Cleaning out my blog, as it were, I found this old, unpublished post. I like the message, so I thought I'd post it now. enjoy!
originally written february 19, 2009
Although we have been made to believe that if we let go we will end up with nothing, life itself reveals again and again the opposite: that letting go is the path to real freedom.
- Excerpt from The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying By Sogyal Rinpoche
That's what I wish I had read last week, mid-afternoon before yoga class. Maybe then I wouldn't be sitting in my house with a leg sticky from Tiger's Balm and a strong longing for nothing more than the ability to bend forward, suddenly very unrealistic. I've read again and again the yogic principle of "ahimsa" or "non-violence", and I claim to understand it. Yet for every time I've read it, I'm pretty sure there's a good example of how I have not applied it when I could have. That's ok, some things you've got to learn by doing (or not doing) but it's getting old to keep pushing myself just beyond my limits when I know deep down I shouldn't. This time it won't matter; I need to work harder, I tell myself, and that was exactly what was going through my head when I pulled a hamstring last week. Again.
The truly annoying part? I kept going to classes and didn't mention it to the teachers. Massochism? Maybe more like Daniela suggested a few weeks ago: victimization. Or at least, the need to feel like a saint for bearing my discomfort in silence. Ouch. Good ol' ego is kicking at that thought. Whatever the reason, I kept pushing myself and yesterday felt a resounding pop in standing split that brought on instant tears. Now, even walking hurts. It's a challenge not to let it piss me off. I would like to be seriously angry at the situation, and last night, walking very slowly to the tram stop with Daniel watching quietly and waiting for the explosion, I was. I felt like every bit of progress I've been making has been an illusion-I've been practicing so much better, so strongly and smoothly, and without feeling challenged horribly all the time. I thought I was really breaking into something new, and that's part of why I decided to go for my teacher's training this May. Suddenly, with a self-inflicted limp, I wondered out loud if I am just running into something I haven't even begun to understand.
I said it out loud, maybe hoping for an easy, verbal response. But there isn't one. There is no simple answer to a problem that goes to the center of who I am. Honestly, I believe that we are all capable of understanding and embracing yogic principles and lifestyles; practicing non-violence while practicing self-discipline and study; finding absolute joy in every moment without the constant buzz of self-gratification and affirmation. We can all just "be" and be fine with that. Admitting that it's something we may never reach is the part that puts me in my place every time. I think, "wow, yeah, I get it, peace and respect and resolve and release, all at the same time, I totally see that, I can do it." And if I meet a challenge, it crumples fairly easily into fear and self-doubt, showing all too clearly that I'm just setting up pretty pictures for myself of what I think I should be doing, not what I am doing. If I was really releasing, I would have no problem with never reaching perfection-or with doing half a standing split when my muscles are stiff.
The beautiful irony of the situation is that what I need is to slow down, and by ignoring that need initially, I have forced myself into a position where I have no other choice. Life teaches us lessons, and the one I thought i needed to learn (discipline; strength; something masculine and difficult) is only something I have imagined. I, and probably you too, live in a society which preaches hard-headed masculine strength as the cure-all for lifes problems. When I see a wall, I want to kick the fucker down, or jump over, or somehow prove I'm powerful enough to dominate it. Maybe next time I'll stop stubbing my toes and scraping my knuckles, and just enjoy the shade and shelter from the wind.
Enlightenment is the "quiet acceptance of what is". I believe the truly enlightened beings are those who refuse to allow themselves to be distressed over things that simply are the way they are.
- Wayne Dyer
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Meditations on the “Moral Food” Conundrum
Today, biting into my adaptation of a classic Swiss apple-polenta dish (straight from Betty Bossi!), I paused to think about the culture that had inspired me to make it. The flavor was light and simple, yet satisfying and oh-so-homey. Still, apparently food for thought.
Let’s be honest; Switzerland is a land of agrarian fanatics. It’s not something to scoff at either. I have nothing but respect for anyone who devotes their life to producing good food-and Swiss farmers seem to have gotten that one to a T, even if they have a bit of a "short man complex" about their specialty. Yes, for some strange reason, Swiss people are usually either embarrassed about their country’s history of stubborn agricultural productivity (these would be, obviously, not the farmers), or suspiciously quick to point out how steadfast and impressive the Swiss agricultural system really is (yes, farmers talking here).
I can’t help but smile at anyone who is embarrassed in front of me about their country’s history. I am an American, which means a certain amount of humility when it comes to claiming my nationality, and I would never judge a country based on how it has been in the past. The point is what I am experiencing here right now. Learning about Swiss cultural history is easier here, now, in this small, mountainous country, filled with patchworks of grain fields, cow pastures, and milk production facilities, than any textbook could ever describe it.
