The Moon’s Other Half also known as Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

Sunset at Esalen

This post is inspired by April’s Pink Moon that so gorgeously lit the night sky last Thursday.

I’ve been stressed lately as I’m trying to handle new changes in my life. A new job and different class schedule have me trying to make my life less complicated, but life seems to be quite the opposite. Needless to say, I don’t handle change very well, yet I try to find comfort wherever I can, so last week’s Pink Full Moon was definitely something I was looking forward to. As I watched the pregnant moon travel the night sky, I began to remember the comforting lessons I received at The Esalen Insitute in Big Sur, CA.

Last November I was at Esalen for a weekend retreat on loving kindness facilitated by Against the Stream facilitators Noah Levine, Vinny Ferraro, and Enrique Collazo.The retreat started off rainy and windy, yet somehow the climate at Esalen was warm and cozy. Late into day two of the retreat, the sun broke through the rain storm and we were given the opportunity to enjoy the sunset. I stood on the patio and watched the sun quickly drop below the ocean horizon. As it did so, I felt no anxiety towards how fast this moment was ending. Instead I felt calm and was able to simply enjoy the experience. “Goodbye for now.” I thought. “See you soon.”

The next morning I woke-up early. I am typically an early riser, so a 5:30 a.m. walk down to the tubs wasn’t too unusual for me. When I arrived at the tubs it was still dark out and there was no one there. I disrobed and sat in the outdoor hot spring sulfur tub that overlooked the Pacific Ocean. I was immediately filled with so much gratitude for the experiences I had at Esalen. The conversations, people I met, the moments alone, the tubs, the dharma talks, and the meditations were all so intertwined for me. In moments where I felt attachment I practiced non-attachment and simply tried to observe. I thought of my mother and brothers who have passed on and cried simply because I miss them. In doing this, I somehow began to prepare myself for the upcoming loss of being here, and returning to my “regular” life.

How do you prepare for an ending? Well, like the sunset just a few hours before, I chose to just be in that moment, and reminded myself that all is well. I sat and watched the sky lighten, and just like that, I realized that this is how it is.

Right now, the changes in my life are quite obvious, but sometimes change is so gradual that it’s easy to miss. It does not matter if you are paying attention or not, change happens. Change is always happening. For example: although I still feel distressed at times, and my distress can feel familiar, I have in fact, changed. I am more patient with myself, and I give myself more loving kindness than before. I can appreciate a moment, and not be attached. I am more proactive and slightly less reactive. I speak on my own behalf and take more risks. Yes, there are still enough old patterns in me to drag me down, but there has been an emergence of a kinder self in me.

Just as the sun set the day before, it arose, without question or worry. Mindfully observing this natural cyclical pattern of darkness and light gave me great comfort. It was evidence to me that this is how life is, and that I just need to let go of trying to be in control of making my life light all the time and keeping the darkness at bay.

This is How We Do it: Not Your Mama’s Potato Salad

Not Your Mama’s Potato Salad

Potato salad is as American as apple pie, but if you are vegan or just plain don’t like mayonnaise, what are you supposed to do? Fortunately we have created a vegan potato salad that you’d be proud to take to any picnic. This tasty salad does not include mayo or mayo alternatives like Vegenaise.  Instead, mustard is the star of this recipe, so choose your mustard accordingly. We prefer French’s yellow mustard, but feel free to experiment with your favorite mustard. Feel free to use any potato you want, but we prefer red or gold potatoes because the skin is softer, and honey, one of us does not like to peel potatoes. Since we usually make this potato salad the day before, the potatoes really absorb the flavors of each ingredient.

Most potato salads are content with being a co-star in your lunch or dinner , however this potato salad isn’t shy about being the star of the show. It is a convenient main dish for those with a busy schedule. In my case, I work full-time and have night classes twice a week, so having this potato salad on hand has truly been a life saver.

