"On branch tips the hibiscus bloom. The mountains show off red calices.

Nobody. A silent cottage in the valley.

One by one the flowers open, then fall." — Wang-Wei

Spring Snow is Just a Reminder

We woke up to a wet coating of white this morning, and as I stepped outside with my camera I realized that the sound of snow hitting leaves is something one doesn't hear too often. And it's louder than you'd think.

I found the unfurled ferns wearing their snow caps,

and daffodil trumpets stooped beneath the extra weight of white blankets.

The bees were staying wherever bees go to keep warm, and the Azalea blooms had temporarily lost their ability to hum.

The sun and warmth will return this weekend, along with the bees and hikes in the woods and time spent in the brown garden planting rows of spinach and peas. Spring snow is just winter's PS, its long goodbye.

Trillium

Bird-like.

Yay, I broke it!

Just wanted to share this necklace I spotted on Etsy over the weekend because it marries two of my favorite things — jewelry and Fiestaware. The Broken Plate Shop creates jewlery — pendants, brooches, cuff links, bracelets, rings and more — from patterned, colorful pieces of broken dishware. I like how the organic shapes lend themselves to interesting pendant designs — there's a real "work with what you've got" attitude to these pieces.

And The Broken Plate loves to do custom work — so if you've accidentally smashed a piece of your favorite dinnerware, console yourself by having a piece of jewelry made.

Face in the Trees, The Sequel

Last week my brother was going through some images of my mom's watercolor paintings to send to a friend when he came across the one below. He'd also just seen my post about the wood wizard.
"What do you see in this painting?" he emailed, attaching it.
Well, I'll be darned. Another face in the trees!

Six Senses Sunday #51

Taste:
• White bean tortilla casserole, another amazing recipe from The Kripalu Cookbook. Thanks to the sauce — a sweet combination of beets, carrots, and onions with cilantro, cumin, and umeboshi vinegar — the casserole emerged from the oven a bright, tall stack of layered goodness
• An Indian couple owns a nearby general store/gas station and when I stopped to fill the tank on Friday morning, lo and behold a tray of fresh samosas had just been pulled from the oven. I had to break my "no eating in the car" rule to have one. Looking down at my lap afterwords I remembered why that rule exists in the first place.
• Chewy Reed's Ginger Candies — plus the fun of J using the little box they came in as a trumpet, causing Vixen to bark and howl in the kitchen
• Tahini, orange juice, banana, and brown rice syrup — 4 ingredients that don't belong together in a blender, trust me

Hear:
• "It's incredibly important to un-think at least once a day. For the very preservation of the intellectual life." — Alan Watts
• A woodcock chirping and diving in the night field, turkeys gurgling in the woods behind the house

See:
• A thin gray salamander in the rivulet, clinging to a rock
• Schools of tiny fish along the shoreline of lake Maheenak, Lenox
• The vegetable garden almost ready for spring planting, a lush green cross of grass and clover bisecting the four turned and smoothed beds of dark brown soil

Smell:
• Mahanarayan oil, for use on my chronically unhappy shoulder. I'm determined to personally test all I can about Ayurveda before I decide whether or not I should study it because I refuse to get behind anything that doesn't work for me personally anymore. Life is too short. Um, have I officially mentioned here that I'm considering studying Ayurveda? If it happens, it won't be for a while, since I need to get several things in order first.
• Birch sap as I clip branches from our tree the ice storm toppled sideways years ago
• Natrapel insect repellent — black fly season is upon us

Touch:
• Suspended in the hammock at night, a hanging lantern flickering in the birch branches, I am weightless beneath the stars

Feel:
• I met a kindred spirit in Se'Lah this weekend, and the hours we spent together flew by. I immediately felt comfortable sharing stories with her and we laughed and laughed — what a blessing to meet a woman who likes to laugh about funny little things in life as much as I do.
• I was proud of myself for saying no to a freelance job I knew would stress me out on top of work this week, though it was a brand new client and I hated to refuse. The next day my favorite client, who I can't possibly refuse, called me with a job that's twice as big. Guess I'll be busy again. I'll just have to practice not getting too stressed out.

A Very Good Find

What's in this box I'm taking home? Would you believe. . .

it's this beautiful gold-colored Buddha head? Isn't it incredible?!

I was waiting for a lunch meeting to begin by browsing in an antique store across the courtyard from my office when I spotted him, alone on a shelf by the window. The owner of the shop noticed me tapping at its surface with my finger (some kind of ceramic). This is going to be too expensive for me I thought, unable to reach the price tag.

"I have that marked at $35 but I can sell it to you for $25" she chirped hopefully from across the room.

$25? You'd better believe you can sell it to me for that. I felt like I'd just won some kind of lottery.

