I knew that today I would be writing my 400th post. That’s 400 posts since I started my blog in March 2014! I’m very excited about this landmark. I never would have guessed when Sreejit encouraged me to start blogging that I would love it this much. I decided 400 was important enough to me that I would spend some time thinking about the topic for that particular post.
When I was growing up, I belonged to the Brownies and then the Girl Scouts. I used to love to go on camping trips with them. My memories are of sitting around the campfire singing and making s’mores. I belonged to other groups in my teen years. We also roasted marshmallows, and put them, along with pieces of a chocolate bar between graham crackers to make the much loved s’mores.
But that wasn’t the only thing we made during these early years of my life. We also made banana boats! Most people nowadays know about s’mores but I don’t ever remember talking with anyone who knows about banana boats. Some years back, I realized I could make them without the campfire, so today I will show those of you who are new to banana boats how to make them in your house! Hopefully even if you already know about them you will still enjoy making and eating them vicariously.
All you need is a banana, marshmallows, chocolate, some aluminum foil and a way to cook them. I have always used the tiny marshmallows but I’ve been making s’more ice cream so I used the marshmallow creme I already had at home.
First, peel the top of the banana skin from the banana without breaking it off.
Then hollow out the banana like a canoe. Do leave some of the banana in the boat though!
Time to add chocolate chips…
and roasted marshmallows, small marshmallows or marshallow cream.
Put the banana pieces that you scooped out to make the boat on top of the chocolate and marshmallows.
Cover it all with the peel.
And then wrap it in aluminum foil.
If I were camping I would put it in the campfire to cook. I’m at home, though, so I put it in the toaster oven!
How long you bake it depends on how much you want the banana to cook. What is most important is that the marshmallow and chocolate melt. I wanted my banana to be well cooked so I decided to bake it at 375 degrees for 25 minutes.
Time to open it up and see what happened!
Ready to eat! Yummmmm….
All gone until the next time!
Thank you for accompanying me on my trip down memory lane, and for reading my 400th post!
Let me know if you decide to make banana boats too!
We are all gifted with certain magical powers. We may not have fully harnessed them, or we may rebel against the powers we’ve been given, but we know that they are there. The power may be so potent that we are scared to use it, or we may have come to terms and learned the intricacies of it. We may have used them for evil or for good, but when we think that we can go unnoticed, we have surely tested them out.
Magical powers go beyond a talent for something. It involves bending reality to your will. When your will comes in tune with the cosmic will you may notice your powers flow like a raging river. Whether you hide it or not, you know that it’s there. So this week, tell us about your magical powers.
To me, the magic in life is the work of the Divine, whether it be a seed turning into a beautiful flower or the wondrous nature of all life forms. All the synchronicities that occur in my life feel like a Divine play. I will never forget my last trip to India when I was told I would be upgraded to Business Class if I was willing to sit in a seat where the video didn’t work. Soon I discovered that the man sitting next to me, who was also gifted with an upgrade, was a Sanskrit student and teacher. In fact, he was teaching from the identical Sanskrit textbook that I was struggling with at the time. He had even gone to the same Sanskrit camp I had attended the previous summer! To me that whole scenario felt like magic, but I believe it was actually a gift from the Divine.
I see all of us as instruments of the Divine, tasked with being His/Her hands. When we do that work it may seem like magic to others, or even to ourselves. So in that spirit, what kind of magic is it that I do?
I thought back to my 65th birthday when a small group of friends celebrated that milestone with me. At one point in the evening, they talked about me. It was like being a witness to one’s own memorial service. I was amazed at what they said about me and the impact they believed I have had on their lives. I also thought about things other people have said about me in the past and to a post (When They Think of Me….) I wrote last year after having asked friends what objects they thought of when they thought of me. At that time, one person responded:
Well, my first thought of you is your abundant beautiful hair, but that’s not an object. When I just stopped for a moment and visualized you, I immediately saw you with a tool in your hand. The tool could be anything – a garden trowel, a spatula, a pen, a hammer, a paint brush, a computer, one of those long grips for picking up litter – but you very much (my impression anyway) – interact with the world and use many kinds of tools. So it would be Karuna, Jill-of-all-trades, with a tool.
I believe the following may be seen as my magic:
Sometimes my psychotherapy clients think that I must be able to see right through them, or read their minds.
The craft projects I do such as making tiny dolls, crocheting, knitting, quilting, etc.
The amount of energy I have and what I accomplish with it.
My use of words in the books I have written and on my blog.
To me though, that isn’t magic. All of it happens when I am “in the flow” and willing to be used as an instrument, i.e. being the hands, of the Divine. May I continue to live in this manner until the end of my days.
I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to use this picture and this is definitely the time. I took it when two friends and I were meeting to sing under the cedar trees in my back yard. Be sure to scroll down!
I attended a Sanskrit intensive in Olympia, Washington from August 7-9. This is what I harvested from my garden just before I left Seattle and when I came home! And I had given away two bags of vegetables days before I went to the intensive. What a summer this has been.
Vegetable Destination: My stomach, Mother’s Kitchen (homeless feeding program), friends, relatives, and the food bank!
Many years ago, I was given a handout at a workshop that contained this prayer. I laughed when I read it then and I laugh when I think of it now. I can so relate.
I believe finding humor even in a dark or frustrating situation can help us lighten up.
As I mentioned in a previous post, I have a long history of overdoing. At one point in my life, I was holding three jobs at the same time. When I have become involved with organizations, I have often done more than is reasonable for one person to do. My overdoing has led to serious illnesses that have been breaking points, where slowing down became a necessity rather than a choice. I believe it was this pattern of overdoing that led to me to having Chronic Fatigue Syndrome for five or more years in the mid to late eighties, and to the high blood pressure I am dealing with today.
