Sustainability, Pregnancy, and Compromises

I have not been writing so much lately (except in my private journal). This seems to have been a time of inner-reflections for me and coming to the realization that we are in the process of being participants in creating a new family member.  I am also in the midst of morning sickness..the most unrewarding, slow period of pregnancy (in my experience)... (the baby is sooo small at this point--the size of a large olive) All of the enjoyment I have found from cooking and gardening and trying new things is now dwarfed by this feeling of nausea...Right now, I am just trying to get through each day..I'm slowing down..falling back on old recipes (and even not cooking, but doing take-out, warming up frozen Trader Joes meals)---It feels icky to me to be regressing in my food goals, but right now I can't stand being in the kitchen or doing dishes.  I am eating much more sugar than usual...I get liquids down by drinking juice or carbonated juices/gingerale.  I'm not saying this to sound all dramatic--or to complain.. but to admit that I have been compromising in order to get through these few weeks.. I don't like it. I don't feel good about it, but not sure how else to do it. All I can say is that it is temporary...this will pass and I will be ravenous for good food again.  (I haven't been eating completly badly---I still make soup and salad still tastes pretty good, and some fruits..)  but I have bought a fair amount of "processed foods" lately...and it kind of feels icky..  I've mainly steered away from a good portion of processed foods for awhile.. not completely, but my dependence upon them has greatly decreased over the past couple of years (until now)-- 

I guess I say all this because I wish to be honest in the struggle towards sustainability..  It is not always straightforward--and the journey is not always upwards 100% of the time.  I do know that I can't wait for this part to be over and to be back to cooking from scratch, making bread, gardening more enthusiastically...  I love 2nd trimester (nesting)

This is one of those challenging periods...what does one do, when one can't cook?  A supportive community is good in this case.. (not that I expect anyone to be bringing food over)--but in a much more ideal community life--that might happen more..  and then fewer "processed food" compromises would need to be made.  I really really don't mean that to put anyone in my community down for not doing it at all! (I haven't done it for others enough to even come close to hoping for this)--and I do think one Baha'i in our community actually did offer to do this for me, which I haven't felt compelled to call her on yet..    But, it is a mind-set...that I'm not even fully a part of yet... 

And, if I was working, it would be even harder to make healthy food at this point..  All in all, I'm grateful.  I'm in my 9th week, my first doctor's appointment is Friday..So far so good..I'm not bed-ridden or dehydrated (knock on wood)..I'm functioning...but on a much slower, less productive pace..  and it seems to be a time of reflection...I think I'm paying attention to my kids more as I am less distracted by getting things done..  There have been some good moments with them lately.. 

This is also a good reminder of what it might feel like to have chronic health issues...this nausea doesn't really go away...it is always with me except when I sleep..  It waxes and wanes in its intensity, but I know it will be mostly over in a couple of weeks (I hope)..  I have to find a way to ignore it, but still not ignore it so much that I'm forgetting to keep snacking to keep it minimal..  to remember to drink..even though it makes it feel worse..  Mind over matter..so that I can keep going and not completely have it rule me.  Like an exercise in mediation..  How does one "ignore" nausea??  Well, some tricks I have found involved going outside...esp. when it is sunny..(that helps) ginger helps, snacks help, getting protein helps, talking to friends really helps, (and simply laying down) helps.  (Being on the computer does not help, however)  :-/

Feeling Soo inspired by book Radical Homemaking

Reading this book and feeling sooooo inspired. This is beyond liberal/conservative--It is NOT about being "subservient" or "less than"--It is about being independent of corporations--of developing SKILLS that have been lost..so that we don't have to be in such a hurry and have to buy (McDonalds or other convieniences)--so we can eat healthy food...and buy less "stuff" and instead spend time together as familiies and community..get to know our neighbors.. And also feel fulfilled/self-actualized---and be responsible to our planet, our animals, and people in 3rd world who sweat blood/starve to make our $5 t-shirts.

http://radicalhomemakers.com/
http://www.homegrown.org/group/radicalhomemakers

page 54

The first sacrice we make to this extractive economy is our time...we attribute little or no value to our time, unless it is used in a process whereby money changes hands..It matters not what the time was used for, so l ong as the trade resulted in the generation of dollars. "It could go to thinking up new ways to seduce children into drinking more cola, or plotting ways to subvert clean air laws," notes Rowe. "So long as the time has flowed into the market and increased the churn of money there, it has been used beneficially where the economic mind is concerned. " Once we have sacrificed our time to the extractive econonmy, there is even more money to be made, because we now must use our hard-earned cash in order to purchase substitues for the time we've traded. We buy take-out and fast food when we don't have time to cook dinner. We buy prescription drugs when we no longer have time to take care of our health and get ample rest. We buy luxury goods for our loved ones as a substitute for spending time together. We throw out our shoes when the soles wear thin, toss our electronics into landfills when they stop working properly, because it takes too much time to repair them. In the long run, we wind up cash-poor and time-destitute, while coporate American

accumulates our wealth."