One of the most tell-tale signs that farmers are a revered force in the Swiss population is the fairly close attention that even big supermarkets pay to stocking local food products. Well, part farmer-appreciation and part stolid nationalism, to be fair, but the result is still nice! Even massive corporate shopping centers often list the name of the farmer who grewthe vegetable you’re holding and the address where it was grown. Wow! When I stroll around the farmers markets it is an even more lovely spread of local fresh vegetables, and fruits, and fine, handmade vinegars, pickles, and jams; and there you get to look the grower in the eye, essentially, and see for yourself the life of work that went into your carrots.
Of course, Switzerland is most notoriously a cheese- and chocolate-loving nation, which can’t help me a lot as far as vegan-food-adventures go (yes, I tried anyway, with awful results, peer pressure still being a driving force in ‘adult’ life apparently!). Here is where history is again evident in the present: With about 2000 years of cheese-making under their belts, a lot of the Swiss I meet would be happy to live off bread and cheese for the next 15 years, easy. Well, and chocolate, clearly. That confuses me-that a people with the potential to grow amazing produce, who live in an ideal way for spreading it to everyone through the tight-knit networks of villages, small cities, and interspersed plots of land, already well-adapted to agricultural work, still devote most of their agricultural energies to the less resource-efficient dairy and meat industries.
All I can figure out is that tradition has a strangle-hold on the food industry, including that of consumption. Much of Swiss life is rife with traditionalism like no Californian could have imagined. Food is certainly no exception. When I ask people here for their opinions, there are two main answers. First, the need for protein-rich foods. This is a straight-shot to the tradition issue. In tribal Switzerland, meat was probably what people had learned to ‘cultivate,’ and with it milk and methods for preserving it. Now that banking is a close runner-up for Swiss cultural value, something tells me that most people aren’t actually hand-milking cows every morning, and the choice is about where their Swiss francs are going, not which food they have the ability to produce. The second is a simple taste preference for dairy and meat products. I can’t really argue with what tastes better to one person or another, but I have a feeling that there’s more to good flavors in Switzerland than Lindt, Käse Fondue, and Würst. Otherwise I would’ve been outta here a long time ago!
But the simple fact is that when you eat some of one thing, you end up eating less of another (ok, modern standards of over-eating aside…). If your first thought for breakfast is a hunk of Gruyere and a slice of topf (like the challah of swiss bread), you’ve just passed up the ripe, juicy plums, apples, pears, and elderberries dripping with natural appeal. How about a bowl of nüsslisalat (corn lettuce), grated celeriac, and purple carrots, all native, seasonal veggies (yes, even in January!)?
Let’s think further, to the simple, rustic cuisine that everyone dreams of mom bringing to the table at Christmas; The standards include potatoes, meat, salad, cheese (raclette or fondue), bread, and lots of cookies and chocolate. The great part is, it’s all local. The drawback? Well, I can’t eat most of it, for one! But also, the focus on meat, cheese, milk products, and wheat means less focus on the amazing variety of heirloom vegetables and fruits in Switzerland, or the wide spread of grain crops that can easily be grown here but are replaced with wheat. about corn? It is evidently completely possible to grow it here, because in fact, quite a bit is. There’s just one catch-like most American corn, it is a variety to be used for cattle feed. One of the common imported items I see is whole corn on the cob, while the pig sliced into your sandwich could have easily been fattened on locally-grown corn! Funny how the world works…
On the other side, we can’t forget that just because something is local doesn’t mean that it is native, or easier to be grown. In the short-term, buying local is almost always better because you are cutting down on the costs, environmental and economical, of importing. But in the long-run, we are often just supporting the chosen monoculture of a given region. Wheat, spelt, and rye are NOT the only grains that grow in Switzerland. For whatever reason, cost, quantity, versatility, or demand, a few crops were chosen for Switzerland to produce on large scales, and that’s the way we’re taught to buy. It’s completely ludicrous to think that only a few kinds of plants are Switzerland-friendly. With major geographical differences from region to region, it’s a country supporting many vastly different microclimates in its small, mountainous confines. For example: Um, the Alps?
Changing something like the amount of agricultural biodiversity in a society isn’t something I know how to do. Do you? Then help me out. In the meantime I can try to cut down on both imported and local-monoculture foods, and eat…well, heirlooms! Lucky for me there is an almost guerilla-like movement of heirloom activists in Switzerland, who distribute the seeds for personal use and research the ‘lineage’ of plant species all the way back to texts from monastery’s of the Middle Ages.
