Cooking with Economy and Grace

"Great meals rarely start at points that all look like beginnings.  They usually pick up where something else leaves off….Meal’s ingredients must be allowed to topple into one another like dominoes. Broccoli stems, their florets perfectly boiled in salty water, must be simmered with olive oil and eaten with shaved Parmesan on top; their leftover cooking liquid kept for the base for soup studded with other vegetables, drizzled with good olive oil, with the rind of the Parmesan added for heartiness.  This continuity is the heart and soul of cooking.”—Tamar Adler

Tamar Adler is a woman after my own heart (and my mother’s heart and grandmother’s as well).  Although I don’t think she mentions the word “relationship” in her newest book, An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace: Tamar …, her entire subject matter is about bringing thoughtfulness, consideration and especially awareness to the way we approach food preparation.  Hence, to have an intimate relationship to a basic life activity.

I’ve always been a little self-protective, sometimes embarrassed at my own sense of economy in cooking.  I got this sensibility from my mother (a "Depression baby"), who got it from her mother (a puritan-minded ‘waste not want not’ Irish Catholic from Minnesota, oldest of 11).  However, for me, economizing with food was not based on saving money (entirely), it was more about respecting the life force of the food, the trouble it took to get to me for my benefit, and for this reason, not to discard any of its materiality wantonly.  In the times we live, waste is everywhere.  And I have relaxed my past vigilance somewhat in light of the passive forces that surround me (and which are reflected in me) at every turn, especially around food.  Adler’s book reinforces my previous more caring attitude in relation to food preparation.

“..cooking is an act of gathering in and meting out, a coherent story that starts with the lighting of a burner, the filling of a pot, and keeps going as long as we like.”

Adler’s love and respect for the raw ingredients she cooks and the process is apparent.  She speaks about the denser marrow in free range chicken legs, humanely treated animals (not necessarily the ones labeled ‘organic’, often an industrialized product) as opposed to  the factory farmed variety.  And though they might cost three times the amount of industrial-raised chickens, it makes more sense to purchase and prepare them.  They make heartier stock, are more nutritious; it’s worth the money.  Her viewpoint is not austere, but full of good common sense.  It is how every cook worth their salt has cooked through time.  This is because cooks through the ages love the (intuitive?) relationship they enter when they handle, consider and partner with the raw elements of a meal.  There is no unworthy aspect of anything born, raised and harvested for the benefit of our bodies.  What limits us is our common sense, imagination, patience and memory.  “… at the bottom of any pot of vegetables or beans or grains or meat are unrepeatable flavors themselves, all the alchemy of today’s cooking distilled into a liquid you can neatly pour into a glass jar.”  And use later (if you remember it is there!).

“…. We don’t need to be professionals to cook well… we need to shop and cook like people learning to cook, like what we are—people who are hungry.”

The way we have become related (or unrelated) to the food we ingest is a mirror to the life we lead.  We often fall into the mire of one end of the spectrum or another: on one hand, uncaring where the raw product comes from, indifference to how one marries ingredients, unawareness to color, texture, harmony and balance. There frequently is an obsession with making a meal as time limited in its preparation as possible, as well as eating it equally as fast.  On the other hand, the bored and thrill-seeking turn to a fussy, fancy, over the top use of exotic ingredients and novel cuisine interpretations.  There are lots of ways we manifest our inner fragmentation:  this loss of relationship is a loss of interest in something very basic, a wholesome curiosity to what Is.  Our need to eat regularly is an honorable connection to nature, eclipsing the tendency to lean toward convenience. Adler's warm and witty appreciation of this connection is hearty nourishment to the soul.

“Catching one’s tail [the often ‘tail’ end of components used in a meal] is a curious business. We watch dogs in their constant, fruitless chases all the time.  Plato thought tail chasing not only practical but divine.  He wrote that the mystical symbol for infinity a snake swallowing its tail, was the perfect being; it made what it ate and ate what it made, needing nothing but its own existence for perpetual life.”