To some degree, the types of overdoing I am referring to were caused by a pattern of rescuing. In his Drama Triangle construct, Stephen Karpman describes the Rescuer in this way:
“The rescuer’s line is ‘Let me help you.’ A classic enabler, the Rescuer feels guilty if he/she doesn’t go to the rescue. Yet his/her rescuing has negative effects: It keeps the Victim dependent and gives the Victim permission to fail. The rewards derived from this rescue role are that the focus is taken off of the rescuer. When he/she focuses their energy on someone else, it enables them to ignore their own anxiety and issues. This rescue role is also very pivotal, because their actual primary interest is really an avoidance of their own problems disguised as concern for the victim’s needs.”
Jean Illsley Clarke once taught me five questions to ask myself when I think I might be rescuing.
Was I asked to do what I am doing?
Do I want to do it?
Am I doing more than my share?
Do others appreciate me for what I am doing? (Rescuers are often not appreciated.)
Am I doing something for someone that they can do for themselves?
Answering yes to one of those questions does not mean that I am rescuing, but if yes is the answer to many of them, the chances are that I am. So shifting my pattern of rescuing was an important part of my healing journey.
From a therapy perspective, focusing on self-care by stopping rescuing makes sense. Even though I valued being in service, it was still my job to keep myself healthy. When I began to look at self-care and selflessness from a spiritual perspective though, I started to have doubts. There are many who have forsaken their health, their comforts and sometimes even their lives, to live a life of service. They have shown us what is possible for one person to accomplish in a life time. They have been, or will be, a source of inspiration long after they are gone from this world.
To me, Amma, my spiritual teacher and mentor, is one of those people. Her form of blessing is through a hug. Amma has hugged more than 34,000,000 people in her lifetime. She needs almost no food or sleep. If she is not giving darshan (hugs) she is serving humanity in some other way, including her massive network of humanitarian projects known as Embracing the World. Her life is a model of selflessness.
When I thought about people present and the past who have inspired others through their selflessness, the following individuals came to mind. All have taught the importance of serving humanity.
John 13:34 “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.
Acts 20:35 “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”
Matthew 25:35-40: ”For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’”
“Everybody can be great…because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.”
“Prayer in action is love, and love in action is service.”
As I pondered the importance of self-care versus selflessness, I could rationalize that I am not Amma, Jesus, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, St. Francis or Mother Theresa and therefore could not expect myself to serve at that level.
My thoughts on this topic took another turn, though, in the late 90’s when I read a book, A Promise is a Promise, by Wayne Dyer. It was an account of a teenager who in 1970 asked her mother to promise that she would never leave her. Soon thereafter the 17 year old slipped into a diabetic coma, one she never came out of. The mother kept her word and, with help, cared for her daughter until she herself died 25 years later. (A Promise is a Promise was written while the mother was still alive.) Then others cared for the daughter until she died on November 21, 2012, forty-two years after she became comatose.
Reading that book had a profound impact on me. I still remember Dr. Dyer saying that walking into their home felt like being in the holiest of temples.
When I first started reading A Promise is a Promise, I made the judgment that the mother was not taking care of herself appropriately. But as I continued to read, my attitude began to change. Her actions seemed like unconditional love, perhaps the highest form of spiritual practice. While I wasn’t aware of it at the time, I now see that her actions actually conformed to the guiding questions I had learned from Jean Clarke:
The mother had been asked and had agreed to what she was doing
She wanted to do it
Even though she devoted her life to caring for her daughter, she had help.
Her daughter would have undoubtedly appreciated her efforts
She was clearly doing something for her daughter that the girl could not do for herself
Reading about a “regular” person who was so selfless, presented me with another dilemma. When I lived a life of uncontrolled doing, even if when it was in the spirit of service, I became sick to the point I couldn’t function. How do I know when to focus on self-care and when to make service the priority?
I continue to ponder that question to this day. I believe for me it has to be about balance. I must practice good self-care by nourishing my body, mind and soul and at the same time make sure that I am not over-committing or over-stressing myself. I must also continue to watch out for my tendency to rescue. I can be in service to others and still do my best to keep myself healthy.
I imagine slugs are a problem for most gardeners, they sure have been for me. It is so discouraging to go to the garden in the morning and see only the stalks left on bean plants and other vegetable seedlings. In the “old” days I used to use powdered slug bait to get rid of them. Later on, I used beer to bait them.
I have become increasingly uncomfortable with killing the slugs. Early this year it seemed I had more than ever; especially in my two worm bins. Believe me, good compost and free food can raise some BIG slugs. During the early part of the summer, I relocated them to other parts of the yard and hoped the slugs didn’t make their way back to my garden. Occasionally, when I found them in the worm bins, I just left them there.
Then one day I decided to check out the relationship between worms and slugs. I was very dismayed to discover that slugs EAT worms! I even found videos that showed that happening.
Eating my vegetable starts was one thing, but getting plump from eating my worms was completely unacceptable. From then on I took the slugs to the bottom of the lot behind my house, about 250 feet away from my garden and my worm bins. That area is full of blackberries vines but I pulled up a lot of morning glory plants and made the slugs a soft bed of edibles.
Next year I will make a home for them that is more hospitable, but still far away from things I hold dear.
I will also experiment with other ways to protect my seedlings. For example, I like the gutter planters that my friend Saroja created this year. She didn’t put her seedlings into the garden until the plants were big enough to be of no interest to the slugs.
I am happy that I have found ways to protect my garden and worm bins without killing the slugs. I hope to be even more successful in that venture next year. If you have found peaceful ways to deal with the slugs in your garden, I would love to hear about them!
“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.” “Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.” “Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.”-William Shakespeare
Living, Learning and Letting Go 
