Conscious Carnivore

My sister in law was vegetarian for many years, but in recent years she and her husband have been eating some meat.  Lucky for us in the Northwest, we have a lot of fantastic organic local resources for our food, it allows us all to be conscientious about our meat choices without too much effort (and a fairly reasonable increase in cost).

I have been inspired by my family and friends' consciousness about their food choices. And having gotten more into cooking, and thoroughly thrilled at the bounty we have around us in our area, I have been interested in cutting down on my meat intake and explore alternatives. This is partly due to wanting to cultivate a more compassionate approach to my world in general, but also, frankly, for the challenge and inspiration that comes from cooking meatless in a world of MEAT! MEAT! MEAT! You may have already seen this reflected in my meat-free cooking once a week I have been blogging about, and the vegetarian alternatives I have been slotting into my posted recipes as well.

I have been doing a little reading of wonderful "meat lite" recipes, and have come across a couple interesting resources I thought I would share:

"Becoming a Compassionate Carnivore"
written by a city-kid turned farmer, who raises animals for food, which addresses the following:

"Here’s a heads up, though: Becoming a more compassionate carnivore requires change, and change requires time, the one thing most of us lack. How can we possibly change how we eat when we barely have enough time to eat?"

And brings us the hopeful remark:

Music Monday - Meditation

I have not been as regular in my meditation practice this year as in previous, but I hope to get myself back on the wagon this winter.  I meditate with gentle music in the background, as I find it helps center me, and my monkey mind is a little less wild. I also like to set up playlists so that they run the length of time I would like to meditate, so that I don't shortchange myself by getting grumpy and giving up after 5 minutes, nor do I lose track of my day and sit for an hour when I really only have a half hour to spare.  I like the tracks to be 5-7 minutes or more apiece so that I am not constantly "shifting gears" with new tunes every 3 minutes like most songs run these days.

Unfortunately, much of my music is still "trapped" on an iMac that pooped out on me, but I will share these three I still have on my laptop playlist for your enjoyment. Enjoy!

Hypersensitivity: a creative's bane

Lateral Action hits it out of the park again and again. Thought I would share this snippet from their "Dark Side of Creativity - Burnout" article.  And if this section sounds familiar, you should read the parts about Control Freakery and expectations!

"Hypersnsitivity
Why are creative people so sensitive to criticism of their work? Because our work is not just something we do, it’s an expression of who we are. As Gustave Flaubert put it:

A book is essentially organic, part of ourselves. We tear a length of gut from our bellies and serve it up.

So when the critics get their knives out, it feels like a direct personal attack. When nobody comes to the show it feels as if your innermost soul has been rejected. And again, this is as it should be – up to a point. If you didn’t care enough to put your heart and soul into your work, there would be no reason for anyone else to care about it. But if you really want to improve, you have to learn to let go of the work, to stand back and appraise it coldly, to see whether it measures up to the standards you aspire to. And you have to be able to listen to others’ feedback and see whether you can learn from it. Otherwise you set yourself up for a world of pain each time you present your work to an audience."

(image: The Green Muse by Albert Maignan, 1895)

Dance Injuries - Having a Plan C

Dance Advantage listed an article recently on dancers and injuries. Specifically the idea that injuries can take away dance from your life. I am familiar with this, having been on and off battling a severe back issue, and more recently knee problems surfacing, and my foot issue which will require surgery I cannot afford at present, which leaves me in pain every day just walking around, let alone dancing.  I have had to give a lot of thought to the possibility that I may not be able to have dance as my career any more, and how betrayed by fate it has made me feel over the past few months.  This is something I am really really good at--the first thing that really resonated with me so deeply, and was validated in the opinions of my peers as well. To imagine it not being my profession any more was impossible to contemplate, and yet I had to give it some serious "face-time" in my meditations this summer.

So this article is somewhat encouraging in its tone and message. Summing up the message in one line:

"As a young dancer, I felt pigeonholed into thinking that I only had two options (dance or don’t dance), when plan C was as simple as being a barefoot dancer who wears shoes – and it took me six years to figure that out."

In trying to figure out where dance fits into my definition of self , this article presents the idea of creative experimentation with the ways dance slots into your life when factors seem to push against that possibility.

