Earth Day

The first Earth Day was in 1970 and it still remains a big event in the environmental movement. Interest and participation in Earth Day has increased and spread around the world, with millions of people taking part.

I do many things everyday in my life to help the earth: I live in a small house; I walk and bike, and work at home; I buy used stuff and buy locally (to reduce fuel used for transportation; I use the library instead of buying books; I compost, recycle, and grow my own food... 

But it’s alright to ask myself “What more could I do?”

Yes, it’s often more expensive to be environmentally conscientious, but I know that my purchasing decisions have an impact on ecosystems. The companies that produce and sell products depend on my dollars, so they will listen and react to my behavior. Also, my health and my family’s health is at risk! I need to keep my priorities straight. And I need to stretch my limits to action.

Agenda this week:

1. Make some Earth Day art:

We made these tissue paper earth window collages, sealed between two pieces of wax paper.

2. Clean the neighborhood: 

Take a garbage bag with me as I walk in the mornings and go down a different alley each day.

3. Buy less meat: 

Industrial meat production creates nasty waste and health problems. I'm going to return to my practice of two meatless meals a week.

4. Reduce toxic chemicals: 

I have been on a quest to find a good natural floor cleaner. This week I tried this recipe and it seems to work very well:

• Combine 1/4-cup white vinegar, 1-tablespoon liquid dish soap, 1/4-cup baking soda, 2 gallons warm water.

5. Plant more flowers

6. Make Earth Cookies: 

I got this idea from the Almost Unschoolers blog. One correction, though: She says the earth is about 70% water, but it's the earth's surface that is 71% water, not the earth itself. That percentage works fine for these cookies which only show the earth's surface anyway!

Ingredients:

• 2-3/4 c. flour
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1-c. butter
• 1-1/2 c. sugar
• 1 egg
• food color
• 3 tsp. baking cocoa

Yield: 2 dozen cookies-

1. Preheat oven to 375ºF. In a small bowl, stir together the flour, baking soda, and baking powder. Set aside.

2. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in an egg. Gradually blend in the dry ingredients.

3. Divide the dough and color three-quarters of it blue by kneading food color in with your fingers. Color one-eighth green and one-eighth brown with a few teaspoons of baking cocoa.

4. Roll balls of blue dough and add bits of green and brown for the land masses.

5. Place onto lightly oiled cookie sheets and press a little to slightly flatten. Bake 8 to 10 minutes. Let stand on cookie sheet for two minutes before removing to cool on wire racks.

New Sleepy Moon

Tonight is the new moon; the Chinese call the third new moon the Sleepy Moon, because the drowsiness of spring is in the air. 

On the first three days of this moon, the Chinese in Beijing celebrate the birthday of Hsi Wang Mu with a temple festival. His Wang Mu is the Grandmother Goddess of the Western Heaven, also called the Great Yin. She controls the cosmic forces of time and space, determines life and death, and controls disease and healing. She watches over the tree of the peaches of immortality.

The new moon is my monthly time for “seeding” intentions. I write down what I hope to focus on in the next 30 days or so, and then give my ideas a period of gestation, like seeds in the soil, before I take action. Having this regular time each month to focus my goals has helped to give me clarity of purpose.

Agenda for today:
1. Journal: 
How can I honor the yin energy (reflecting, waiting, non-doing) in my life?

What am I dreaming of?
What would make me more whole?

List my intentions for the month of April in these areas-
Self, Friends and Family, Teaching, Artwork, Writing, Home and Garden, Work/Business, and Volunteer work.

2. New Moon Meditation:
Light a small white candle. Center, and feel myself fill with thankfulness for all I have now in my life. 

Meditate on the Great Yin- all that is dark, quiet, soft, and mysterious- and how grateful I am for this energy in my life. Do this each day until the candle is gone.

3. Have a yin day:
Spend one day in yin mode, not doing, but rather being. Be in the garden, relax in my home, drink water, read a book, daydream, go for a long walk, take a bath, take a nap, linger over dinner, and go to bed early.

4. Plan: 

As the moon waxes, I expand-- plant seeds, make connections, and begin new projects. Today I will plan my first small steps.

Ching Ming

Ching Ming means Pure and Bright. This festival falls 15 days after the Spring Equinox. The Pure Brightness Festival is also called Ancestors Day or Picnic Day, because Chinese families gather today to sweep graves and offer foods, such as steamed pastries and roast pork, tea, and wine to their ancestors. After the ceremony the family feasts on the offering foods.

Agenda today:

1- Make gold ingots (yuan bao):

One tradition is to burn fake money for the deceased to use in the afterlife. This comes in the form of printed paper money and folded gold ingots, called yuan bao. You can buy the paper money at an Asian food store, and also the joss paper for making the yuan bao.

