Vegan Eggs?

"There are 3 inescapable problems we all face:

1. How to win food and shelter

2.  How to get along with others.

3.  How to relate to the total scheme of things.

If we deal with the 3rd one first, the other two get answered." -Houston Smith

 

I try to make lifestyle choices that cause as little harm to other beings as possible. This is veganishness.  I realize that it's impossible to live on Earth without causing any harm at all. 

 

The very roads we travel cause habitat loss, the walls and paint of the houses we live in contain dead animal products, even this computer I write on has an impact. If you even breathe, you kill microbes.. 

But to proceed in a veganish way through the world, I take into account the whole picture at each choice point. 

 

Let's consider the backyard chicken. Some people don't think eggs can even be a vegan food, but they can be a veganish food if done right. Nobody has to die to make eggs. Here is my definition: 

First, chickens live fifteen years, but only lay eggs daily for about three years. So there must be a commitment to the chickens' well being for their whole life, and their living conditions must be happy and healthy for them.

 

Next, chickens lay eggs even when there are no roosters around, so these eggs amount to well, chicken menstruation. But even if you have roosters around fertilizing the eggs, if you simply don't allow them to be incubated to hatching out chicks, you can avoid ever having those extra roosters that farmers are temped to put into the soup pot. 

If you do want chicks, many people can tell pretty accurately which eggs contain male vs female chicks by the shape of the eggs. Female chicks come from rounder eggs; male chick eggs look more oblong. 

 

There is a really good reason for eating eggs if you generally do not eat any meat or dairy or fish, and that is to get those awesome omega 3's that are so good for your brain and all. It has been many decades since I had meat or fish and I don't want to get demented!

So in order to get our veganish omegas, we have just gotten chickens!! They have a chicken tractor. This is a mobile coop with egg laying boxes inside, and no floor. You pull it around on its wheels, across the land to fresh pastures each day, so the chickens can find fresh grass, herbs and bugs. 

 

Our chickens are out tractoring now, happily pecking, scratching, and making contented humming and clucking sounds. As for me, I like it that I can feed and move them in the middle of the day, because I'm not a crack of dawn person. 

 

They are safe and happy in their fresh and changing environment, and the big veganish dog notices the commotion if any predators come near. Out here in the country, the life force is strong. We have cougars, bears, raccoons, foxes, coyotes, and many kinds of hawks and eagles.

 

We feed our pet birds flax seeds and all organic feed and fruit and veggie treats. I'm planning their forage meadow garden, to be from a special plant seed mix that chickens like, for next year. I've heard you can even sprout their seeds for them. I sprinkle a happy chicken dried herb and flower mix in with the hay of the chicken coop. It smells nice in there. 

After only two days, they already are relaxed enough to eat out of my hand! And they have started to lay eggs!

I wonder if we will be having cake around here soon...

  

 

"whole system interliving"  -Jean Houston

Embracing the Grey

“Do you have the patience to wait until your mud settles and the water is clear?” -Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

 

(From Omni's color collection, see other colors highlighted elsewhere:)

This day is grey. The future seems grey to me today also. My mood is grey, so I speak of this shade today. I set out to go about my day, but suddenly I stop.

 

 Autumn rains are soaking the forest around me now. Everything is cloaked in grey today, the sky, the trees, the air in between. The atmosphere swirls with water in many moods as well, ranging from rain, to windy almost-hail, to tiny gravity defying droplets gently suspended in the air, to being so completely encased in the cloud that all I can see at noon is an even, dismal, shade blanket between me and my remembered warm, bright, beloved daystar.

 

Grey reminds me of the level of our perception in which we use shadows to reveal the light, and light to reveal what is real. Grey is an acknowledgement of complexity, even an acceptance of a role for the dark in our path to understanding.

 

If you mix all of the colors together, as I found out as very young artist while mixing clay, you get grey. Grey does not bring clarity, it brings dimness. I ponder the presumed value of unclarity.

 

 I recently heard an old grey woman extolling the virtues of aging. She says forgetting can be a gift, making more room in one's attention for now. And she says her poor eyesight makes the world more beautiful because everything looks softer.