Now, here I sit with a piece of Tender Elstar Apple Cake in front of me. The ingredients are the usual hodge-podge of what I had and what I wanted, and the result is a multi-cultural take on a Swiss tradition. Inside are little South American Amaranth grains, Italian polenta, and cashews from…it doesn’t actually say, and that’s eerie. Everything inside is organic, and some things were locally produced. Some came straight from the farm, like the apples and the elderberry blossom syrup. But how much better is it to enjoy this newly hyped gluten-free grain, fair trade and more well-traveled than most Americans my age, than to buy the Kellogs Corn Pops, which are also gluten-free, cheaper, and produced on the same continent? Well, I would still say it’s better, but it’s not as much of a perfect action as I would like to imagine.
It’s so easy to fall into the traps of advertising and wind up wreaking havoc on our supposed ‘environmentalist’ morals. Where does our soymilk come from, dairy-free eaters? If you make your own, where are the beans grown? Rice milk? Almond milk? How far have the ingredients for your perfect curry traveled? How much plastic should really be involved in buying organic peppers? I just have to think that if what we need is a change in the way we shop and eat, what we need is less mindless extremism and more conscientious decision-making. “I shop all organic” is not enough to make me living well in relation to the environment, the economy, and other individuals. Neither is “I shop local.” It is a complicated, messy state our food has sprouted into, and the answers are similarly messy.
Don’t underestimate your actions! Think!
There is no codified method for ‘good’ actions-the answer always lies in the moment, and to face this is the most honest expression of humanity. When you enter the grocery store, whether you choose the farmer’s market, the local organic shop, the Tesco, the Walmart, or the garden, what you have to work with is always the next choice. Organic and imported, local and sprayed; fair trade from South America or grown next door by underpaid immigrants; packaged or bulk; paper or plastic; savored or snacked; spoiled or saved…Think about it. Enjoy the process. This is living. It is our gift and our eternal possibility to do it with as much awareness as possible. Two bites into my Elstar Cake, I’ve got a smile on my face as I think about exactly what it means to eat “Swiss”.
Let’s be honest; Switzerland is a land of agrarian fanatics. It’s not something to scoff at either. I have nothing but respect for anyone who devotes their life to producing good food-and Swiss farmers seem to have gotten that one to a T, even if they have a bit of a "short man complex" about their specialty. Yes, for some strange reason, Swiss people are usually either embarrassed about their country’s history of stubborn agricultural productivity (these would be, obviously, not the farmers), or suspiciously quick to point out how steadfast and impressive the Swiss agricultural system really is (yes, farmers talking here).
I can’t help but smile at anyone who is embarrassed in front of me about their country’s history. I am an American, which means a certain amount of humility when it comes to claiming my nationality, and I would never judge a country based on how it has been in the past. The point is what I am experiencing here right now. Learning about Swiss cultural history is easier here, now, in this small, mountainous country, filled with patchworks of grain fields, cow pastures, and milk production facilities, than any textbook could ever describe it.
One of the most tell-tale signs that farmers are a revered force in the Swiss population is the fairly close attention that even big supermarkets pay to stocking local food products. Well, part farmer-appreciation and part stolid nationalism, to be fair, but the result is still nice! Even massive corporate shopping centers often list the name of the farmer who grewthe vegetable you’re holding and the address where it was grown. Wow! When I stroll around the farmers markets it is an even more lovely spread of local fresh vegetables, and fruits, and fine, handmade vinegars, pickles, and jams; and there you get to look the grower in the eye, essentially, and see for yourself the life of work that went into your carrots.
Of course, Switzerland is most notoriously a cheese- and chocolate-loving nation, which can’t help me a lot as far as vegan-food-adventures go (yes, I tried anyway, with awful results, peer pressure still being a driving force in ‘adult’ life apparently!). Here is where history is again evident in the present: With about 2000 years of cheese-making under their belts, a lot of the Swiss I meet would be happy to live off bread and cheese for the next 15 years, easy. Well, and chocolate, clearly. That confuses me-that a people with the potential to grow amazing produce, who live in an ideal way for spreading it to everyone through the tight-knit networks of villages, small cities, and interspersed plots of land, already well-adapted to agricultural work, still devote most of their agricultural energies to the less resource-efficient dairy and meat industries.
All I can figure out is that tradition has a strangle-hold on the food industry, including that of consumption. Much of Swiss life is rife with traditionalism like no Californian could have imagined. Food is certainly no exception. When I ask people here for their opinions, there are two main answers. First, the need for protein-rich foods. This is a straight-shot to the tradition issue. In tribal Switzerland, meat was probably what people had learned to ‘cultivate,’ and with it milk and methods for preserving it. Now that banking is a close runner-up for Swiss cultural value, something tells me that most people aren’t actually hand-milking cows every morning, and the choice is about where their Swiss francs are going, not which food they have the ability to produce. The second is a simple taste preference for dairy and meat products. I can’t really argue with what tastes better to one person or another, but I have a feeling that there’s more to good flavors in Switzerland than Lindt, Käse Fondue, and Würst. Otherwise I would’ve been outta here a long time ago!
