Seeing the beauty, managing stress, & hazelnut cookies

THE BIRDS ARE starting to put themselves to bed. A magpie screeches it’s call and then there is silence. Rain clouds are feeding plant roots, and the cool, damp evening air wraps itself around little creatures, bedding down into the thirsty soil. It has been a good weekend.

I went to visit the farm I mentioned that is now a community project. It’s right up against the motorway. A beautiful old rambling house and agricultural land that is rich for growing.

It took me an hour to wend my way over there through the city. Part of the walk was along narrow pathways of green, you would have thought I was in the countryside. I passed a field of wild flowers, honeysuckle rambling across a back garden fence, and I crossed a narrow stream over a little wooden bridge. Alongside, a few meters away, was the bypass with streaming cars. Yet, this little pathway was so peaceful. It can be like that in life can’t it, chaos and stress all around, but you walk your own little path of peace.

I helped out in the forest garden. We started clearing the five foot towering weeds, so that the northern hedge that had been planted, could see the light of day. We were a small team, and worked to our own rhythm.

Then I walked back home, surrounded by cars and roads and bikes for much of the way. Yet, I also noticed more honeysuckle, rosemary, lavender in full bloom, orange blossom, roses and there was jasmine in flower too. I stopped to smell them all. At one point rose petals had blown onto and across the pavement, a silken carpet of pinks and reds. Dandelions grew out of pavement cracks and trees lined many of the streets. Sometimes, I heard birdsong. There was a blackbird high up on a chimney, and I heard it’s beautiful song, in between lorries and cars. There was beauty to be had.

Managing stress

I’ve been thinking about some messages I received to my posts. And I realised I should explain that my writing of warm words is an exercise to support your, and my, positive neural networks. It isn’t that I don’t have stress in my life. Or that I walk through my days and nights feeling at peace all the time. It is just that I make the choice to do what I need to do, to be able to choose where I place my attention.

I have learnt that I don’t have to take any notice of the different thoughts and feelings which flow through me, if I don’t want to. As long as I have the spaciousness within my mind to make that choice. That’s what the warm words and joy dots are all about. They are such a great way to create space in the mind, to exercise the brains positive neural networks, and lower its reactivity to stress. Then you can invite the beauty of things into your mind, and over time, into your life.

A lovely lady wrote to me and mentioned that she found it hard to appreciate the beauty at the moment, due to stress and feeling a little irritable. It can be hard to feel peaceful at these times. Yet, I have discovered that you can hold peace and irritability in the palm of each hand, at the same time. The same is true of happiness and sadness, or any of the emotions we humans move through. But, there has to be spaciousness in the mind to do that. And this requires that the brain does not lose itself to the stress response.

Ayurveda has much to offer in relation to all this too, because each of the constitutional types has specific ways in which stress expresses itself. When we understand this, we can apply the remedies.

Vata types become anxious and fearful. Pitta types become irritable, impatient and angry. Kapha types become lethargic and depressed (the three main Ayurvedic constitutional types are Vata pitta and kapha you can take a quiz here).

At this time of year we are moving through the pitta season of summer, and so it is very easy for too much heat to build within us, and the result is impatience and irritability that can move into anger, especially if you are a pitta type. Yet, if you practice a daily workout with the brains positive neural networks, you can hold peace in the palm of one of your hands, and let your loving heart water the symptoms that are arising. It takes practice. But it’s worth it. If you have any questions feel free to pop them in the comments.

Recipe

Hazelnut cookies

Ingredients

• 180g hazelnuts

• 100g flour

• 20g corn starch

• 1 teaspoon cinnamon

• 1 teaspoon cardamom

• 1/4 tsp salt

• 1/8 tsp baking powder

• 150g soft butter

• 80g jaggery

• 1 egg

Method

Pop the oven at 180 C. Roast and grind the hazelnuts, but be careful not to grind into a paste, you’re aiming for a flour. Cream the butter and jaggery then add the egg and then the dry ingredients (if it looks like it’s going to curdle when beating in the egg add a little flour. Put dollops on baking parchment on a tray or use a biscuit mold.

These are really Moreish, kapha types beware.

And so

As I leave you on this Sunday evening, that slowly became night as I wrote these words, let me describe the magic all around me.

Silvery blue darkening night sky. A church steeple silhouetted against shimmering clouds. Trees and bushes ink-like smudges behind overflowing window boxes, that are disappearing from view, as the sky puts everything to bed, including me.

Wishing you the warmest of weeks.

Till Wednesday,

Lucy x