And so the golden head came home with me in a mysterious box and when I unwrapped it from the newspaper and bubble wrap to show J he was as excited about it as I was. Buddha now occupies his own shelf in the corner of the living room, beautiful against the red walls, so serene looking in his meditation, and destined to be surrounded by vases of summer of flowers (and photographed regularly). It's funny — I very rarely venture into antique stores anymore because I have plenty of things and always seem to find more, but this was definitely a matter of being in the right place at the right time.

Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn't learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn't learn a little, at least we didn't get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn't die; so, let us all be thankful. — Buddha

Links for Lunch: My iPod Overfloweth

Books. I've been reading 'em.
And podcasts. I've been listening to 'em. Lots. And it occurred to me tonight that I should do a post on a few of the podcasts I've discovered recently, because some of you might find them interesting as well. Though I do listen to other podcasts like The Moth and RadioLab, the ones I'm going to focus on today have Eastern spirituality in common.

First, allow me to introduce you to The Storytelling Monk. As with all of these, you can listen to the recordings on his website, or you can subscribe to his podcast via iTunes. "Welcome to your home for wisdom tales, sacred riddles, spiritual tips, holy humor and more." the Storytelling Monk begins, "Ready?" He has an endearing French accent and loves to laugh. His stories come from a variety of religious backgrounds with a metaphorical interpretation in the tradition of the Kriya yoga masters. I recommend his 8 part series on Spiritual Stress Management (which I listened to while at work, stressed, just yesterday).

Another series of podcasts I've been recommending to lots of people is the Krishna Sunday temple talks by Caru Das. You don't need to be an ISKCON devotee to appreciate the basic wisdom this great public speaker shares from the Lotus Temple in Spanish Fork, Utah while his pet birds chirp in the background (the grounds of the temple are also home to a small animal park, as the Hari Krishnas, like all Hindus, practice Ahimsa, non-harming/non-violence towards both people and animals). I've heard some inspiring talks on dealing with anger, stress, fear, and depression, as well as living both your heart's desire and a purposeful life. In the most recent episode, The Hero Within, Caru stresses the important differences between a "celebrity" and a "hero" and suggests a path for becoming more heroic in your own life by gaining control over your desires and senses (and explains why doing so is important from a Hindu perspective).

The tag line of the Buddhist Geeks podcast is "Seriously Buddhist, Seriously Geeky." From their website, "Buddhist Geeks was born out of a conversation between two friends, Vince Horn and Ryan Oelke, at a local coffeeshop in Boulder, CO. At the time, both Vince and Ryan were Religious Studies students at Naropa University, a Buddhist-inspired liberal arts school." Podcasts like I'm not Babysitting Your Ego, Self is is a Network Phenomenon, and The Buddha Didn't Have a Credit Card offer a fresh perspective on being a modern-day Buddhist practitioner. Good stuff.

If you're interested in kirtan but aren't sure where to start listening and learning I can't recommend Kitzie Stern's bi-weekly New World Kirtan podcast highly enough. Each one is built around a thoughtful theme (New Voices, Kirtan to Snooze To, Ganesh is Fresh) and she's introduced me to some amazing artists.

Learning more about Vedic Mythology, Mantras, and Music is easy with the help of podcasts by Ben Collins, with an emphasis on spirituality and humor as he tells the ancient and imaginative tales of Shiva, Saraswati, Navarati, Rama, and more. Each episode ends with an appropriate chant/mantra by Brahman priests, some taken from historical recordings. This site also offers great podcasts on Ayurvedic Living and Jyotish, Vedic Astrology.

And finally, the Urban Guru Café is dedicated to providing professionally-produced interviews with those who are expressing what we call Nonduality today, and they even have themselves a spot over on (at?) Second Life, for those of you who spend time in that virtual world. Personally I can't even get my Second Life avatar to walk without banging into door jams and clumsily falling down virtual hills, so I stay in this world where I'm only slightly less klutzy. As for Nonduality, I wrote my very first Philosophy paper on it, though it's pretty clear, looking it over 20 years later, that my excitement for the subject didn't translate to very much understanding. I'm hoping this podcast will help.

My final link is to an article published recently in The Independent, Heaven: A Fool's Paradise. There are presently 232 comments on the piece, and I found it interesting to read through some of them and observe the passionate arguements both for and against both the concept of an afterlife and spirituality in general. Mike at Annotated Margins recently wrote an inspiring series of posts that pertain to this subject. Using the example of a card that has conflicting statements written on either side of it ("God or No God," for example, or in the case of the article above, "Afterlife or No Afterlife") Mike writes:

Two conflicting sides of a single card, a paradox, and yet I have no conflict, because I know what is stated on both sides of the card, and I know which side of the card pertains to me.

No conflict. I choose which side of the card pertains to me, and I go with it. I choose to eliminate the paradox. I know side one, and I know side two, but I operate from a single perspective, without doubt, knowing what I know and forgiving myself for it. Knowing that I may know something differently down the road.