  

 If fall is a time of the warm colors of the harvest slowly fading, then the result would be brown turning to grey, the color that beckons the winter snow. This grey is a shadow that falls like a curtain upon the land, only to bring the glittering crystal snow beacon of the coming newborn solstice light. 

 

 

And so I sit here today enveloped in a comfortable modern cocoon, ensconced in a swirl of mostly symbolic grey, meditating on the apparent need for the color grey. 

 

 

Or the non color grey, because without color, grey is the very definition of the absence of color. But as an artist I know that the proverbial many shades of grey are often merely darkened colors, veiled with earthy duff and stuff. To make a shade, you darken a color. 

 

Anyway, if grey had no color, why do I get the blues when it's like this outside? So we nervous creatures feverishly pad our centrally heated cave this season and festoon it with lights, to chase away the menacing gloom. 

 

But first, I pause. I sit very still and ask what it is I really need to do. I listen deeply for that still and small voice. All around things are falling, dying. All of this returns to dust, I observe. 

 

 

I consider all of things we do, the things we make, accomplish, acquire. I ask why and if all of the things we run around chasing after all year long are so important. 

 

I sit just there in the grey, waiting for the inner guidance that I believe always comes whenever I ask, listen, and wait. I know that the moment when I get the inspiration, I will enthusiastically rise up and joyfully go do the next thing. I wonder...

 

You are the sky. Everything else is just the weather. -Pema Chodron

 

Tidying to Save the World

(From the Flower Child's Garden Planet)

"Believe what your heart tells you when you ask, 'Does this spark joy?'"-Marie Kondo

Tidying?! You must be kidding, right? How can some girly art of neatness do anything important?

I'm studying by book with a Japanese "tidying master" this month. The teaching is that if you learn to keep your physical space in order, your life will follow, and so, on out into the world. 

Does this spark joy? 

 

This is what the master advises one ask oneself. If yes, you need only decide, in an eventual but later step, at the end, where it will live. (Yes, each thing is alive with its own spirit and has its own preferences in this system of philosophy.) 

So I drill down deep into my feelings about each and every object, one at a time, holding it in my two hands, perhaps even smelling it (!) 

 

But first, you pile all of your stuff into a heap on the floor. Then lift up each thing you would like to keep because it sparks joy. In this way, you develop a new skill, that of homing in on what brings you that pleasure spark. It's not about getting rid of stuff, but embracing the things you love.

If it does not pass the joy test, you thank the object for what it has given you, and let it go. You come to realize you may have kept a thing around because of fear that maybe in the future you might need it, even though you never use it. If your parents suffered scarcity and did not have enough to meet their basic needs, you may have unconsciously imprinted attitudes you weren't even aware of. Maybe keeping more than you will ever need of this or that reflects this basic need for security. 

These fears usually reside in our beliefs about the past or the future, because in the present we obviously have enough. Nor is this dysfunctional scarcity thinking restricted to persons suffering actual lack. People of every wealth and income category tend to believe they need -just a little- more than they now have.

 

Or maybe you have kept a thing out of obligation or guilt, even if you never even use it. In that case it is the thought that counts, not keeping the gift or souvenir forever. Take a picture of it before you kiss it goodbye. 

Then, simply release the object with love!

One thing you learn doing this process is how much you actually do have! I kept getting more things because the six or ten I already had got lost in the heap of debris in the back of the drawer. Out of sight, out of mind. So you realize that the difficulty was you didn't know what you had because you didn't see it anymore! 

Did you ever go out shopping just to be in a friendly, orderly, appealing atmosphere? Marie Kondo suggests you set up your storage like a store display. 

 

This skill of the discerning and responding to your joy becomes a new habit and a new way of moving through the world. A way of turning toward a positive instead of resisting a negative. In this way, everything you are surrounded by at home gives you joy. 

I wonder if this transfers also to tidying mental clutter. This is a skill of attitude that could become a habit.

Being grateful with each thing is a key to this power. In fact I realize that a lot of what I kept around me was draining my energy in a subtle way. I wonder how much of the world's problems could be prevented by simply offering commons spaces and systems that are joyful and beautiful in their simplicity. Architecture and systems design for world success, as Bucky asserted. 