But the simple fact is that when you eat some of one thing, you end up eating less of another (ok, modern standards of over-eating aside…). If your first thought for breakfast is a hunk of Gruyere and a slice of topf (like the challah of swiss bread), you’ve just passed up the ripe, juicy plums, apples, pears, and elderberries dripping with natural appeal. How about a bowl of nüsslisalat (corn lettuce), grated celeriac, and purple carrots, all native, seasonal veggies (yes, even in January!)?
Let’s think further, to the simple, rustic cuisine that everyone dreams of mom bringing to the table at Christmas; The standards include potatoes, meat, salad, cheese (raclette or fondue), bread, and lots of cookies and chocolate. The great part is, it’s all local. The drawback? Well, I can’t eat most of it, for one! But also, the focus on meat, cheese, milk products, and wheat means less focus on the amazing variety of heirloom vegetables and fruits in Switzerland, or the wide spread of grain crops that can easily be grown here but are replaced with wheat. about corn? It is evidently completely possible to grow it here, because in fact, quite a bit is. There’s just one catch-like most American corn, it is a variety to be used for cattle feed. One of the common imported items I see is whole corn on the cob, while the pig sliced into your sandwich could have easily been fattened on locally-grown corn! Funny how the world works…
On the other side, we can’t forget that just because something is local doesn’t mean that it is native, or easier to be grown. In the short-term, buying local is almost always better because you are cutting down on the costs, environmental and economical, of importing. But in the long-run, we are often just supporting the chosen monoculture of a given region. Wheat, spelt, and rye are NOT the only grains that grow in Switzerland. For whatever reason, cost, quantity, versatility, or demand, a few crops were chosen for Switzerland to produce on large scales, and that’s the way we’re taught to buy. It’s completely ludicrous to think that only a few kinds of plants are Switzerland-friendly. With major geographical differences from region to region, it’s a country supporting many vastly different microclimates in its small, mountainous confines. For example: Um, the Alps?
Changing something like the amount of agricultural biodiversity in a society isn’t something I know how to do. Do you? Then help me out. In the meantime I can try to cut down on both imported and local-monoculture foods, and eat…well, heirlooms! Lucky for me there is an almost guerilla-like movement of heirloom activists in Switzerland, who distribute the seeds for personal use and research the ‘lineage’ of plant species all the way back to texts from monastery’s of the Middle Ages.
Now, here I sit with a piece of Tender Elstar Apple Cake in front of me. The ingredients are the usual hodge-podge of what I had and what I wanted, and the result is a multi-cultural take on a Swiss tradition. Inside are little South American Amaranth grains, Italian polenta, and cashews from…it doesn’t actually say, and that’s eerie. Everything inside is organic, and some things were locally produced. Some came straight from the farm, like the apples and the elderberry blossom syrup. But how much better is it to enjoy this newly hyped gluten-free grain, fair trade and more well-traveled than most Americans my age, than to buy the Kellogs Corn Pops, which are also gluten-free, cheaper, and produced on the same continent? Well, I would still say it’s better, but it’s not as much of a perfect action as I would like to imagine.
It’s so easy to fall into the traps of advertising and wind up wreaking havoc on our supposed ‘environmentalist’ morals. Where does our soymilk come from, dairy-free eaters? If you make your own, where are the beans grown? Rice milk? Almond milk? How far have the ingredients for your perfect curry traveled? How much plastic should really be involved in buying organic peppers? I just have to think that if what we need is a change in the way we shop and eat, what we need is less mindless extremism and more conscientious decision-making. “I shop all organic” is not enough to make me living well in relation to the environment, the economy, and other individuals. Neither is “I shop local.” It is a complicated, messy state our food has sprouted into, and the answers are similarly messy.
Don’t underestimate your actions! Think!
There is no codified method for ‘good’ actions-the answer always lies in the moment, and to face this is the most honest expression of humanity. When you enter the grocery store, whether you choose the farmer’s market, the local organic shop, the Tesco, the Walmart, or the garden, what you have to work with is always the next choice. Organic and imported, local and sprayed; fair trade from South America or grown next door by underpaid immigrants; packaged or bulk; paper or plastic; savored or snacked; spoiled or saved…Think about it. Enjoy the process. This is living. It is our gift and our eternal possibility to do it with as much awareness as possible. Two bites into my Elstar Cake, I’ve got a smile on my face as I think about exactly what it means to eat “Swiss”.
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