Page 58 Toward a Life-Serving Econonmy

(Shannon Hayes says that whether we work in the home or outside the home, it is important we follow these 4 tenets in our livelihood)

1.  Respect and care for the community life.

2. Ecological integrity

3. Social and economic justice

4. Democracy, nonviolence and peac

Fasting, Addiction, Filters, and Dinosaurs-Oh MY!

Baha'i Faith on Fasting

http://www.bahai.us/fasting-time

Prayer and fasting is the cause of awakening and mindfulness and conducive to protection and preservation from tests.~ ‘Abdu’l-Bahá

I have really wanted to blog about the soapmaking adventure for quite awhile, but my time been extremely "filled up" with making the soap, Ayyam-i-Ha, my husbands and daughters' birthdays and now the Fast.  I am really struggling with fasting today.  I am craving spaghetti and it would be sooo easy to make it right now.  Both kids are at school. I'm home alone for just long enough to make it and enjoy it..  I decided that the best thing to do would be to blog about some of the topics, I've been wanting to for awhile with the time instead.  I have a headache today, because I drank coffee this morning.  (something that is NOT a good idea while fasting for 12 hours) 

Addiciton is a hard thing to deal with.  Addiction to foods, to escapisms, to "things"...wanting to buy things.. (even buying sustainable things (or cooking things, or soapmaking things) can be very addicting). 

I am really hoping that fasting will help this everyday struggle to keep filtering...to be a better filter.

My family and I went to see "Walking with Dinosaurs" with the kids a couple of weeks ago. http://www.dinosaurlive.com/  It was very expensive, but we rationalized that we won't be going to Disney World anytime soon..And we vowed we wouldn't buy ANYTHING there.  Deciding that is one thing, but it becomes harder when faced with "Pressure"...We managed to walk by all the snack and souvenir stands with people actually approaching us to "buy"..We sat down in our seats, thinking "Phew" we got through that and the kids did  not tantrum about not getting anything.

But before the show started, they entered the seating area shouting, "ice cream, popcorn, cotten candy"...It was ridiculous...and it wasn't only once they did this.  They did it at least twice or three times...Before the show and during intermission.  We managed to live up to our goal and did not buy any of it, but our kids felt "deprived"...They were very disappointed..  And we were angry for the constant pressure..

I resent this pressure. It is hard enough to resist it, without always being pressured and manipulated...linking sense of self worth with material possessions...is often the strategy....Filter. Filter. Filter

Sometimes, I "pass this test"...Sometimes I don't..

My Fasting thoughts:

I notice that for me, each day has a unique challenge. for example: One day it was the physical discomfort of being hungry/thirsty, another day was emotionally wanting the habit foods/snacks/coffee. and another day being bored/grumpy with it-wanting it done. another day-feeling really spacey and tir...ed. Each day is unique...like a test a day to try to pass. 

Lately, it hasn't been "fun"...In the past, I felt good about fasting..The challenge of it, made it rewarding.  This year is difficult, because I don't "feel" the reward.  Perhaps that is an addiction too..I read that part of the resistance that kids have to "practice" an instrument is that it is not always fun or rewarding for them.  It is part of growing up; being able to do something even if you don't feel the reward.  (this depresses me, because I don't think I'm even there yet.)  Does that mean I'm not as mature as I'd like to be...I suppose I still have some "growing up" still yet to do.  Fasting is NOT fun for me today.  So, far, I'm doing it, though.  But, I'm depressed about it.  I don't feel "good" about where I'm at yet.  I make one step forward and 2 steps back sometimes.  Trying to be sustainably minded, spiritually-minded...  But, I'm not quite "grown-up" yet.  I still want a reward and feel depressed about having to "let go" of that..  I do not always "deserve" or I am not always "entitled" a reward even if I've had a hard day, or "the hardest day"...

But on a more uplifiting note:

Here is what Rumi says about fasting:

There's hidden sweetness in the stomach's emptiness.

We are lutes, no more, no less. If the soundbox is stuffed full of anything, no music.

If the brain and the belly are burning clean with fasting, every moment a new song comes out of the fire.

