Red Cedar
More apocalypse, less angst
Post # 3061: Carrot muffins
For whatever reason, possibly due to the rain, I’ve been baking a lot this winter. Mostly bread (more on that in another post), but because I love a good muffin every once and awhile, I’ve also been on the hunt for healthy-ish muffin recipes. This one ticks off all my boxes because it’s low in sugar, and has a decent amount of fibre. Sourced from allrecipes.com (http://allrecipes.com/recipe/23787/awesome-carrot-muffins/) – the only thing I’ve modified here is the sugar amount. Most carrot muffin recipes are way skimpy on the carrot – but not this one!
- 1 cup raisins
- 2 cups warm water
- 2 cups all-purpose, unbleached flour
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 4 eggs
- 1 cup vegetable oil
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 3 cups shredded carrots
- Combine raisins and water in a small bowl. Let soak for 15 minutes. Drain raisins, discard water and set raisins aside.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease muffin cups or line with paper muffin liners.
- In a large bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. In a separate bowl, combine eggs, oil and brown sugar; beat well. Combine egg mixture and flour mixture; mix just until moistened. Fold in carrots and drained raisins. Spoon into prepared muffin cups.
- Bake in preheated oven for 20 to 30 minutes. Let cool for 30 minutes before frosting.
Post #3060: Every day sitting
Brian cleaned up the shrubs in front of the zendo yesterday and now I have to decide what to plant – I had been thinking of a Katsura tree, but a friend online told me that they aren’t drought tolerant and now I have to decide whether to risk it or not. Our spot on the island is a wet one, but in high summer it can get pretty dried out.
As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, my sitting practice has gotten more regular again, for the first time since last June when we moved. While I have sat lots since moving (3-5 times per week plus retreats) – it has not been a daily practice. In the last 33 days (yes, I keep track), I have managed to re-establish daily practice even with travel to the cities and a hectic schedule – which just goes to show that daily practice isn’t about how busy I am, but how dedicated I am to doing it.
If you don’t meditate, you might wonder – is there really a difference between sitting five times per week and every day? While to a seasoned practitioner of meditation (twenty years or more), perhaps there is no difference – in my nascent state (of only three years), I deeply feel the difference.
And I suppose that makes sense – zen isn’t something that we just practice when we feel like it, it’s something we try to embody in all our dealings every day – and as the core of the practice is zazen (sitting meditation) – it makes sense that sitting every day helps us to work with zen principles in every day life too. That means accepting and letting go of anxieties, being with impermanence and change rather than resisting, cultivating equanimity – and so on.
In one of Brad Warner’s books on zen he tells the reader at the outset “if you don’t have a daily practice, don’t bother reading any more of this book as it’s a waste of your time” – that’s my paraphrase because I can’t find the quote right now – but it pretty much sums up the feeling that you can’t really do zen without practice.
Another way of saying that is we can’t intellectualize our way to enlightenment.
For me, this is not dogmatic or about what I “should” do – but based in the fact that every day that I sit, my grounding points are strenghtened for that day. Morning practice in particular helps me step into a the day with awareness about my starting block. Am I more tired than normal? Grumpy? Giddy? Anticipating a heavy work day?
When I come to myself in silence for even a brief period – it brings the day into focus, my reactivity, what I am bringing to my work and my life off the cushion.
Which is not to say that I have some kind of horrible time when I don’t meditate for a day, but I’m just not as well integrated on the inside, and it’s noticeable. If several days in a row go by without practice, that’s when I notice a lot more difficulty – my old anxiety flares right back up, and I am quicker to anger and criticsm.
There are many reasons that I told myself my daily practice dropped off, but mainly it’s because I allowed it to happen in the flurry of uprooting and resettling. I take this return of solid zazen as a sign that I have actually landed back in my life and am settling on Gabriola for real. And now that I have regrouped in one place again, I see how free I am to leave it and take my daily exercise of silence with me, wherever I go – even if it means practicing on a crowded city bus on the way to work (as I had to early last week).
We are ten months here and I am just finding my seat again – and what a lovely little zendo to explore this in!
