A Crunchy Life - August 2024 Newsletter
A deeper look into this month's post. I share more thoughts and resources for tapping into a simple, intentional life filled with Earth-based practices.
Hello friends!
Post-Tropical Storm Debby blew through our state the other day. We faired better than many others. Tornado watches, no warnings. Rain, no flooding. We did loose power for 30-hours but for us that’s a pretty short time. It’s good to be back today with a newsletter.
The August post is up and it is about how preparation right now is all about harvesting what has been growing within me and around me this summer.
Once August hits I feel the energy of the first seasonal harvest and I want to run away with it. The early harvest of August, the mid harvest of September, and the late harvest of October all prepare me for the growing darkness after the solstice and the time change. I don’t have a favorite season; I love the liminal time between the seasons. And, this time that leads up to the season of darkness and turning inwards, rest, dormancy, reflection is so juicy and yummy to me.
This season is a time of harvesting the abundance within me. Tying up loose ends, projects that were begun but not finished. Letting go of negative habits and replacing them with more nourishing ones. Letting go of stuff, too, via donations. And, boosts to my creativity and creative energy. I have been sowing new seeds this summer, and am ready to harvest them into new, healthier, open hearted practices that will thread into the tapestry of my daily life and connections with others.
I’m also harvesting what has been growing in the garden this summer. The harvest season is not an ending; it’s a new beginning. This year’s harvest is simply another time of preparation for the next growing season. Don’t get me wrong, this is a time to celebrate our collaboration with the Earth and all that our partnership with the Earth has produced this year but it is also a time to prepare for the next phase.
As the early harvest passes by this month, I’ll be looking forward to the next liminal shift between the seasons, when summer shifts into autumn, when reflection becomes transformation, because as Georgia O’Keeffe said, “To create one’s own world takes courage.”
Here’s how I am using my hand, head, and heart this month.
Here’s how I'm using my hand, head, and heart this month to prepare for all that is to come in this harvest season and beyond.
Hand: Building strength and endurance
In this month’s post I shared that I am preparing to be 85 years old. I want to be able to get down and get up on my own, without a fear of broken bones, without the need of assistance. I want to still be able to go for long hikes in the mountains. I want to trek for hours through urban areas. I want to be able to play with any grandchildren that may come into my life. I want to paddle, swim, and do yoga. I want to do the things that make me happy. I don’t want to stop.
Right now, I am also training so that I am able to give of my time and talents to the benefit of others. I am fortunate to be able to swim and that I have a safe, open water area to swim in. It is important to me to use my talents and to support others. This swim is all about having an open heart, bountiful love, and devotion to support cancer researchers in finding cancer treatments that are economically accessible to all and ultimately, a cure. If you are new here, see last month’s post for information about my annual swim with Swim Across America.
Head: Lughnasa and the Harvest Season
In this month’s post I discussed how Lughnasa (or Lúnasa, in modern Irish) is the name for the month of August, and a festival marking the beginning of the harvest season. The festival takes its name from Lugh, a Celtic god. The Book of Invasions, Part IV, Section VII - Tuatha de Danann explains the relationship between Lugh and his foster-mother, and the festival that he created to honor her. “The wood was cleared by her, so it was a flowering clover-plain before the end of the year (115).” It’s a time of celebration and honoring of the relationship between the land and the people. I also like to think of it as a time to honor the hard work of all of those that mother, in all of the ways that shows up.
Lughnasa is halfway between the Summer solstice and the Autumnal equinox. From this month until Samhaim, it is a time to harvest what has been growing all summer. Its a time to prepare for the dark months that are coming. In our family this is a time for canning, the final push for drying herbs, and starting new knitting projects. And, on the days when the cool blows through, a return to bread baking.
We ease back into baking with our Zucchini Banana Bread recipe. There are so many zucchini’s available at this time of the year that it just makes sense to begin here. Some of us enjoy it warm, some cold; some with ice cream or whipped cream on top, some plain. I’m certain you’ll come up with your own yummy variations.
Zucchini-Banana Bread
1 large very ripe banana
1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/4 cup canola, sunflower or other light flavored oil
3/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup grated zucchini
1.5 cups all-purpose flour (or 1⁄2 all-purpose and 1⁄2 spelt or 1/2 whole wheat and 1/2 spelt)
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon allspice
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease an 8×4 bread pan. In a mixing bowl, mash the banana well, until no large chunks are left. Add the applesauce, oil, sugar, and vanilla. Use a strong fork to mix well. Mix in the grated zucchini. Sift in 1 cup of the flour, the cinnamon, allspice, baking soda, and salt. Mix to combine. Add the final 1/2 cup of flour and add-ins. Mix just until no visible flour is left. Add any toppings if desired. Transfer batter to the prepared pan and bake for 50 to 55 minutes.