Folding the yuan bao isn't hard. Here is a great video that shows how. My friend and I folded about 20 yuan bao yesterday.

2- Make Red Tortoise Cakes (Ang Ku Kueh):
Grave cakes are one traditional offering at the ancestral tombs. The most common kind of grave cake is Ang Ku Kueh, or Red Tortoise Cakes- these are made with a bright red glutinous rice dough, filled with either a sweet bean or peanut filling, and printed in a mold with the design of a tortoise.

I don't have a tortoise mold so I used my small round mold.  They turned out very well- and were delicious.

Peanut Filling:

I didn't have roasted peanuts, so I roasted them
in a frying pan and removed the skins.

Ingredients:

• 1 c. dry roasted unsalted peanuts
• 1/2 Tbsp. sesame seeds
• 1/2 Tbsp. oil
• 1-2 Tbsp. water
• 1/4 c. sugar

1- Chop the peanuts coarsely in a blender or food processor- you want some chunks of nut, but also some powder so it will stick together. (I tried using my hand grinder but it wasn't fine enough.)

2- Dry fry the sesame seeds in a wok over low heat until fragrant and slightly brown. 
Remove and crush a bit with a mortar and pestle.

3- Place all ingredients in a mixing bowl and mix thoroughly with your hand
s. Add a bit more water if the mixture seems out too crumbly.

4
- Form small balls and place them on parchment paper . Chill in the refrigerator.

Red Dough:
Ingredients:

• 5/8 c. water
• red food coloring
• 1-1/2 c. glutinous rice flour
• 1/2 c. cooked sweet potato (mashed)
• 2-1/2 Tbsp. caster sugar
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 Tbsp. peanut oil
• 1-2 banana or bamboo leaves
• oil

1- Add coloring to the water until it’s a deep red color.

2- Mix all the other ingredients together and knead, adding water bit by bit, until you get a smooth dough
. 

3- Divide into 12 balls. Cover the bowl with a wet tea towel to prevent drying out.
4- Heat water in a wok, and prepare the steamer. Cut 12 pieces of leaves and oil them. Place into the steamer.


5- Flatten 1 dough ball to about 1/4-inch thickness
, put a ball of filling in the center, and wrap skin over, sealing the edges together
. Roll lightly between your palms to smooth.

6- Lightly dust the mold with rice flour
. (If you don't have a mold, they work fine as round balls.) Flour your hands and dust the dough as well
. Gently press the dough ball into the mold, then knock mold against the table to dislodge. Place cake on an oiled leaf
 in the steamer. Repeat for all dough balls.

7- Steam over medium-low heat for 8-10 minutes, or until the cakes are a deep glistening red (open the lid halfway through to depressurize briefly).
 Allow to cool, then brush lightly with oil so they won't stick together
.

3- Remember and honor my ancestors:

Those who practice ancestor veneration believe that dead family members have the ability to influence the fates of the living; the goal of their practices is to help ensure the ancestors' goodwill, but also to cultivate values like family loyalty and respect. When I teach children about these practices, I emphasize that second part. 

I have great respect for my ancestors; many of them were amazing people. My own belief is that we all become part of the Great Spirit when we die, so to honor my ancestors is to honor God.

I can’t travel to where my relatives are buried, so I had my ceremony yesterday, in my own backyard (it qualifies as a graveyard because we certainly have a lot of beloved pets buried there).

My ceremony was supposed go like this:

• Set up a chair near our backyard fire pit, and bring out hot tea and a plate of red tortoise cakes.
• Spear the paper money with candles and joss sticks, in the fire pit, and add the gold ingots that we folded. Light the joss sticks and red candles.
• Read the names of my ancestors, back as far as I know (it’s a rather long list of names).
• Pour a little tea on the ground, then drink the rest, and eat the cakes.

Unfortunately, it started to rain pretty hard just after we lit the candles, so I didn't stay to finish the ceremony. I will try again today!

Easter

Easter is the most important and joyful of all Christian holy days because it marks the resurrection of Jesus. Easter always comes after the spring equinox, when lots of things in nature are returning to life. The English word Easter comes from the Old English Eastre, which was the name for the spring season. 


To the old pagan tribes of northern Europe, spring was the time of the triumphant sun, the sun reborn to light the dark valleys. It has been a tradition since the Middle Age for folks to gather on hilltops to watch the sunrise on Easter morning. According to legend, the rising sun dances on Easter morning to honor Jesus’ resurrection. I have very deep memories of the walk up Coxcomb Hill on Easter morning to see the sunrise, followed by breakfast at our house for anyone from our church who cared to come and a big egg hunt for us kids.