Read his whole series, especially if you end up mired in the comment section of The Independent article for as long as I was. You'll need the refreshment afterwords. The point is, right now there's absolutely no way for us to scientifically prove the existence of either a higher power or an afterlife, but some choose to believe the statement on one side of the card and others choose to believe in the opposite side. Whichever side you choose, be confident in it. Whichever side someone else chooses, respect it. What else can we do?

In her book Faith, Sharon Salzberg writes:

"The tendency to focus on big, unanswerable questions — "Is there a God?""How does karma work?""Was there a beginning to the universe?" was characterized as "a desert, a jungle, a puppet show, the writhing entanglement of speculation" by the Buddha. Our obsessions with such questions would lead only to personal resentment and sorrow, not to wisdom or peace, he said. Whenever feverish disputes on such issues rose up around him, instead of joining in and offering a theoretical answer, he urged everyone to find answers for themselves, in a way that would help them resolve the suffering in their lives. To arrive at that resolution of suffering is the point of skillful doubt. "

The Buddha also advised that the distinction between faith and beliefs lies in testing what we are told. "Put it into practice," the Buddha said, "and it you find that it leads to a kind of wisdom that is like looking at a wall, and then the wall breaks open and you se in a much more unbounded way, then you can trust it."

Here, where nothing is worth anything,
I've set up a grass-thatched hut.
After eating,
I just stretch out for a nap.

As soon as it was built,
weeds were already growing back.
Now I've been here awhile
its covered in vines.

So the one in this hut just lives on,
unstuck,
not inside, out, in between.

The places where usual folk live,
I don't.
What they want,
I don't.

This tiny hut holds the total world,
an old man and
the radiance of forms and their nature,
all in ten feet square.

Bodhisattvas of the Vast Path
know about this but
the mediocre and marginal wonder,
"Isn't such a place too fragile to live in?"

Fragile or not,
the true master dwells here
where there is no
south or north, east or west.

Just sitting here,
it can't be surpassed:
below the green pines
a lit window.

Palaces and towers
of jade and vermilion
can't compare.

Just sitting,
my head covered,
all things rest.

So this mountain monk
has no understanding at all,
just lives on
without struggling to get loose.

Not going to
set out seats
and wait for guests.

Turning the light
to shine within,
turn it around again.

Vast,
unthinkable,
you can't face it
or turn away from it.

The root of it.

Meet the Awakened Ancestors,
become intimate with the teachings,
lash grass into thatch for a hut
and don't tire so easily.

Let it go,
release,
and your life of a hundred years
vanishes.

Open your hands.

Walk around.

Innocence.

The swarm of words,
and little stories
are just to loosen you
from where you are stuck.

If you want to know
the one in the hermitage
who never dies,
you can't avoid this skin-bag
right here.

- Shitou Xiqian

via whiskey river

Wood Wizard

You see him, right? Tucked into the tree with a long beard and deep-set eyes, his mouth is making a little "o" shape and he has a diminutive nose. I've been walking by this tree for years but it wasn't until last night, after sitting to meditate on a nearby rocky outcropping, that I spotted him. Slowing down is good.

Sunset, Trout Lillies

I'm so glad I skipped going to the gym after work last night in favor of heading home for a sunset hike in the woods.

As I knelt in the dry leaves taking photos, a pair of ravens that had been sitting quietly in the branches of a nearby tree flew up, frightening me at first with the sudden whooshing of their great black wings.

"Spiritual practice is like a boat. Before you can ride in the sea of enlightenment you have to get in the boat. But you have to have faith. If you don't have faith, pray for faith. Raise the sail and pick up the wind of your own breath. Follow it back into your heart with the mantra. Return from where you came and you'll go right back into the Mother Light, the ocean of consciousness." — Bhagavan Das, It's Here Now, Are You: A Spiritual Memoir

They're baaack....

And by they I mean the mushrooms, which you know I have a great affinity for...

as well as brain-like slime molds,

and golden fungi.

But the discovery of the day were these early spring bowls of red Ascomycetes, cup fungi, which were mostly covered by dead leaves at the base of a fallen tree. Now I find myself looking ahead and wondering if the local restaurant will offer delicious chicken-of-the-woods in cream sauce again, and if the eerie stinkhorn will reappear in the sawdust outside of J's shop door...ah, summer!

Six Senses...Whenever! #50

Whenever I can squeeze it in, I guess.