Add-ins:
Walnuts
Pecans
Raisins
Chocolate Chips
Toppings:
Walnuts
Pecans
Coconut
Poppy Seeds
It’s also a good time to make:
cordials with seasonal fruit
infused oils with supportive herbs
sun tea
a saining bundle with local plants and herbs
As the nights are slowly darkening its a good time for our family to return to our practice of story telling. We will read a story about Lugh and then a story from Orkney: Peerie Fool - a story about authenticity, consequences, reaping what you sow. It’s a story known by many names throughout Europe including Rumplestiltskin, Trit-a-Trot, Ricdin-Ricdon. The story can be found at:
https://www.surlalunefairytales.com/h-r/rumplestiltskin/stories/peerie.html
https://rousayremembered.com/peerie-fool/
After reading and discussing the story we will make a harvest offering back to the Earth for what we have been blessed with this summer - create a bundle of this offering and wrap it in some natural fiber cloth and bury it.
Heart: Playing from the Heart
In this month’s post I shared that I play the flute. I have since I was 10 years old and classically trained straight through college. What I was missing and what didn’t come for a long, long time was learning to play from the heart. From a place of: What does the music say to me? How does it touch me? What does it make me want to communicate?
When I realized this was missing I also realized it was another example of closing myself off that has been at the root of my being for a very, very long time. That meant there was work to do.
Opening my heart has been BIG work for me. Growing up I was very protective of myself. My experiences led me to believe that negativity was the base state, that people would opt for hurting and teasing others if given the chance, that the only way to protect oneself was to wear protective armor or at least a hard shell like a blue crab.
As I got older I refused to accept that humans are inherently mean and bad. Flawed? May be, but not filled with the inherent meanness that I saw around me. I refused to accept that the universe would let or even encourage those types of behaviors. I wanted to believe that the universe conspired on my behalf. I wanted to believe people were good and filled with love. To get there though, was going to take a lot of work on my part. I had years of patterning, conditioning, and pain to deal with first.
Yes, I’ve been accused of wearing rose-colored glasses. And, if I’m completely honest, it’s true, I do. I have also been accused of being naive. Hmmmm, that’s probably a fair statement, too. But here’s the thing. If I start from the idea that the universe is conspiring in my favor every day and the corollary that people are good, then everything else is just a choice. It may not always feel like a choice, but one step, one action in a different direction, one breath, can change everything.
In this month’s post, I shared how one of the challenges for me has always been a quick rise in defense of self. I have held an assumption that a person’s statement towards me is a personal critique of who I am as a human being. I rise to defend, challenge, protect, assert worthiness. It has caused difficulties in all of my relationships and frustrated me immensely. With lots of practice I have found cues that help me in these moments. This is what I do:
Pause.
Take a step back. Breathe.
What boundary is being crossed?
What need is not being met?
How is this working for me?
What decision can I make in this instance that will fortify or expand my heart?
These steps keep me from using my words to incinerate the person in front of me.
I have been working on this for years. To acknowledge the quick rise, look at it, see it, and let it go. To encourage quicker recovery. All the work has made a difference but that quick rise is still there. It’s been important to me to unearth the origins of that quick rise in the hopes of letting it go. This summer, I discovered its origin. With that discovery, came freedom. I now know that when I feel that heat rising, it is a time to grow. All the peace that I seek starts within.
Other ways I work on opening my heart:
Showing up - for my self, for those others, for Mother Earth
Meditation and breath work
Movement - swimming, walking, hiking
Spending time in nature
Yoga
Flute and music
Each of my 12 Lotus (see my 2021 posts for specific information on each lotus)
Final thought for this month:
LAST AUGUST HOURS BEFORE THE YEAR 2000 Spun silk of mercy, long-limbed afternoon, sun urging purple blossoms from baked stems. What better blessing than to move without hurry under trees? Lugging a bucket to the rose that became a twining house by now, roof and walls of vine— you could live inside this rose. Pouring a slow stream around the ancient pineapple crowned with spiky fruit, I thought we would feel old by the year 2000. Walt Disney thought cars would fly. What a drama to keep thinking the last summer the last birthday before the calendar turns to zeroes. My neighbor says anything we plant in September takes hold. She’s lining pots of little grasses by her walk. I want to know the root goes deep on all that came before, you could lay a soaker hose across your whole life and know there was something under layers of packed summer earth and dry blown grass to moisten. - Naomi Shihab Nye from You and Yours, 2005
This month my hand, head, and heart practices provide an opportunity for me to prepare for all that is to come in this harvest season and beyond. My preparation is immediate and seasonal: preparing for my open water swim, playing the flute with an open heart, celebrating the harvest season within and around. Yet, it is also so much more. I’m preparing to do and be the best and highest version of myself each and every day.
Love,
Karen