The fog clears, and new energy makes yo......u run up the steps in front of you.Be emptier and cry like reed instruments cry.Emptier, write secrets with the reed pen.When you're full of food and drink, an ugly metal statue sits where your spirit should. When you fast, good habits gather like friends who want to help.Fasting is Solomon's ring. Don't give it to some illusion and lose your power, but even if you have, if you've lost all will and control, they come back when you fast, like soldiers appearing out of the ground, pennants flying above them.A table descends to your tents,Jesus' table.Expect to see it, when you fast, this table spread with other food, better than the broth of cabbages. from The Illuminated Rumi, Translated by Coleman Barks

Magical, Mystical Bees: Friendly Haven Rise Farm: Jacqueline

One thing, I would love to do is add a hive or two to our yard to support our honeybees (and to have some of our own raw honey. YUM!) When I saw a documentry on PBS http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/silence-of-the-bees/video-full-episode/251/ about CCD, I realized that our food supply could be in trouble if our honeybees disappear. A huge part of our food is dependent upon pollunation by bees..fruit, vegetables...are all bee dependent. Bees are not just important for honey!

1 in 3 U.S. Bees Died This Winter (May 2009)
That's good news, in terms of colony collapse disorder -- but still very bad news for beekeepers. Also see our DIY backyard beekeeping guide.Read more: http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/blogs/bees/colony-collapse-disorder-88052606#ixzz0XQC7t9Fw


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_collapse_disorder
Colony collapse disorder (CCD) or sometimes honey bee depopulation syndrome (HBDS)[1] is a phenomenon in which worker bees from a beehive or European honey bee colony abruptly disappear. While such disappearances have occurred throughout the history of apiculture, the term colony collapse disorder was first applied to a drastic rise in the number of disappearances of Western honey bee colonies in North America in late 2006.[2] Colony collapse is economically significant because many agricultural crops worldwide are pollinated by bees.

Why We Need Bees and More People Becoming Organic Beekeepers AlterNet

A couple of years ago, I attended a Beekeeping class at this farm:

http://www.friendlyhaven.com/classes.html

Jacqueline was an amazing teacher. I still feel refreshed when I think about the hours I spent on her farm that day and what I learned. She is a bee rescuer. She will get a call that a swarm has been located in someone's barn, or inside of someone's wall, and she will capture and relocate the swarm and create a new hive/home for it.

I believe she takes a bio-dynamic approach to farming. (something I would like to learn more about!)

From Wikpedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodynamic_agriculture

Biodynamic agriculture is a method of organic farming that treats farms as unified and individual organisms,[1] emphasizing balancing the holistic development and interrelationship of the soil, plants, animals as a self-nourishing system without external inputs[2] insofar as this is possible given the loss of nutrients due to the export of food.[3]
Regarded by some as the first modern ecological farming system,[4] biodynamic farming has much in common with other organic approaches, such as emphasizing the use of manures and composts and excluding of the use of artificial chemicals on soil and plants. Methods unique to the biodynamic approach include the use of fermented herbal and mineral preparations as compost additives and field sprays and the use of an astronomical sowing and planting calendar.[5] Biodynamics originated out of the work of Rudolf Steiner, the founder of the spiritual philosophy anthroposophy.

Jacqueline takes an approach that is very different from commercial beekeeping. Did you know that most commercial hives do not contain a true queen, but a "weaker" substitute queen that is only supposed to function for about a year until a true queen is born, but subs are continued to be used, to keep the hive from swarming away? These subs, will never be strong like the true queens..never meant to be the queen for long, etc.... Did you know that queens are marked with a dot-from a permanent marker so that commercial beekeepers can keep track of the queen. I could go on and on about why bees could be disappearing..pesticides, monoculture crops, commercial-large scale practices, etc..
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/silence-of-the-bees/ccd-update-from-dennis-van-engelsdorp-may-2009/4991/"Every colony has a queen, and what we’re finding is that those queens are dying. And if a colony is unable to successfully replace them, or if the beekeeper is unable to identify that there’s a problem with the queen and buy a new queen to replace her, the colony dies.
Also, we’re finding that beekeepers tend to have better success keeping their colonies alive by keeping colonies as healthy as possible and by aggressively treating disease and keeping colonies well nourished."
It is a very interesting topic to me.. One I hope to learn more about at some point. To me, bees seem magical/mystical. I highly recommend reading The Secret Life of Bees http://www.amazon.com/Secret-Life-Bees-Monk-Kidd/dp/0143114557/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1258736331&sr=8-1
There are so many aspects to bees, that are truly amazing. How they set up their community, their hive, their social order, even how their little bodies work, how they pollunate...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honey_bee
Amazing how important one of God's small little creatures is! How easy it is to forget...