I was filled with grief this morning. It hit me: what kind of times are we living in?
 
I had just come back from town and the market where I “stocked up,” upon recommendation of a friend from my village. I’d run into her in the zócalo and she told me the sobering news that on Monday our tiendas are going to be closed. I have felt quite fortunate to live where I do during this time. If the local stores close, that brings the Coronavirus scare even closer to home than it already is.
 
I returned home and sprayed my keys, coins, backpack and shopping bag with the lavender disinfectant I’d made. Next order of business: I took off the clothes that had perhaps touched someone on the combi or brushed against a shopper or vender in the market – and hung them on the line in the sun. Then I set to disinfecting the produce I’d purchased. This time, not just to kill any bacteria from water the fruits and vegetable might have been sprayed with. At the top of my mind was that surely the venders had touched the fruit or greens and who knows if they might have it? In batches, I let the produce soak in the tub I use for that. Fortunately, the mountain spring water that comes via garden hose was trickling sufficiently today to at least disinfect my food. Washing clothes would have to wait.

It can be frustrating being around people who mirror issues we have and don't like about ourselves, let alone to admit! Just like with all addictions - as dealt with in the 12 step programs - each person has to hit their own bottom and realize it. Only then can and will they choose to make changes that better serve them and those around them.

For people in this situation I suggest that they keep doing and developing, making time for, the things that represent “stopping and smelling the roses” for them. You can do these things alone, with others, and even invite the person your thinking about in your question. The key and challenge of course, is fully owning just for yourself those activities and the joy and nourishment they bring you. That means, without attachment, need, manipulation to try to “make” (the same as “get” - both of which indicate force or control over) the other do the same for themselves.

Not easy, I know, but the only answer I feel is healthy and truly productive. By being yourself fully, which includes “smelling the roses,” you are living in a good way for you, with just that motivation. Paradoxically, you are then being a model for others to do the same.

This was demonstrated to me years ago.

I have increasingly been receiving questions about living simply lately. When I changed my lifestyle over twenty years ago I was surprised to discover an actual movement based on the ideas and sensibilities I held, called Voluntary Simplicity. Now, Minimalism has taken hold as the trendy term.

I have some issues around the term, as it seems to hit some people as a a lifestyle change requiring unwanted discomfort, poverty, giving up of "stuff" overall perceived as a sacrifice. All of which has negative connotations and seems to be received sometimes as the hammer of justice telling people what they "should" and "must" do. Ouch.

This is not the motivation I wish for people's contemplations about and decisions to let go of their current lifestyles. Yes, I wish for people and western culture as a whole, to wake up and see the harm and disconnect caused by and at the root of the ways of living prescribed in our culture. And of course I would expect this to involve pain. Past that and underneath it, though, is a remembering and reclaiming of ways of living that honor and respect the earth and the natural life cycles and wisdom inherent in its design - of which we are a part. 

While the tearing away from previous decisions and their repercussions could be painful for various reasons, at some point, and hopefully from the start or early on, the vision and feeling of the life one is remembering and going towards, would be overall pleasant and at least inspiring and heart-felt.

​A local woman who has a restaurant came to my authentic Indian cooking class today. When the students went around the circle taking turns introducing themselves and speaking about what the attraction was that brought them to the class, her story surprised me. She shared that she disliked Indian food. She had a particular isue with the spice cumin, that she said made her feel ill. Smelling it was not a problem, but when it was used in dishes she found it overpowering and literally sickening. Another student suggested perhaps she has an allergy to the spice. When she would be visiting her daughter in San Fransisco and they would go to and Indian restaurant, she would bring her own food.
 
We continued talking about cumin for awhile, two participants shared that they love cumin, and one woman shared that in traditional Mexican cuisine, cumin is used often in the north, but not in the south. I agreed with Laura that cumin can be overpowering and told her, “Well, most of today’s recipes happen to feature cumin, and in fact I had planned to give you all a lesson in cumin! Are you open to having any cumin in the food or do we need to make two batches of the dishes?” She said that a little cumin would be all right and the other students agreed to this adjustment.

