Cooking,carrots, and our own true heart

"One concept in cooking is 'How do I make it taste the way its supposed to?' "

"This doesn’t have to do with tasting anything. Its making something be the way its supposed to. And its also possible you know to ask the carrot how it likes to be or what its like to be a carrot. And what would help the carrot express its carrot-ness more fully today. This is different than making the carrot taste the way its supposed to. Do you understand? A friend of mine went to the Culinary Institute of America, the other CIA, in Hyde Park, New York, And he said he had a teacher who would walk around and say, 'Chef, what are you doing?' And you might say, 'I’m making carrot soup'. And then the teacher would say, ' And what should carrot soup taste like?' And then you were supposed to answer 'Carrots'. I don’t know about you but I’ve definitely had carrot soup that I can’t tell... is it carrot, is it yam, is it winter squash? Because it has carrots and it has orange juice and it has chilies and it has green chilies and it has ginger and it has apples and it has basil, maybe some coriander. Tastes magnificent but you don’t know what it is.

So most of us are busy projecting our selves in this way. Aren’t I magnificent? You don’t know who I am do you? (laughs) And then we wonder 'why do I have so much trouble connecting?' (laughs)......

Is it all right for you to be you? Can you study how to bring out the best in who you are? Can you help yourself realize who you are, just as you could help a carrot express itself? This is to say, you know, how do you help your heart express your heart? It takes a certain amount of courage and, initially, a certain amount of awkwardness. We’re not used to expressing our heart and we’re busy presenting ourselves as a perfected being.

So this basic activity of tasting a carrot, to actually taste a carrot, and then you can taste a carrot when you cook it in a little water, in oil, in butter, if you roast it in the oven and you can taste what happens to carrot just in the different ways its cooked. And carrot with oil and without oil, and with you know there's only just five flavors, there's salt and there's soy sauce, there's vinegar and lemon juice, there's sugar and honey, there's pungent elements, there's garlic and ginger and you could study what helps carrot be carrot and manifest the carrot-ness of carrots.

And you can study what helps you manifest the heart of you. What encourages you to do that? How will you manage that? This is a different practice than studying how to be successful or good or grown up or calm and quiet and still."

-- transcribed from a recorded talk at a day long sitting with Edward Espe Brown on August 9, 2008 at Green Gulch

any errors in transcription are mine.

Nurturing

Mother-of-us-all prays to free us
from our image of perfection
to which so much suffering clings.

When in the shadowy mind
we imagine ourselves imperfectly,
praying to be freed from gravity
by enlightenment, she refines our prayers.

Putting her arms around us
she bids us rest our head on her shoulder
whispering, Don’t you know
with all your fear and anger
all you are fit for is love.

- Stephen Levine from Breaking the Drought - Visions of Grace

WOO HOO!

I came across this on another blog.
If you Google it, it comes in many variations...
here's one.






"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave
with the intention of arriving safely
in an attractive and well preserved body
but rather to skid in sideways,
chocolate in one hand,
body thoroughly used up
totally worn out
and screaming
WOO HOO what a ride!"
-annonymous

The variations seem to be in what one is holding in one's hand or hands as one skids in. Chocolate works for me. The poet Mary Oliver says poems are meant to be read aloud. So read this one to yourself or someone else and when you get to "WOO HOO"...give it all you've got!

Re-visiting

I've been re-visiting B.K.S. Iyengar's Light on Yoga sequences lately. It's got me working a couple of standing poses differently. Love when this happens. You just start looking at a familiar pattern of energy in a different way and all of a sudden a new door to the pose opens.

I've been using his sequence of standing poses, in the order he suggests...just to feel why he did them in that order. I have to say my hips are feeling really good (the sequence I've been playing with was for relieving sciatica which I don't suffer from but figured it would provide some nice hip work).

Even though these are Iyengar sequences, I find my way into the poses using Erich Schiffmann's work on finding lines of energy.

I am having so much fun on the mat!

Nourished

When I get home from teaching a yoga class, my husband often asks me how it went. "Did it flow?", he asks. Sometimes it really does...like an excellent meal...all the flavors blend just right.
Other days my plans go awry. The real people in front of me need something different than what I'd wanted to offer. Then it's sort of like looking in the frig and picking out a little of this, a little of that, making a meal of seemingly un-related items. Classes like that can turn out to be just right too...pulling together the fragments into a delicious meal for the body, mind and soul.

Smoothly flowing or a little rough around the edges, there seems to be plenty of opportunity for us to be nourished by whatever arises on our yoga mat.

A little secret

Any Morning

Just lying on the couch and being happy.
Only humming a little, the quiet sound in the head.
Trouble is busy elsewhere at the moment, it has
so much to do in the world.

People who might judge are mostly asleep; they can't
monitor you all the time, and sometimes they forget.
When dawn flows over the hedge you can
get up and act busy.

Little corners like this, pieces of Heaven
left lying around, can be picked up and saved.
People wont even see that you have them,
they are so light and easy to hide.

Later in the day you can act like the others.
You can shake your head. You can frown.

~ William Stafford ~

Seeking

As a bee seeks nectar
from all kinds of flowers,

seek teachings everywhere.

Like a deer that finds a quiet place to graze,

seek seclusion to digest all you have gathered.

Like a mad one, beyond all limits,

go wherever you please and live like a lion

completely free of all fear.

-- Dzogchen tantra