 

MAKING WAVES: Alexander Technique and the undulating self

Aileen Crow, is a woman whom I consider one of my "mothers", and whom has been an invaluable mentor (and friend/"playmate") to me for over twenty years.  In my mind she is the quintessential "maverick", who has modeled and taught credibility through self-ownership; that is, when one is true to oneself, there can be only rightness (in relation to bodywork and everything else).  Aileen is someone I have worked and played with with the greatest of intensity.  She meets you.  She matches you.  Brilliantly.  Even when the vibration is extremely (unbearably?) deep or profound.  Aileen is a Master.  For me, she is a model of love, gratitude, appreciation and most of all Joy.  She walks her own truth and is absolute in her permissiveness that you walk your own. It is my great pleasure to print here, respective writings she produced in 1992 (Inner Flow and the Spiraling Spinal Wave) and for the Alexander Technique International Conference on Consensus, (Making Waves), 1996.

"We all know that the Alexander Technique [AT] leads to expansiveness and lightness. Once we attain that, what do we do with it?  If we just maintain an expanded shape or a state of expansion and lightness, it is static.  Oscillation and inner movement define control of movement impulses and its torso held in one piece sometimes looks like an elegant empty suit.  In our desire for "good use," we must be careful not to eliminate the fluidity of movement that allows torso rotation and undulatory, spiraling movements of the spine.

To make contact with the flow of inner movement impulses is essential for actors, dancers and singers--- for anyone who wants to make emotional contact with others.  The inner movement impulses communicate emotions.  Often involuntary and spontaneous, they may not suit our self-images, but they have their own reason for being and if they are ignored they will reappear in symptoms or in dreams until their wisdom is received and integrated into our lives.

In a cross-cultural study of movement styles, the Choreometrics Project (1) demonstrated that the world can be mapped into areas defined by two different body attitudes.  One is a one-unit torso, associated with patrilineal control of sexuality.  The other is a two-unit torso, with twisting and undulating, from matrilineal cultures in which sexuality and fertility are valued. FM Alexander lived and taught within a Northern European one-unit torso culture; the limited range of movements used in his teaching and in most Alexander teaching today reflects the attitude toward sexuality inherent in that culture.

If Alexander's principles are cross-culturally valid, Alexander lessons should include movements that use three dimensional torso twists, spirals, and spinal waves; and not be limited to those that maintain a straight spined, one-unit, flat torso that only folds and unfolds at the hip joints (as in 'monkey').  Unfortunately, many people see that carefully maintained (if high class) limitation as a cliched 'Alexandraoid' look.

Every bone, muscle and organ in our bodies have a three dimensional spiral to it; there are no straight lines.  Even our DNA spirals.  From conception, living tissue is formed from spiraling, flowing plasma.  Anything that flows, spirals. (2)

The design of the human body is that of muscles in a double spiral pattern - left and right twin spirals - around the bony structure (3,4) with its wave-like spine.  And or bodies move in complex spirals and waves, if they are not culturally conditioned otherwise.

Any such influence that restricts the  natural fluidity of the body also tends to isolate the individual and distort emotional communication within their human relationships.  We naturally move in synchrony with each other on a micro-movement level (5). People with communication disorders are out of movement synchrony with themselves and with others.

In parts of the world characterized by a two-unit torso (such as parts of the Middle East, Africa and India), undulating movement promotes communal harmony.  In the Middle East, it is a way of passing on the skills that inform sexual communication; women wave/dance together in unison, forming harmonious support groups for themselves; and women wave/dance around a woman as she gives birth, to encourage her.

I personally feel that the relationship problems within the Alexander community are related to a mistaken idea of what 'good use' is.  Carefully maintaining an ideal body state or shape restricts fluidity and sets up a hierarchical mind-over-body relationship within the individual because of the constant need to control inferior, non-ideal body impulses.  Maintaining the Alexander ideal of good use necessitates inhibiting any movement impulses incongruent to that ideal.  Those incongruities may very well be the body wanting to speak its mind, perhaps expressing dissatisfaction at having 'one right way imposed on it by even a benevolent director.  The unwanted bodily impulses may be offering another point of view, or counter examples to the ideal, or even new discoveries and new connections that could benefit the total person.

