What is Balance?

As we move closer to the Spring Equinox and many struggle to feel content and whole in the last days of winter’s grasp, I would like to share a guest post by De’Anna L’am. Continue reading

An Avian Visitor + Wormville Update

Nearly every day for the past week, I will suddenly hear raucous alarm calls coming from the flock of sparrows that hang out in the backyard.

It appears that we have attracted a regular visitor who showed up on two separate occasions today. An adorable, killing machine – a Cooper’s hawk. Continue reading

Embracing Winter While Finding the Spirit of Spring

I hear a lot of people bemoan winter weather, but I try to avoid complaining about it.  Winter is just another season, the wheel of the year will turn again just as quickly as it always does.

I find it better to embrace the gifts of winter.   I allow myself to sleep a bit more knowing that in the days before electricity people were certainly getting a lot more dreaming in this time of year.  Why did we decide that we always have to go, go, go?  The colder, darker days also allow me to find joy in the ample time to read, sew, journal, and dream of plans for the future.  This extra inward-focused time will quickly pass when spring comes! Continue reading

“Heart Your Heart” Herbal Sprinkles

Food is medicine.

It’s true.  What we put into our bodies will have consequences for our energy levels, ability to ward off diseases, and maintain homeostasis in our body’s systems.  We know this immediately if we pay attention to how we feel after eating poorly or well — we are either drained or renewed, weighed down or weightless.  And of course, there are new studies added almost every day that link poor diet to the diseases we see so frequently in our culture that often revolve around a cluster of symptoms we call metabolic syndrome.

Adding herbs to our diets is an easy way to benefit from their protective and healing properties.  They can also taste delicious! Continue reading

Sprout It Out

The weather remains snowy and cold, but there are fresh things growing indoors!

Sprouts are a wonderful way to introduce a fresh, healthy food to your winter diet.  And certainly, if you are aiming to eat a low-carbon diet that incorporates lots of local foods, sprouts are an ideal way to continue eating fresh through the winter months.

They’re also really good for you! The most common types of sprouting seeds (mixes of radish, alfalfa, clover, broccoli, legumes) are rich in nutrition containing:

  • Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin K, Vitamin B1, Vitamin B6, Vitamin K
  • Minerals such as phosphorus, iron, magnesium, potassium, manganese, and calcium
  • Dietary Fiber
  • Folate
  • Protein
  • Antioxidants
  • Chlorophyll Continue reading

We Must Be the Change

As I observe people around me, I’ve been noticing a trend –most everybody, in theory, wants to save the Earth.   The problem, however, is that far too few people are willing to make the lifestyle changes necessary to ensure a livable future.  The appeal of constant financial progress, of fast food and perfectly temperature-controlled rooms is too great.  The ease of processed foods, disposable diapers, and commuting by car to work is too alluring.  The abundance of cheap clothes, out-of-season foods, electronics, and toxic beauty products is too pervasive to pass by.  We have become perpetual children – looking to others to easily assuage our hunger, temperature, and state of mood.  We expect governmental regulations or some technological breakthrough to fix global warming and the ecosystem issues we fear.  We are unwilling to take the risk that moving toward a new way of living requires.  Continue reading

The First Days of this New Year

On New Year’s Eve we went cross-country skiing (on snow that clumped a little too easily…). Continue reading

A Light Footsteps Year

Although the 31st of December is somewhat of an arbitrary date in a calendar that was implemented in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII, it is the calendar we have used throughout our lives, and therefore today serves as a useful day for reflection before the beginning of a new calendar year. Continue reading

A Solstice Snow

Today has been a day for celebration!  Continue reading