomed.

Winter months can be a time for self reflection and home improvement.  You can use simple design mantras for creating a comfortable ambiance for guests: don’t plan everything, be flexible, try anything that appeals to you, make sure you like everything because you have to look at it every day, if you can’t find what you want or can’t afford it – wait, and if your house doesn’t make you feel good when you walk in, chances are it won’t make anyone else feel good either.  Remember, your house is a reflection of your self.

Ask yourself what is expected of each room. Who will be occupying it and when? When will it be used and how? What will the room be inheriting from past rooms and past lives?  Look at the bones of your rooms: the walls, floors, and ceilings.  Do all of the spaces need to be used as originally planned?  Can a dining room, for example, be used for a library,  a media center or an office? Observe the way the light moves through each room at different times of the day.

Creating an inviting atmosphere in your home can be as easy as choosing colors that are soothing, like blues and greens, using aromatherapy candles with scents of lavender and vanilla, or having peaceful sounds like running water, wind chimes or tranquil music in the background.

Rearranging your furniture and using what you have will make the most of limitations. Unearthing treasures from closets, eating off your best dishes rather than saving them for special occasions and making sure you’re able to look at what you love the most will make all who enter your home feel special because you’ve made yourself feel special.

Make your home a place of comfort and you will feel nurtured whenever you are there and your guests will feel bonhomie.  Soyez le bienvenu!

food for thought

“We feed the world by being fed.”

Rodney Smith

Citrouille de Nerac

The fourth law of attraction is the law of sufficiency, plenty and abundance and what better time of the year to celebrate than the Thanksgiving holiday.  Thanksgiving is a time to be grateful for what we have: love, health, family, friends, and our natural environment. Daniel Webster thought that the cultivation of the land was the most important labor and in Plato’s Republic, the Greek philosopher, Socrates, recommended a vegetarian diet because he thought it would allow a country to make the most intelligent use of its’ agricultural resources

Aprés le vendage dans le Gers.

Almost everyone looks forward to the Thanksgiving celebration when we share a moment of reflection and gratitude for the bounty we have.  We also need to pay our respects to the Earth and mother nature, our collective hostess, for what good is this life if we don’t have a decent planet to live on?

Qui approche Larée

Francis Moore Lappé, author of Diet for a Small Planet, said long ago that Americans are hooked on a grain fed, meat centered diet because of the illusion of cheap grain. During the writing of her book she discovered that over 90% of grain produced in America is used for feeding cows,pigs, lambs and chickens.  A diet of of vegetables, beans and whole grains would be healthier and support twenty times more people than a diet of grain fed meat.

Une assiette de figues.

Each year approximately 158 million mammals and over 9 billion birds are killed for food in America, but few people make any connection between these statistics and the food on their plates.  We can harvest good karma and sustain human life by eating nourishing food that feeds the soul. The growing of food used to be an alchemical mystery.  We transformed water into wine and grain into bread and partook of the divine mystery of life when food was sacred. In some cultures certain foods are still considered sacred: coconut to the Hindus, bread to the Catholics, Challah to the Jews, coca leaf to the Andeans and maize to the Native Americans, among many others.

Estang fenêtre

My mother was the worst cook in the world.  She managed to burn everything she cooked, and my father made me sit at the table until I finished my meal because all the starving kids in China only had white rice to eat.   Becoming a vegetarian was an easy segue.  I invite you to try a Thanksgiving meal without the turkey as the focal point and if not this year, maybe next.  After all, we are what we eat.

Pain de Citrouille (pumpkin bread)

2/3 cup organic butter at room temperature

1+3/4 cups organic sugar

4 organic eggs

2 cups cooked organic pumpkin purée

2/3 cup organic milk

2 teaspoons organic cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon organic nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon organic ground gnger

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

3 teaspoons organic baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1+1/2 cups chopped organic pecans (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Grease and lightly flour 2, 9+1/2 x 5+1/2 loaf pans or 6, 5+3/4 x 3+1/2 loaf pans.

Mix all of the dry ingredients, then all of the wet ingredients in separate bowls and gradually mix together.

Turn into pans and bake for 1 hour or 1 hour + 15 minutes for the large loaves or 50 minutes to 1 hour for the small loaves.

Cool 5 minutes in the pan then turn out on a wire rack.  Slice and spread with butter or soft cream cheese.

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