In other news, I started Music Monday a few weeks ago, and pre-loaded some posts to release on Mondays. Then didn't go back and check to see if they were posting. Oops! I had them in the queue, but hadn't released them for posting. So keep an eye out for Music Monday NEXT Monday, and hopefully I will have that all cleared up and ready to post for your auditory enjoyment.

A delightful fall weekend....

Started the weekend early with a matinee movie with my friend Arya, followed by tea and stimulating conversation. Friday night was a chill night in with hubby. Saturday morning was breakfast, then some food prep for the potluck mini-family reunion later. SIL and hubby came over a little early for a little chat, then we head to the reunion, which was filled with kind, funny, friendly relatives Chris n' sis hadn't seen in maybe two decades or more (as well as delicious ham!).  Went later than we planned, so we went home instead of the Tiff's birthday (sorry to miss it, Tiff! Hope your 30th rocked!) to chill out and watch a couple episodes of Dexter before going to bed early.

Early to bed, early to rise this morning, and went to breakfast at the Jewel Box Cafe, splitting a breakfast panini and a sweet berry crepe.  Came home and knit some on my new mitt design. Spending the afternoon cooking a wild mushroom soup while hubby performs delicate surgery on my iMac to try and fix it (replacing the video card *fingers crossed*). Chopping veggies, plucking some of the last of the fresh herbs from our garden (leaving my fingers smelling of thyme and rosemary all day long), sipping wine and smelling a rich, earthy soup simmering on the stove, all with a background soundtrack of Ella Fitzgerald on Pandora= one thing I can easily adore about the changing of the seasons.

I hope everyone is enjoying the beginning of October as I am.

Smartphones = Wallets

It is alarming to me how often I hear about people leaving their smart phone or their iPod touch behind at restaurants, in their cars in plain view, or it slipping out in a parking lot or theater. Losing an iPod touch or a phone these days is more like losing your wallet, with ID and credit cards all in there. (And a lot like losing a laptop, too!)

Recently on Ravelry, a woman said that her iPod touch had slipped out of her bag on a university campus. The young man who found it opened it up, and she was logged into her mail and Facebook (among other social apps and such), which she uses all the time and keeps up and running. Luckily, this young man posted his phone number to her wall, so she could call and recover it (unfortunately with a broken screen from being dropped and run over by a car, apparently, but still running!).  But to think what he COULD have done with the data on that "entertainment device" is alarming.

These things hold a lot of data that can be used inappropriately, for sure.  So guard it like you would a wallet! You wouldn't just let a wallet slip out of your purse, would you? You keep it in a secure spot in your bag, don't you? Do the same with your iPod touch or phone. You don't leave the restaurant without your wallet, do you? I sure hope not. You keep it tucked in your pocket or purse when not in use, right?  Do the same with your devices.

Just a friendly reminder to keep your identity secure, and not let these "entertainment electronics" become a ID theft nightmare.

Why Spontaneity Comes from Following the Rules

Over at Lateral Action, there is an interesting (& rather deep) post regarding a conversation between Brian Eno and the developer of Sim City, and the application of rules bringing about successful spontaneity. Read the full article here:
http://lateralaction.com/articles/brian-eno-will-wright/


The simplest, and most profound, summation of this conversation came in the final segment, quoted here:

Play It Simple

A point that comes up repeatedly in the Eno/Wright talk is that complex results emerge from simple rules. No rules mean there is no system, so nothing is generated. But if you add too many rules and risk breaking the system. The trick is to find just enough rules to get the system under way without destroying it prematurely.

Certifications...what do you think?

Here's the truth of it: When it comes to training intensives, I sometimes wish there were no certificate tied to the coursework. 

Particularly in programs which are essentially "participation certificates" rather than tested on demonstrated knowledge and ability, I feel it gives a false sense of accomplishment to the participant, and sends a confusing message to the public that one need only take a few days of workshops and suddenly you can be "officially certified" in a given style or skill. It diminishes both the idea of a certificate and the art/style itself, in my opinion. This is one way in which I have a lot of admiration for the Suhaila certification program. While it has never been of interest to me to pursue, I can see the tremendous value in the way it is structured, and the tangible feedback it provides the dancers--as a friend once said, it can be a roadmap for personal goal setting, and that's fantastic.

 

At the root, I would rather we focus on the meat of a dancer's/teachers' skills--proven through time and experience and demonstrated skill--than pieces of paper.