Taste:
• Potato, onion and red lentil hash simmered in ghee, clarified butter
• The most amazing petite fours I've ever tasted, from the A Frame Bakery. I exhibited great self control in having only one when I wanted them all
• Sweet tang of Umeboshi vinegar

See:
• A small brush fire, trapped between the local pond and the road
• Yellow Forsythias waving in front of an aquamarine house
• An elderly couple taking their daily constitutional, slowly walking down the sidewalk past the graveyard with their canes and dark wrap-around glasses

Hear:
• The insulted chirping of this red squirrel who lives in the wall. His complaint? He is constantly under surveillance by the dog and cats, and now these pesty humans with their cameras...
• The return of the song sparrows
• Tinkling rivulet, overhead geese

Feel:
• Since my mom died, all months for me begin on the 19th

• One major work deadline down, two major work deadlines to go. I can hardly imagine earning a living that doesn't involve my spring and fall being riddled with stress

Touch:
• Partner stretches at yoga — an emotional challenge for someone like me who needs a good amount of personal space

And now for something completely different...

Saying Grace

The cardinal is singing exuberantly from the branches of a cherry tree in the back yard, a warm fire is burning in the wood stove (which the dog is snoring in front of), Squasharoni is in the oven with 10 minutes left (and I found the Umeboshi vinegar the recipe called for at Whole Foods), and J's just come down from his studio to steam some asparagus. Tonight we'll watch Up and eat chocolate ice cream and sesame cookies, tomorrow a classical Indian dancer will perform at kirtan, Monday night I'll complete week 8 of our 8 week Anusara Yoga beginner's class and graduate to the next level. Next weekend I'm meeting a fellow blogger. Today I noticed that Kripalu posted their recipe for delicious Baked Oatmeal with Cherries. I have a new freelance client, and it looks like work is starting to pick up for J again after a long, slow winter. For all these blessings, I'm grateful.

Wildflowers of the Woods

It's early spring in the Berkshire foothills, and if you keep your eyes on the ground as you walk through the woods, you'll find little dots of color as you go. Now if only I could find some ramps...

Open Sesame!

Last night I brought a bowl of these sesame cookies to kirtan as an offering of prasad to be shared after chanting. Our prasad usually consists of a dried fruit and nut mixture, so I think little cookies were a bit unexpected, judging by the expressions on people's faces as I handed them out. However, this kirtan celebrated the 4th anniversary of my yoga and meditation teacher moving onto the beautiful piece of land that's now home to their 12-sided studio (and their house), so I wanted to bring something special. I chose sesame not only because I love its flavor but because in Hinduism the sesame seed stands for immortality, and sesame oil is second only to ghee in auspiciousness.

These were definitely a hit, and people followed me around the studio foyer afterwards to get seconds from the bowl and to to ask for the recipe. If you like sesame halvah you'll love these cookies, and I found them pretty simple and fun to make. Of course I had help from J, who also joined me at kirtan for the first time.

The recipe is from Epicurious.com but I'll share it here. Though the official name of the recipe is Gilded Sesame Cookies, I left mine ungilded — I love the concept of silver or gold sesame seeds, but eating Luster Dust doesn't strike me as a healthful thing to do.

• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, softened
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup well-stirred tahini
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/3 cup sesame seeds (preferably hulled)
• 1/4 teaspoon gold or silver luster dust (optional)

• Special equipment: parchment paper

Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl.

Beat together butter and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes, then beat in tahini and vanilla. Reduce speed to low and add flour mixture in 2 batches, mixing until a crumbly dough forms. Transfer dough to a sheet of plastic wrap and press into a disk. Chill dough, wrapped in plastic wrap, until firm, at least 1 hour.

Put oven racks in upper and lower thirds of oven and preheat oven to 350°F. Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper.

Stir together sesame seeds and luster dust (if using) in a small bowl.

Roll dough into 1-inch balls, then roll balls 1 at a time in seeds to coat and arrange 2 inches apart on lined baking sheets. Bake, switching position of sheets halfway through baking, until cookies are puffed and starting to crack, 12 to 15 minutes total. Cool on sheets 10 minutes (cookies will be very fragile when hot), then transfer from parchment to a rack to cool completely.

Cooks' notes:

• For this cookie, it's best to use hulled sesame seeds, found at most supermarkets. They're not usually labeled "hulled"; look for sesame seeds that are pale ivory in color and more delicate than the mottled beige ones, which still have their outer coating and are found at natural foods stores and Asian markets.
• Dough can be chilled up to 1 day.
• Cookies keep in an airtight container at room temperature 5 days. •Luster dust is nontoxic. However, the FDA recommends that it be used for decorative purposes only. If you want to use a coloring that is entirely safe (though not available in gold or silver) try Crystal Colors at sugarpaste.com. The colors are great for kids.

Woods Waking Up

Work is intensely busy this week with tight deadlines and piles of stress, but eventually I will catch up on some of the posts I want to write and friends I want to catch up with and meals I want to cook and walks I want to take...

And meanwhile it's good to know that the woods are coming to life whether I'm around to welcome them or not.

And there's always the slower pace of the weekend to look forward to.