​We proceeded to the kitchen and I gave a tour of the different stations I had created, one for each dish we were going to prepare. When we arrived at the beet, tomato and cucumber raita station I passed around a small bowl of raw cumin seed for each person to smell. I asked them to hold that smell in their minds. Then I passed around a dish of roasted and ground cumin seeds. The difference between the two was impressive and we passed them around again to really anchor in the smells and the differences. I then explained how to roast cumin and how doing so changed the character of the spice.

​When all the dishes were ready, we spread them on the buffet table and served ourselves. Up on the terrace where we dined with a divine view of the mountains, I asked the students how they were enjoying the meal, if they had a favorite dish. Everyone said the meal was delicious and that they were enjoying it completely. I looked at Laura, wondering how the meal was going down for her, especially as I had added a little extra roasted cumin seed to the kachumber salad at the last moment. I felt a little guilty doing so, but in the name of giving my students a true experience of authentic Indian cuisine, I felt I needed to, as the dish really wouldn’t have it’s unique taste without it. 

​Laura looked at me smiling and reported, “I came to the class disliking Indian food. After this meal, my experience of it has changed. Even with cumin in the dishes I feel fine. The food has gone down well and I feel great!  My stomach isn’t upset at all.  I’m leaving this class with a new opinion of Indian food: I like it a lot!

"And now you know the secret," I beamed. "When you go to an Indian restaurant, ask the waiter to ask the chef whether the cumin in the spice blends have raw or roasted cumin. If raw, you can specifically request that the chef roast the cumin in your dishes."

Laura took this information in, eyes unblinking. "Now I can go to Indian restaurants with my family in San Fransisco and I don’t have to bring my own food!” She proclaimed.
 
Of course Laura’s turnaround was gratifying to me as a teacher: because of the class and what she had learned about how to use cumin, she had a different experience and opinion about the cuisine. Laura had received a gift by coming to the class. But I had received a gift as well: I was surprised that not liking the cuisine she chose to come to the class. How many people would do that? I can’t imagine I would. And what a lesson: by immersing herself in something she didn’t like, she learned, gave herself the chance of a new and different experience, and through her bravery and  openness, emerged liking the very thing she had arrived disdaining.
 
Now there’s food for thought.

For the past two years I have been spending half the year in the states to be near my elderly mother. Going between places is trying for me. As much as I don’t want to and am not aware of attaching myself to the reality of wherever I am, I must do it, because changing places is both frightening and unsettling for me. Especially coming home to México. Odd because it’s the place I love, yet it’s been difficult to return each time.

Going between the States and México is like landing on different planets. It’s not funny, it’s hard. I seem to do okay upon arriving en el Norte, but coming back home is ironically conflictual.

Why would coming back to the place I love be anything but joyful? There are different sensibilities in each country which challenge my beliefs. In México, I work constantly to let go and flow, as that is the primary energy of the place. In the U.S. I enter the flow of information, resources, answers and help. As my time to return to México approaches I find myself fearful and furiously investigating supplements and other items not available where I live. I become increasingly unhappy, tense, exhausted and edging into a percieved state of 

Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor had a massive stroke, temporarily losing function of the left hemisphere of her brain, and experienced it consciously. She now shares her experience of the silence, connection and hope for ourselves and the planet that the right brain permits. “Peace is just a breath away,” she says in her inspiring and illuminating interview with Oprah.

Two days ago a dragon fly entered my house. It flew up to the skylight and tried to get out for hours, it’s wings buzzing incessantly as they struck the hard surface of the skylight.

Like many, I have had deep wounds that have taken my lifetime to address, feel and heal. As dedicated as I was to inner work, it wasn't until the last couple years that I have begun to feel an emergence from the veil of fog, which was my history.