LOVAGE

LETTERS AND LOVAGE

He came in
smelling of lovage –
The gentle scent of celery
was like a delicate after-shave.
Revived memories of the day we met.

We sat across the table from each other
as the herb lady
spoke of culinary plants –

Thyme
Sage
Dill . . .
“And this one is lovage,”
she said,
urging us to taste.
We did;

The lovage becoming
an unexpected connection.

Two days later,
he arrived on my garden step
with a small pot of lovage for me.

The lovage now grows in my garden;
Firmly established
and aggressively
shading the other herbs.
The love letters no longer speak
of connections
and commonality,
But the lingering scent of celery persists.




Lovage is a wonderful herb, but aggressive. Enjoy the information shared at this link. http://oldfashionedliving.com/lovage.html

The Right Amount

My mother and I often disagree on what is considered clutter and unnecessary "stuff" in our home. She likes to accumulate things while I love to clean out and rehome things that I no longer want or need. I have always preferred a sparse home environment while my mom says "things" make a home interesting and look lived in ... we will never agree, and because we share the same house, I have learned to look the other way when I see her piles of stuff stacked horizontally.

In the last issue of Creating Community there is an article titled "The Right Amount," by Alan Atkinson who works in accelerating sustainable development. He talks of wandering about a Costco or Sam's Club which invokes several radical feelings within him -- "raw consumer lust, great moral outrage, and aching environmental angst."

He continues by sharing a phrase he learned from a Swedish friend, " Det ar lagom." The word lagom means something like, 'exactly the right amount.' Atkinson continues by saying, "Most people in the world do not want enough; they want more. The desire for more seems to be deeply wired in the human organism. To have more has been our first defense against the vagaries of an uncertain future. Hoarding is the first act of those who believe themselves to be in the path of an impending disaster."

Synchronicity, perhaps, led me to the GLOBALONENESS site where I viewed a short video clip on materialism presented by M. C. Mehta.


M.C. Mehta is an attorney in the Supreme Court of India, one of the founders of the Indian Council for Enviro-Legal Action (ICELA), and director of the M.C. Mehta Environmental Foundation in New Delhi. M.C.’s landmark environmental cases in the Supreme Court of India have resulted in the protection of India’s natural and cultural treasures – including the Ganges River and the Taj Mahal – from the adverse effects of pollution. An ardent supporter of alternative energy he brought about the transition of New Delhi's transport system (buses, rickshaws etc.) to become the largest green based transit system in the world.

To view the video see: http://www.globalonenessproject.org/videos/mcmehtaclip4

HANNAH AT WORK

Hannah went to work soliciting signatures from individuals who would support the formation of a public dog park in our township. Because a friend of ours was helping out at voter registration, we were invited to join them at their table. Now 10 months old, Hannah donned her Democrat kerchief and made herself useful. A wag of the tail drew lots of compliments and attention from passers-by. Many signed the petition and spent some time talking to those of us at the table.

The Democrats set up the table to make it possible and simple for people to register to vote. It was amazing to see the number of disenchanted Republicans who stopped to change their party affiliation. Several individuals registered to change and went home and brought back other family members to do the same. Another individual born in the 1930's had never registered to vote, but stopped by to register for the first time in his life. Even though the table was set up by the Democrats, the registration was non-partisan.

I hope you are registered to vote!

I'VE BEEN TAGGED!

I've been tagged to list ten things that make me happy.
1. Family and dear friends
2. My horse Lark

3. Living in the moment

4. Pizza!

5. Coke -- Cherry Coke -- Vanilla Coke -- Coke!

6. Walking in the woods after a snow.

7. Soft, purring kittens and cats

8. Hannah, my dog

9. Skygazing and looking at stars, constellations, planets, and the moon

10. Being outdoors and enjoying the natural, unspoiled world.

Who says I have to stop at 10?

11. Photography

12. Stimulating my brain

13. Interesting conversations

14. Writing

15. Reading

16. Training animals

17. A therapeutic massage

Beston Wisdom

photograph by Wojtek Kwiatkowski (click on URL below to see more stunning photographs)
http://2photo.ru/2007/08/07/klassnye_zhivotnye_ot_wojtek_kwiatkowski.html

“We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature, and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.”

Henry Beston in "The Outermost House"