Slow Sunday, reflections & a recipe
Roasted red peppers stuffed with homemade kefir cheese
Two seagulls fly across the skyline through still skies. The trees out front; completely still. Have been for days. Nothing stirring in my street, absolute stillness. Not even a leaf moving as the autumnal leaf fall seems to have stopped, for now. It’s like time standing still. Creatures underground starting to hibernate, but autumn is standing still. Time has stopped.
It was like this nearly all week. I walked up Main Street and down a side road, to a little shop that sells scented melts you can burn, the rose one is lovely. In the shop I was given a small cup of apple crumble and cream to try. I sat outside on a seat eating it and watched the last of the days light. There aren’t words to describe it, a kind of yellowy ambery suffused glow through the sky and coating every, thing. And the whole tree-lined street completely still, like a stage set. A lady sitting on the table next to mine commented on how there had been no wind, no breeze for weeks.
I walked back down Main street as the day faded into early autumn evening, the sky darkening. The moon one day away from full, huge in blue sky with copiced trees creating great stark shapes across this expanse of slowly darkening blue; like they’d been cut out and stuck on. Rich, deep black against inky sky.
People leaving work, scurrying home, walking fast, laughing, focused on getting home; no one seemed to notice how beautiful it all was, heads down. I kept stopping to look, at this, and at that; but no one else was.
Lights coming on in windows, cosy. Traffic moving up and down, going somewhere.
Turned off onto a side street, the lampposts far and few, black velvet night cocooned passers by, and a cat disappeared up a garden path. Leaves scrunched on the ground and, as I turned the corner into my street I saw the one with the fluffy tail, as it jumped in front of me, over and again then rolling in the scrunchy leaves, as I walked up the road.
And then I was home, putting recycling out under dark skies. A patter of my feet on the stairs up to the flat. Cosy lights on, and the sound of a washing machine, humming away in the upstairs apartment.
The day, had been a good, day.
Photo by Jplenio—pixabay
Whole People
Since becoming an associate with a new business called Whole People, I’ve been thinking and reflecting and writing about stress, trauma and symptoms that come from these. This Slow Sunday has always been about ‘feel good’ things and Ayurveda, to support minds weary of stress and difficult things. But I thought it might be nice to share some of the other things I am writing about, because, perhaps it’s okay for these Slow Sundays to hold warm things and difficult things, at the same time. Just like in life, we have to do that. Let me know in the comments, if this is or isn’t okay for you.
And so here is one reflection I’ve been having this week.
Are we all addicted?
We live in a culture that conditions us to search for happiness outside of ourselves through things that activate the dopamine cycle.
The problem is the cycle becomes conditioned to the ‘thing’, and we need more of it to find the happiness.
Dr Anna Lenke has written a book about this, you may have heard of it, ‘Dopamine Nation’. And
has the best substack on addiction I have come across.The thing that fascinated me was the link I saw to Ayurveda.
The Rishi’s of ancient India that gave us Ayurveda could perceive the subtle energy that underpins our experience. They recognised how energy becomes our experience, our world; and they talk about the three Gunas of Sattva, Rajas and Tamas.
This is why Ayurveda is able to explain that there are two types of happiness.
One comes from ‘out there’, it doesn’t last and it can keep us trapped in a mental prison where we are driven by desire and aversion (rajas); and this energetic state always leads to burnout and decay (tamas) when it isn’t brought into balance.
The other type of happiness comes from within, a state of happiness for no apparent reason—Sattva.
Have you experienced the difference?
The other thought I’ve been reflecting on this week is, can taking care of your health help change the world?
After my kids set off into their lives, I took a gap year with EU funding, to skill share around sustainability.
My first port of call was Embercombe where I piloted a leadership apprenticeship with Mac Macartney, which involved looking at the culture of burnout.
Towards the end of my apprenticeship Mac said “It’s how we bring ourselves, Lucy.”
At the time I didn’t quite get what he was saying. Then, after leaving my apprenticeship with him, I trained in Ayurveda, and the penny began to drop. I had to take a really good look at myself.
Ayurveda shows us how to support our biological balance which underpins our physical and mental health, and determines not only whether we are well, but how we turn up in the world—our perceptions, ways of thinking, ways of being are impacted by our biological balance. And so, what Mac was saying was, we burn out and create cultures that burn us out, when we bring ourselves in a way that supports that. That a culture of burnout is kept in place by the people within it, by the way they bring themselves—bring ourselves in a balanced way and we start to change the culture we are part of.
Ayurveda explains how to address today’s chronic physical and mental health problems, at biological and energetic levels by returning us to balance; along the way, we start to change the world, by the way we turn up.
So yes, taking care of your health can help change the world.
What do you think?
Recipe
Roasted red peppers and homemade kefir cheese
A really quick and easy small plate. Red peppers roasted in olive oil stuffed with homemade kefir cheese. Here’s the post that has the recipe for making kefir cheese.
Shortest story I ever wrote
Here’s the shortest story I’ve ever written, anyone here from the beginning may recognise it.
I saw a full moon in clear, dark, starry sky, shine down; into a still puddle. Beautiful. A man came out to sweep some magnolia blossom away, and as he brushed the broom swept over the puddle, and the moon was gone from the street. I don’t think he saw it. He only saw the magnolia blossom and the end of his broom. After he walked away I saw a cat walk under the moonlight, little paws on the road that pattered across, then up the mans driveway to where he was opening his door, and they both went inside. Then it was just the moon in the sky, and me. Dreaming of boats and far away places.
Photo by Matthias Kost — pixaby
Wishing you the warmest,
Lucy x