Post #3059: Introducing the tiny zendo
I was away from home for two weeks doing all the things (friends, jukai, work, training) in both nearby cities (Victoria then Vancouver). It was a wonderful break after being alone for much of the time this winter (not lonely though) – and I think in the two weeks of travel I saw pretty much all of my closest friends and was more than grateful for the many nice meals and visits (and all of that time spent with Brian as we travelled and stayed together in Van). Though I returned home last Wednesday, it’s taken me a few days to come back to ground and reintegrate into my home life. Being “on the road” and at the city condo is fun and all – but for a homebody like me, it’s also a little unsettling. I am a person who creates a bit of a fortress wherever I live – from the days when I only rented a room in a house, up until now with our half acre and home – I tend to surround myself with the things of my life and then spend a lot of time in that space. It’s not the comfort of material things that I seek in doing that, but a sense of personal space and the arrangement of it that’s most important.
One of the things that happened while we were away, was some work on the outdoors of our property – including work on a little outbuilding that was here when we moved in. This 9×9 “shed” was dank and full of detritus when we moved into the house – it smelled so foul (from some rotting carpet in the loft) that the dog wouldn’t even go into it. But even so, we quickly realized that it was way too overbuilt to be a simple shed – with power (four outlets, two overhead lights), insulation, two windows, and a poured concrete foundation – it had all the makings of a usable studio building or guest cabin. Last summer Brian and I cleaned it out and he threw a coat of white paint over everything to freshen it up in time for friends to stay in it during our summer party – but otherwise it needed some finishing work.
Because we already have studio space (and lots of it for both of us), we decided that this would be our tiny zendo, or meditation hall – and also double as guest space when needed. While away in March, we hired someone to come in and put up some shiplap to finish the walls and the loft, and on our return this past weekend we whitewashed those walls and bought flooring and a new light fixture. Yesterday, Brian installed the fixture and finished putting in the flooring and I nailed in the finishing strips along the edges (minus one, I ran out of material) – and voila! It’s a tiny zendo!
There are a last few additions still to come, including a shelf, and a wall heater, and some loft finishing including a piece of carpet and a ladder that hooks on for stability. Plus, I plan to landscape the outside a bit more and bang together a rack for shoes by the front door – but I’ve got a sitting space that feels light and airy, and a pleasure to be in. It’s *such* a great space that even Brian might be tempted to meditate there with me – he’s feeling mighty happy with how it turned out also.
I haven’t had a chance to sit in it yet, though I plan to do so tonight after returning home from work. I have returned to a rock solid daily practice for the first time since moving, and am reminded of the unmatchable benefits of sitting every day. So if you come visit me, and would like a sit while you are over – I will always affirm that desire – for sitting together strengthens all of our intentions. More cushions will soon be on order to accommodate guests.
Post 3058: Five things
These last few weeks have been full of things to do and I’ve had to seriously prioritize in order to get all the required things done. These are five things I am trying to do every day regardless of what the schedule and the to-do list look like:
- Meditate
- Two or three sun salutations
- Sing one song
- Put some stitches in something (knitting or sewing, crochet, weaving – whatever)
- Walk a minimum of 8000 steps
Bonus: Read five pages of a book.
Post #3057: Works in progress
Going into this year, I had three main things that I wanted to get through. I have now completed two of these objectives – getting elected as president to my union local (which happened on schedule), and finding some job stability in my current position (which happened much earlier in the year than expected). My third “major project” of 2017 is to be completing the work for my lay ordination which will take place later this month during a Jukai ceremony, and where I formally take Buddhist vows.
That work is 1) completing my rakusu, 2) sewing the pouch that holds the rakusu, and 3) completing a lineage project in which I describe my path and influences – my personal lineage. The photo above is my work on the lineage piece – I plan to trim and machine stitch those pieces of printed canvas together, and then write my lineage story along the path of the labyrinth. Basically, it’s just a canvas to write on – and then if I have time I’ll add some colour embellishment to the border areas. At the moment, my biggest challenge is writing the actual lineage piece, and I’m wondering about visualizing it with scraps of fabric in addition to writing. I need to set aside time for the writing piece and aim to do it in one single flow (with editing afterwards) – which is the only way I will get it done. Getting less literal about things would help also.
I’ve been sick recently, which has put me in a low mood. I’m starting to come out of it, though not as fast as I would like – and I’ve got tons of piled up work and projects just begging for attention (including house and yard work – it is spring after all, right?) Having some focused project work in preparation for my ceremony is helping to stay level with my current priorities – and also keep me attentive to the fact that I am still recovering from a cold. More soon…..
Red Cedar 