 

But only providing a beautiful functional commons without also bringing awareness won't be enough to transform the world. We also have to consider each thing and our feelings around it, and find the harmony in the relationship. Then we may decide to have different things around us. And it need not be avoiding scarcity as much as bringing joy that will guide wise decisions.

"People cannot change their habits without first changing their way of thinking"-Marie Kondo

Say Something

 "I believe that every single event in life happens in an opportunity to choose love over fear."-Oprah Winfrey 

 

It was hard. I don't know why. I am standing around the hardware store, waiting for my paint to mix, and I hear that old song again. It glorifies the old days of slavery in the south with lyrics like "the night they drove old Dixie down, and all the bells were ringing...but they should never have taken the very best"...

I am all for free speech and art, but I'm thinking- this song must come off as hostile to a black shopper, here in the USA. I have HAD it with that song, as well as with those Dixie flags I see on people's cars and apparel. No, it does not mean love for your home place, it means racist hate, pure and simple.

Who does your music, I ask the paint guy. He doesn't know, but I complain about it to him anyway. Getting no response, I go over to the cashier and wait to ask him. 

 

As I wait, a black man walks up to check out. This is a pretty white area so I marvel at the coincidence and take it as a sign. Go ahead, I'm waiting to complain about the music, I tell him. That song must come off as hostile and racist to a black person, I say to him, as we wait, and he affirms to me that it does, indeed.

He checks out and leaves, and I take up the matter with the two cashiers, who tell me this is a Sirius feed, but they do not offer to do anything about it. I wonder if you can order the non racist feed from Sirius. I ask for a manager. All around me all this time in hearing range are ten or so white guys, each with their manly hardware items, but no one says anything to me about it. No one says anything at all.

 

The manager strikes me as a kind and wise fellow who listens and thanks me for speaking up. I tell him to complain to Sirius and that the music was hostile to black shoppers and that it made me uncomfortable too. I thought it should make anyone uncomfortable! 

But it is even more uncomfortable for me to speak up.  I get shaky and sweaty and my heartbeat gets going all fast.  But I'm glad I did it. It helps when we speak up for others, like when men protest in favor of women's rights. Even as a person of the most common color in my neighborhood, (pinkish-orangish), as a person of gender, (guess!), I still found it so hard to get up the courage to say something. At least at this time in that place at least, no one was willing to publicly defend racist lyrics. This is some small progress. No one argued with me, but their silence itself said something.

 

I can only imagine how hard it can be for members of whatever group that are being attacked to complain. And I am filled with admiration for the bravery of all those people in the world living under oppressive regimes who could be killed for speaking up, but do so anyway. If they can, so can we.

"As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world – that is the myth of the atomic age – as in being able to remake ourselves." - Mahatma Gandhi

Elusive Orange Beings and Garden Planet Blues

(From the Flower Child's Garden Planet Manual:)

"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there."- Rumi 

 

 

There are dozens of them, bright orange, floating into view, between the layers of gray. As I stare, they just kind of fade away. All I see now is the blue of the sky...

 

...reflected in the pond . There must have been fifty of the glistening frisky creatures in the nearby cloud of orange, a school of floating carrots, and a couple dozen more in the second cloud, in the little mirage-flotilla a foot or two away from the first school.

 

 

I think they must first conjure up a swirl of pond muck around themselves, and then, on cue and in formation, and seemingly without even moving, they just subtly drop down into their cloud of camouflage.

 

 The pond abides all summer, but I observe the heron come by for fast food several times as the water level drops. No telling how many times this happens when I'm not watching. One day in just a minute or three, I watch the heron catch several carrot sized orange fish, flashing golden and silver in the sun. Too easy, I say!

 

So we mow and water and bring in two new pickup loads of beach sand. The nice soft dry kind. The fish love this. They come out and nibble on things around the slightly expanded pond edge and I think the sand gives them a taste of the ocean.

 

"Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes." - Walt Whitman 

The Virgo Job Days of August

Where I live we have global warming, but that just means in this cool climate, that our hottest month has a few really hot days. As we are about to go into the month of Virgo, the practical sign, we are in a hot spell now. I love it.