Easter is the penultimate time of hope, renewal and new life, which is at the heart of the message that Christians wish to proclaim and live in the world. I see this as a reminder to live each day as a new day, and to have faith that the actions I take will have transforming power in the world.

Agenda today:

1. Greet the Easter sunrise with joy

2. Put on new clothes to symbolize new life

3. Hunt for Easter eggs

Full Hare Moon

Tonight is the full moon, which is my monthly time for action and release: I look again at the “seeds of intention” I planted 2 weeks ago at the new moon and decide on my next steps to take; I take those steps; then I release my expectations in order to clear space for new ideas and new intentions.

This moon is called the Hare Moon, because this is the month when rabbits leap and play and mate. April is spring; the yellows and violets of March explode into all the amazing colors of the rainbow: orange tulips, pink azaleas, lilacs, fresh green, and the 'blue true dream of sky'.

This month I celebrate life and love, and affirm my sensuality and my wild nature! I am ready to give myself passionately to life, refreshed and renewed. I'm ready to say YES with vigor, and enjoy the surprises, confusion, and chaos that life brings. 

At the same time, I want to find a happy balance- Somewhere between emptiness and chaos is the state of JUST ENOUGH. Balance is about knowing what I really want out of my life, making a commitment, and sticking to it. It’s an ongoing dynamic process, a balancing act!

Agenda for today:

1. Altar:

It's time to discern what to put on my altar for April. (For my thoughts on altars see About Altars). I generally keep it simple and choose only things that speak to me and feed me, and reveal what I believe in. I ask, what quality of Spirit do I want to invoke? 

I have already set out eggs for hope and new beginnings, and the palm cross to remind me to be reborn each day. Today I add- 

• a carved soapstone dove for peace
• a golden candle for balance in the center

Each month at the full moon I put a motto or quote on my altar, to ponder. This month- my favorite spring poem:

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any–lifted from the no
of all nothing–human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

e.e. cummings

2. Journal:
Review the intentions I set 2 weeks ago, at the new moon. 

Do these goals all still seem vital? What are my next steps?
How might I find greater peace on my path? 
How might I find greater balance?

3. Practice at my theme:
My theme this month is balance- the balance of concentration and mindfulness, action and study, social and alone time, yearning and resistance. My intentions:

• Practice my tai chi.
• Look for new ways to share my celebrations socially.
• Seek clarity in the chaos.
• Allow myself to flow with coming changes (it's an adventure, not a disruption.) 
• Connect to the Spirit outside myself and within.
• Notice (again) how satisfying it is just to be alive!

4. Take Action:

The full moon is a time to celebrate life, stay up late, see friends, exercise harder, and be more creative and outgoing. The crazy full moon energy builds and builds; it’s best to acknowledge it so it doesn’t throw me off balance. This surge of energy allows me to take action on intentions I set two weeks ago. Today I will plan the steps to take to complete some projects.

Passover

Passover is the oldest of the Jewish holidays. It celebrates the story of how God set the Jewish people free from slavery in Egypt. Passover begins on the fourteenth day of the Jewish month of Nisan, which is the night of the first full moon after the equinox. Because in the Jewish calendar the day begins at sunset, Passover in fact begins on the evening before the full moon, and then continues for eight days. 

The highlight of Passover is the Seder, a ceremonial meal that begins at sunset on the first night. The Sedar focuses on the traditional symbolic foods that are used to help remember the Passover story. The whole family gets involved, each taking turns reading out of the haggadah (Hebrew for “narration”). The youngest person chants the Four Questions which ask why Passover is observed the way it is. After the initial ceremony the family shares a feast, then one final part of the Sedar, and finally singing and poetry.

I don't hold a Passover seder because it's too important of a ceremony. Instead, I honor the start of Passover with some thought and discussion on the themes, some Hebrew prayers, and a nice Jewish meal.

Agenda today:

1. Clean the kitchen:
To prepare for Passover, Jewish families clean their homes very thoroughly and remove all leftover foods from the house so that no leavened products are left. I don't need to remove all the leavened foods, but today I will clean the kitchen floor and counters.

2. Journal:
Passover is about physical and spiritual freedom- In order to leave Egypt, I must escape my limitations and free myself to achieve my full spiritual potential. 

According to Hasidic philosophy, leavened bread symbolizes egotism and matzo represents humility. Consider today whether I been behaving puffed up with importance, arrogance, and indulgence, or modest and humble like matzo. 

3. Make matzo balls and soup:
I did make matzo ball soup- it was good, but I forgot to take pictures.

4. Passover blessing:

Barukh atah AdonAI, eloHAYnu melekh ha’olam, hazan et ha’olam kull O betuvo,

bechen bechesed uvrachamin.

Blessed art Thou, our God of the Universe, who nourishes the universe in goodness, with grace, kindness, and compassion.