That's analogous to the political situation in the Alexander community, with its problematic concerns about who's in and who's out, and who gets to approve of and controls whom, etc.

It is also interesting to me that so many Alexander teachers are doing Authentic Movement in which spontaneous 'incongruent' movement impulses are followed and expressed until they yield their indispensable meaning. I hope this ATI conference work on Consensus will help lead the Alexander community to this kind of complementary [alignment] and to a broader cross-cultural identity."

(1)  The Choreometrics Project, Forestine Paulay and Irmgard Bartenieff in Folk Song Style and Culture, Alan Lomax, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1968
(2)  Sensitive Chaos, Theodor Schwenk, Rudolf Steiner Press, 1965.
(3)  The Double Spiral Arrangement of Voluntary Musculature, Raymond A.Dart, Human Potenial, Vol. 1, No.2, 1968
(4)  Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation, M. Knott and D. Voss Harper & Row, 1968.
(5)  Cultural Microrhythms, William S.Condon, Interaction Rhythms, edited by Martha Davis, Human Sciences Press, NY 1982.

Aileen Crow has been an Alexander teacher since 1969.  She taught at ACAT in New York City until she formed her own AT training program in 1978.  She is a Creativity Counselor in private practice in NYC and in New City, NY, is a Laban Movement Analyst (since 1969) and a Dreambody Process-Oriented therapist.   Her most recent interests are calligraphy, Solo Focusing and transforming trauma.

Aileen's more recent writings have been in A Moving Journal (1993-2006 ),  AuthenticMovementCommunity Blog, and the Journal of Authentic Movement and Somatic  Inquiry (JAMSI) AuthenticMovement.Journal.com.

Unimitable Aileen at Play

Trojan Wurst IV: Sustainable Protein

Like a lot of rational people, I've been on a sustained pause around definitive diets.  Diet methods and a lot of rigidity around whole foods in general always gets my "fake out" antenna up.  I've generally taken a judicious tact toward eating.  As vegetarianism, veganism and unrefined plant food (UPF) trends have been on the rise over the last couple of decades, I've been paying attention, reading the literature and increasing my vegetable intake accordingly.  I haven't given up meat, although I don't eat a lot of it.  I've been a little embarrassed to admit that killing animals for food is not in my mind, a horrific thing.  I've seen it (in my mind's eye) as part of a whole cycle.   But lately, I've had the occasion to see some films on sustainability and I am beginning to realize that what has been in my "mind's eye" has been an old-world European or 1950's image (an "old McDonald's farm" scenario, ei ei ohhh) on how farm animals are raised, treated and killed for consumption.  The worn denim overall'd grandpa chewing on a straw strand isn't out milking the three cows in the barn and wringing a few chicken necks for supper afterall.

There have been several concerns for me as of late around animal flesh.  A few years ago I happened to be visiting FDR's family vacation home in New Brunswick (charming and unostentagious by the way, worth a visit) and wandered down to the little beach on the bay where some fish farms were underway; salmon as a matter of fact, a fish I admire and esteem almost more than any other.  There was a whole description at the beach side as to how salmon farming is conducted, which by the time I finished reading, vowed never to eat farmed-raised fish again.  The methodology is so scientifically calculated it is kind of horrific.  Part of the wonder of salmon (reflected in their flesh) is their vital essential need as a species to do the incredible acrobatics that they need to do in order to spawn and survive.  They are remarkable beings.  These farms are science laboratories that in no way take in account the species essence, and that this essential aspect of the salmon, is contained in the flesh we eat.  It is not considered.  We are eating from an industrialized fishing industry.  The lack of consciousness around the food processing in this environment at a basic level (from cultivating fish eggs to harvesting fully grown fish) that produce our food sources is alarming.

