Soon after I started to drive yesterday, I noticed that there were two insects on the window to the left of me, about 8 inches from my face. They did not look like anything I had ever seen before and their presence and proximity startled me. I couldn’t tell if they were inside the car or outside. Continue reading “Weekly Photo Challenge: From Out-of-this-World”
Category: Learning
Weekly Photo Challenge: Cannabis Sign
When I saw the Weekly Photo Challenge was to take a picture of a sign, I knew exactly what picture I would take. Last week, I felt stunned when I passed a huge cannabis billboard. It was my understanding that billboards advertising alcohol and tobacco were illegal. How could a billboard advertising a recreational drug be acceptable??????? It made no sense to me. Continue reading “Weekly Photo Challenge: Cannabis Sign”
Why?
When I was walking in my neighborhood two weeks ago, I saw this tree stump and wondered why it had been decorated it this way. After pondering it for some time, the story I made up was that the homeowners didn’t want the tree there and didn’t want to take out the stump. I suspected these materials were placed in this way to keep people from tripping over it. Continue reading “Why?”
I Love My Worms
I have been vermicomposting for several years now. That is a process where red wiggler worms eat ground up food waste and excrete castings that become an incredibly rich fertilizer for the garden.
I have a Worm Factory that is meant to be kept indoors. I keep mine in my kitchen except during late spring and summer. During those months, I put the Worm Factory outside, on my back deck.
Last week, I made a snack for myself- raw food balls created from dates, almonds, peanut butter and dried cranberries. Once the balls were formed, I rolled them in coconut flakes. I wondered if my worms would eat the extra coconut, so I put some in the bin. They loved it! The next day, I gave them the rest of the coconut, and then put some leaves and unusable squash from the garden into my food processor. Once those items were processed, I added them to the worm bin as well. I had happy worms!
I have been trying to take a good video so you can see what the bin and the worms are like. My efforts were hampered by the fact that when I uncover the bin the worms are moving quite fast, but when the bin floods with light they either freeze or burrow further down into the bin. Finally, I figured out how to do it. Enjoy! (Hint: You will see the most worms towards the end of the video.)
As my post title says, I love my worms….. and my garden loves the vermicompost!
Happy Birthday to Mahatma Gandhi
“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it–always.”
Gratitude Sunday
I met Amma in summer of 1989 and took my first trip to India in January 1990. I have traveled to India almost every year since then. The first two visits were short (10 days to 3 weeks). The third and fourth were for two months. From then on, my yearly journey has been for five or six weeks. Continue reading “Gratitude Sunday”
Quote of the Week: Mother Teresa

“I know God won’t give me anything I can’t handle. I just wish he didn’t trust me so much.”
― Mother Teresa
Quote of the Week: Pir Vilayat Khan
Sufi teacher Pir Vilayat Khan asks us to view pain in this way:
Overcome any bitterness that may have come because you were not up to the magnitude of pain that was entrusted to you. Like the mother of the world who carries the pain of the world in her heart, each one of us is part of her heart, and therefore endowed with a certain measure of cosmic pain. You are sharing in the totality of that pain. You are called upon to meet it in joy instead of self-pity.
What is your reaction to his suggestion?
From: Pir Vilayat, Khan, Introducing Spirituality in Counseling and Therapy (New York: Omega Press, 1982).
Gratitude Sunday in Advance
I have been reading gratitude posts on SeasonedSistha2 for some time. She regularly participates in Gratitude Sunday and today I read her Thankful Thursday post. That got me thinking. Why have I not started participating in one of those weekly gratitude prompts?
To me, the ability to feel and express gratitude is an incredibly important component of healthy living. I once was taught that depression and gratitude cannot co-exist. I don’t know if that is actually a researched fact, but I believe it to be true. I know that when people begin to focus on gratitude, the negativity within them diminishes and their spirits lift. They also learn to see the positive in events that might normally be considered negative. Continue reading “Gratitude Sunday in Advance”
Quote of the Week: André Gide

One doesn’t discover new lands without consenting to lose sight, for a very long time, of the shore.
— André Gide
André Paul Guillaume Gide (22 November 1869- 19 February 1951) was a French author and winner of the Nobel Prize in literature in 1947.
Quote from: Les faux-monnayeurs [The Counterfeiters] (1925)