 

When the weather map turns deep red, it's cleaning time. Never mind spring cleaning, turn on that free solar powered super heat for Summer Cleaning! This is the time when I haul out all the dusty musty things, and wash them and put them in the glorious sunshine. Forget going on vacation, stay home and get to work!

In this wet climate of the Great Northwest, where mold and mildew are always a hazard, you can bring everything outside to dry out in August. This is the kind of place where, when the sun comes out for a few minutes some winter months, we all run outside and stand in it!

 

Heat waves are when we can play in the water. We can get all wet, and get things clean at the same time. (Sorry, drought constrained Californians who aren't allowed to water.) We can hose things off and leave them out to dry, and they actually do! So now it is time to clean out all of the dark corners, to seal up the now dried out wooden structures with linseed oil or paint, wash and hang up curtains and other large washable things. We can put wet pillows, rugs, even futons out and have them clean and dry soon, without resort to fire or electricity. It is amazing how much free heat is available and all the things we can use it for.

 

If we have a yard, a garden, (or container garden as I do) we can water ourselves too. I always love to play with the mist setting on my garden hose. I stand with the sun behind me and paint rainbows in the sky. My spray paint is water. I administer mist-ic initiations to my friends in this manner:)

 

I also keep a bathtub full of water and dip whenever I feel too hot. I feel so grateful to have pure clean abundant water here. It is truly a sacred treasure. I wonder when the humans will really understand how precious and valuable pure clean water is. 

 

“Nothing is more wonderful than the art of being free, but nothing is harder to learn how to use than freedom.”-Alexis de Tocqueville.       

The Kitten

"You can do no great things. Only small things with great love" -Mother Therese

Every fiber studio needs a cat, of course. Wilbur Riverpebble fits the bill nicely. Performs all of the cat functions. He of course supervises my fiber work in a very paws on manner. Now that he has discovered the location of his basket of toys, he jumps up and rummages around until he finds his favorite toy, a felt ball, always the same one, pulls it out, puts it in his mouth, and jumps off to go play with it. 

 

And he fetches! He does this from his first day here, and I have been working with him to do it on command. He also shakes hands/paws. The trick to teaching a kitty tricks is to notice what they do, name it, then request and reward it. This kitty is motivated by praise, some are more excited by food. 

I find the praise motivated ones to be better for teaching tricks to.  I also kind of randomly lavish praise upon this little one just for being there while not doing anything he shouldn't be doing, every few minutes or so. He just loves that, so he keeps good track of my movements. With kitties you never do aversive training, only positive reinforcement.

 

I find my kitten online. The day I look, there are four batches of kittens on offer. A "rehoming" fee is requested by most, ranging from $200 to $20 to $10 to free. Almost all of the kittens are tuxedo, black and white, so I figure it must be tuxedo kitten week. 

So who to call? The two hundred dollar ad sounds whiny and grumpy, like their kittens are a lot a trouble to care for. How to find the perfect match, I wonder. My criteria are these two: the kitten must be hand raised, and its mother has to be a good mouser. This is after all the countryside, and this would be a country kitty. 

The ten dollar kitten litter wins. It has all tuxedo kittens, but the ad gives a profile of each one, describing the special characteristics of each kitten, their personalities, fur type, and cute markings. This person obviously knows and loves them well!

I arrive at the place where they were born. It's a rundown government subsidized housing complex. The apartment has a black guy sitting out on the doorstep smoking a tobacco vape pipe. He has that deep dark skin color like an African, and he has a beard. He looks like some kind of cool jazz dude. 

 Inside the apartment it is smoky with tobacco, and the person I talked to on the phone appears with the kittens. She looks about fifteen years old, and she is as porcelain-pale as he is dark, with long white-blond hair that hangs limp, like straw. It is noon, and she looks like maybe she just woke up. School is out for the summer.

 

I ask if the mother cat is a good mouser. Oh yes, she replies, she brings in big rats! I feel sad for these people that have to deal with the big rats. They both are sweet gentle spirits. Black and white, just like my kitty. Wilbur picks me out. He is the mellow one of the litter, they tell me. It is true. Wilbur plays hard and fast, but then he relaxes and cuddles and purrs just right. Good kitty!