The second cue which happened over the last year, has been practically subliminal for me.  I've had a sense the fish I have been eating is different than fish I was eating 5 or 7 years ago.  There's something not right about it, which I can't put my finger on and which would be easy to dismiss.  The flesh is different. The taste is not ---- alive?(missing the essence of the animal?) Not like it used to be. I've seen, tasted and known this about beef and chicken for over two decades.  One could parallel it to the difference between an organic egg you buy and the one your friend gives you from their chicken coop.  The difference isn't freshness so much (although I'm sure that's a factor), it's something else.  And I'm beginning to believe it's the way these animals who give their life for our benefit are treated prior to being killed.  We are living in a world of high technology, where exponential masses of animals are "processed" at enormous rates with shear brutality and in shockingly short periods of time. (A chicken is ready for slaughter now in 27 days as opposed to the 47 days it was ready decades ago, and weighing often twice as much in present day as in the past making them unable to stand up over their short life span.) There is a subtle but very serious lack of regard (completely discounted as being important at all) in this process, and which must effect what gets to our plate and into our bodies.

I think I've been able to assuage my alarm over the years around the animal flesh issue because I go primarily organic, free-range, "humanely treated", etc.  I've calmed myself thinking what I was buying and consuming was better.  But organic farms supplying Whole Foods and other supermarket chains conduct their food business practically the same way as the other producers.  Albeit, their chickens are given 3 feet of space a piece instead of being crammed into cages.  But they still discard the male chicks or grind them up for organic pet food since they won't be laying eggs.  "Organic" farms are also generally mass producers of food (3K-30,000 chickens harvested every month).  Organic beef suppliers also castrate the bulls, destroy cows who get utter infections instead of give them rest and antibiotics.  It evidently doesn't pay to appreciate what these animals provide to the masses.  No straw-chewing grandpa there.

King mushroom, grown in Maine, tons of protein!

This mindless approach to food production is of course due in large part to overpopulation.  The market must meet the demand.  According to the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization, raising animals for food on these huge scales is grossly inefficient and hugely polluting of the environment.  Raising livestock for consumption is a larger polluter than the transportation (cars, trucks) industry. How is this?  To raise cattle for consumption, an enormous amount of energy has to be expended to plant and grow the grain, irrigate it, harvest it, ship it and store it.  (For one pound of beef, it takes 6-10 pounds of grain; one cow drinks 50 gallons of water every day.) To keep cattle, bring them to slaughter, process, ship and store the butchered meat requires a further outlay of energy.  Consider cattle naturally put out large amounts of methane gas (which is 23 times more effective in trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide--whala, global warming) and animal based protein releases much higher amounts of carbon dioxide than plant based protein.  Well, the benefits (and past pleasures) of animal protein begin to be outweighed by the little talked about sustainability downside.  The United Nations concern on climate change has irrefutably made the statement:  "Eat less Meat." It leaves a huge carbon footprint.  If the SAD (Standard American Diet) was replaced with a plant based diet by most people for a year, it would equal the energy saved if everyone drove a hybrid vehicle.  (The SAD diet by the way is 40% animal protein, 50% processed foods (anything in boxes, bottles or prepared), 3.5% unrefined plant food (greens!) and 3.5% starch (potatoes/grains).

Animal consumption is big business.  And big business tends to attract lobbyists and lean toward corruption practices.  Science and public policy around dairy for one, have people chairing committees on the Food and Nutrition Board (sets dietary guidelines) who are also consultants for the dairy industry (it is now recommended we drink 3 eight ounce glasses of milk daily up from two from a few years ago; any correlation?).  This is obviously a conflict of interest which seems to be under the law radar.

More fabulous Maine mushrooms!

