31 ~ Remembering connection, with gratitude.
Greetings. I’m just back from a morning of deer hunting in the snow, in the woods up behind the house. As I write this I’m warming up by the fire, with a hot coffee and some plum schnapps from Switzerland (in fact, in September I met the tree from which the plums for this schnapps came).
I didn’t leave any blood on the snow this morning, but I did leave a lot of gratitude in the woods for the beautiful opportunity to immerse myself in the flow of life, amongst my favorite object, snow. It fell on my shoulders like a blessing.
As we move this week toward American Thanksgiving, may all of us find much to be grateful for, despite the challenges and stresses of this year. Here at the house I look forward to making a very small meal (probably for just one!), nearly entirely from foods the earth and I produced together (including one of the seasons’s final harvests, a variety of squashes). Tomorrow I might slip into a grocery store, incognito behind my Covid mask, to buy a goose. I love roast goose (especially stuffed with apples and my homemade sauerkraut). I’ve also found that about 1/3 goose fat and 2/3 butter makes a fantastic pie crust – so nothing goes to waste (only to waist) from a roast goose here.
Today I’ll leave you with a guest column as it were. This is from a recent daily reading from a jewel of a book by Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao: Daily Meditations. In this reading I find resonance with my experience of nearly a year working mainly with the earth, the sun and the Holy (and sometimes my very cool neighbors) to nourish myself. I take the passage less as a preachy admonition, than a gentle reminder of what is available to us all. Our only task is to remember.
Wishing you all rich reflections this week on the abundance in your lives, including gratitude for the gifts of connection.
Chopsticks made from bamboo--
Too poor to afford silverware.
Tender bamboo shoots for food --
Too poor to afford meat.
Why were people of old so integrated with their surroundings? Because the objects they used, the food they ate, and the activities they engaged in were straight from their surroundings. They used sticks made from bamboo as eating implements. They used vines to make baskets. They used gourds as vessels. For food, they grew plants, domesticated animals, and caught fish and game. Their social structure was built around the cycles of the sun, moon, and stars. Newborn babies were washed with the waters of the nearest stream. The dead were buried in the same earth that provided sustenance.
Now our food is imported from distant places and elaborately processed. We have no idea where objects we purchase come from, thinking that their presence and convenience is all that is necessary. We have means of transport that can bring us to places faster than our minds can adjust. We abuse our wealth and use it to insulate ourselves from our surroundings.
That’s why being of modest means is not necessarily bad. When one is poor, one is forced to use what is at hand. It is Tao that brings us these things. The closer we can be to the earth to nature, the more integrated with life we shall be. Followers of Tao never complain about feeling alienated from life. They have no choice. Their every action keeps them synchronized with the movement of Tao.