As in healthcare, we are approaching the need for a paradigm shift in the way agriculture is grown in this country (but of course, there is a solid relationship between the two).  Obviously, we are not going back to becoming a non-industrialized agriculture society.  Too many people have to be fed.  But the trend to grow part of one's daily intake and use local small farmers for much of the rest is growing, a  more environmentally sustainable possibility for some of us.  It is almost convenient to buy local eggs now and raw milk from smaller farms.  CSAs have expanded to include humanely raised animals which families or individuals can buy a portion of the slaughter (still have to freeze the bulk of that portion, which is more energy use). Personally, I don't think the inhumane, mechanical processing of animal protein is good for my health and soul (or anyone elses?) or the environment.  We need to look at our consumer and eating habits with this in mind, bring more consciousness to the way we purchase, grow and sustain ourselves.  Saying NO to the technology-based food production in this country will in time shift the paradigm (and everything else) on how we feed ourselves and respect the action of self sustenance and planet sustainability.  If we don't do this, but continue to consume food in America the way we do, according to experts, by 2030 we will need 2-5 other planets to feed all of us.  This is 2013, 16 years to go.  Earth is all we've got (at the moment).

resources gleaned from:

Food, Inc - TakePart

Vegeducated - New release on Netflix - Vegan Lifestyle - The Chat .

Forks Over Knives | Official Website

 

 

Raising Up: Children and Parenting

I've had a few requests in the last  month to write a post on children, the act of "raising" them, what "method" is reliable, what books to read, what tact to take.  In no way do I assume a child expert role in this endeavor.  But I have a huge affinity for the young person through their amazing and varied continuums and I have considered them in many respects, my most important teachers.  So, here goes.

Children are an important influence because they are unrelenting models of the truth that everything changes all the time.  As a new parent, you think you've got it down (ie: an eating or sleeping schedule), and right when you start to feel like you have your bearings in relation to them, it changes.  Life as far as children go, is pretty much complete chaos (even if you are the organized type).  Once this has found an acceptance in your solar plexus, you might as well relax and find your sense of humor (kids are excellent mentors in this area).  Children help us to see we rarely know what we are doing, and that is as it should be. How could it be otherwise?  You never parented an infant, three year old, pre-teen, teenager or young adult before. And if you did, all others following the first are incredibly different and require different responses to similar situations.  It's always new.  Because of this, we are given the gift of humility.  The young challenge us in all ways to move/act/think/feel quicker than we ordinarily would like and give us an opportunity to get a view from another's almost continually open perspective.  In a conscientious adult, children inspire us to wake up, grow up and be better human beings.  Because of this, the act of  parenting/mentoring others, becomes the act of parenting oneself.


Children naturally seek relationship.  Their curiosity with the inside and outside world and the beings that surround them is unquenchable.  They deeply observe, listen, imitate everything.  They put things in their mouths to discover more about the object. (an incredibly interesting approach!).  As I have seen it, it is the adult's job to keep them safe (without being overprotective) and to respect them, their current development arc (again, constantly changing) and who they are evolving to be.  The bond we naturally have with them as a parent, complicates this basic approach and sometimes mires the process of their (and our own) evolution.  Hence, the imperative need for other adults and models to be major influences in their life (and in our process).  It does indeed, take a village to raise a child.

In children, we are reminded of our own possible resiliency and a life force that is insistent, hopeful and frequently present in Joy. In this awakening, the notion that we are supposed to be their life-model is turned on its head and it becomes apparent, it is the other way around.

In all this topsy-turvy unknown that goes hand in hand with being in the sphere of a child, how is a practically-fixed adult supposed to survive?  Many of us take the dictatorial approach, attempting to control the chaos, becoming master-director, feigning a knowing to manage the raw energy ever present in the young.  This approach secures our "adult" role and our ego's sense of omnipotence. It also occasionally is useful in a crisis. As a general modus operandi, it can be suffocating and repressive to the young who are naturally seeking autonomy, self reliance and self governance.  Another common parenting approach is to ignore or deny manifestation, letting children raise themselves (emotionally) while abdicating this responsibility to them.  Children demand (and deserve) attention; how one gives it determines the lesson learned, determines the relationship made between you.

As adults in the role of mentoring the young, we sometimes become fixed in the habit of directing and are swallowed by the conditions of too little patience (or being), too little time to support their self-discovery.  We become almost completely reliant on structure and schedules to maintain some semblance of equanimity. Structure and direction are both ways that teach self-discipline, accountability and consequences of actions taken.  Or they could be.  For consequences to be a rich experience, there has to be an empathic feeling present in the adult; a knowing intelligence in this realm which proliferates despite the outcome of the consequence (that doesn't turn into sentimentality or variations of rescuing).  Many times the structures and direction are put into place for the adult's benefit and comfort, but when the consequence reveals itself, the empathic feeling isn't present because the young person's well being or arising wasn't considered primary. Hence, the consequence falters, slides and becomes fodder for something else other than accountability.  As was said previously, the presence of children urges us adults at all times to grow up and be better human beings.

In my post Violence: a Cautionary Truth, discipline is mentioned:  How do we differentiate violence from say, discipline?  Respect of other is always at the base of discipline and fully absent in violence.  Also, there is an integrated intelligence which is responsive and not reactive in discipline.  Energetically, violence is raw and ungrounded, usually unpredictable and ego driven.   Whereas, discipline is a focused and aligned energy that serves as a guide without an agenda.  Domination is an impulse born of fear; it is a basic animal instinct present in one degree or another, always.  The more we bring a larger attention and awareness to our daily actions, the more we will  know ourselves, become more available to our fuller humanity, the less this impulse will be tolerated in oneself, the less weight of myself violence will usurp.   It would be noteworthy here to include violence as being sharp tones and language, withering looks as well as physical strong arming.

So, it may seem respect (without fear) is the cornerstone of relationship with children.  Respect can exist only in the void of the perception of "otherness", that children are somehow less than us, we being their older (not necessarily wiser) counterparts.  This sameness perception can be difficult to sustain in light of their diminutive size, dearth of experience, minimal maturity, limited vocabulary, lack of financial viability and cognitive weakness (frontal cortex of brain is not fully mature until age 26) which is the child's (partial) reality.  An appreciation and value for humanity in all its guises is the root of respect we have for children (and all people).

Despite all the child-rearing expert literature (which changes regularly), we generally don't know what we are doing as parents/mentors.  And we are in good company, because children don't know what they are doing either (they are visceral responders).  This relationship is an exercise in exciting exploration.  The great thing about kids is their forgiveness factor; it's easy for them.  They thrive in making mistakes (until they learn otherwise), falling down and getting up again is an impulse for another adventure.  They are completely cognizant of our weaknesses, frailties and shortcomings.  And they forgive and even love us anyway, (even when they are testing us).  They are fully aware of our adult sufferings, our struggles, our not knowing (even when we pretend otherwise).  And they are unfailing in their compassion for this, and are appreciative when borne for their sake. They learn respect not from being fearful but seeing respect modeled. There is no hiding from children.  You might minimize arguments and hostilities in a household, but they are extremely sensitized to the tensions that exist. Modeling non-violent communication for them (and yourself) would be a gift.

So, how do we navigate this impossible physical, emotional, mental task of a layered support for another being to adulthood? Understanding the objective developmental curve of the different phases or challenges in human growth would be good.  Having this knowledge under your belt would help you recognize the phase when it is exhibited and give you a heads up in preparing how you want to deal with it when it happens.  If I had known at the time, that part of an eight year old's development is about fitting in, mutual identification, not being wildly different from their social peers, I would have never put two different colored yellow socks on my son on a bleary, late-for-school morning.  (Now 28, forever mischievous, he still occasionally reminds me of the peer harassment he received.)  At 4 years old, this fitting in identity issue was not problematic (not part of that age development); when his shoes had been left home 200 miles away, we tied on to his feet bright yellow "grippy" rubber gloves and brought his antsy self to a playground full of kids to swing on the swings.  I'm pretty sure the other parents were mortified at this half boy, half Daffy Duck, but I had gotten past that parent developmental hurdle by that time. (Fingers crossed, yellow is not a PTSD-inducing color for him today.)  Knowledge about child (and parent!) development is helpful.

The "time out" concept was particularly helpful to me as a parent of young children; not only to allow a break in a mini-crisis for them, but a breathing space for myself to regroup my own energies and wits.   Directives, negotiations, strategies, reasoning.... they all fail at one time or another.  The only constant is relationship and the mutual respect that has been built; it is the foundation of who you are together.