• 6 medium red or white potatoes
• 1 small tin sliced black olives
• yellow mustard (to taste)
• 3-4 stalks of green onions
• salt (to taste)

Process:

Begin by boiling your potatoes whole for about 20-25 minutes. You know your potatoes are ready when the skin is almost about to crack. In the event that the skin on your potatoes has cracked, drain your potatoes and allow them to cool for about 10-15 minutes. (If the skin has not cracked, then take them off the stove and allow the potatoes to cook in their water for about 5 minutes. Then drain the potatoes and allow them to cool for about 10-15 minutes.)

Use the cooling time to cut your green onions, drain the black olives, smoke green bud, and collect your mustard.

When your potatoes are cool to the touch, cut your potatoes into bite sized pieces. Trust experience when I say that you do not want to be cutting hot potatoes.

In a large mixing bowl, mix all of your ingredients. Remember, since you are using mustard in place of mayo, the amount of mustard you use will vary according to taste.

This is How We Do it: Lucky 7 Salad

Lucky 7 Salad

Cooking dinner everyday can be a daunting task. Vegan or not, if you have a busy schedule, then the task is more than daunting, it can be down-right impossible. However, in the Mi Vida Vegan household, we’ve manged to make economical, delicious, and animal-friendly dinners that easily convert into next day’s lunch!

The Lucky 7 Salad is a delicious celebration of the locally grown goods we get at our weekly Farmer’s Market. The pinto beans are prepared in a crock pot before hand (See recipe for California Classic Pinto Beans). If this is not an option, then feel free to use canned pinto beans.

• Chard
• Romaine
• Arugula (or baby spinach, kale, or other locally grown greens)
• Pinto Beans
• Tomatoes
• Avocado
• Green Onions
• Salt

Warm the pinto beans on a low setting while you chop your fresh veggies. Prepare your bowl with a base of 3 greens. We use Chard and Romaine as a base  and  switch up the third veggie to keep this salad different every week. On this night we added chopped arugula, but you can add any other green you fancy (editors note: Some of us prefer baby spinach). Next, add the warm pinto beans to the base salad of three greens (it’s okay if a little water from the beans gets in). On your cutting board, lightly salt the chopped tomatoes and avocado before adding them to the salad. Lastly, add the chopped green onions for color and flavor to finish your Lucky Seven Salad.

This salad is so satisfying! Pinto beans add a healthy protein packed wallop to this already fresh and flavorful salad. The avocado and water from the beans helps bring the salad together, much like a salad dressing would, so if unnecessary fats are something you are seeking to avoid, then this is your dish!

The added benefit to this dinner is that with the magic of a flour tortilla, you can wrap this up for lunch the next day and have a crazy good Lucky 7 Burrito!

This is How We Do It: California Classic Pinto Beans

Pinto Beans being used in a Lucky 7 Salad

Pinto beans are flavorful, versatile, healthy, and packed with protein. In the Mi Vida Vegan household, we cook these Pinto Beans, and use them all week for a variety of dinner and lunch combinations. The photo above is an example of these pinto beans being used in our Lucky 7 Salad.

Cooking pinto beans in a crock-pot takes all the guess-work out of choosing which soaking method to use. Our preferred method of cooking these lovely legumes is to throw all the ingredients in a crock-pot before going to bed, set it on low, and let them do their magic while we’re in dream land. Their aroma is lovely to wake up to, and having them sit all day allows for the flavors to really set in. As long as they cook a minimum of 6 hours, you can prepare these pinto beans anytime of day.

• 7 c. water
• 1 lb Dried Pinto Beans
• Salt to taste
• Pepper to taste
• Chili Powder to taste
• Dash of Cumin
• 1 clove chopped Garlic
• 1 Jalapeno (scored in a cross-cut pattern – careful not to slice it in half)
• 1 lemon wedge
• Optional: Butt-end of a tomato

Body-Mind-Spirit: A Tale of Disconnect

First, I want to be clear that, although some of this may sound like a pity-party, it’s far from it. If you decide to read through this, you’ll see what I mean. Now let’s begin.

When I chose to live a vegan lifestyle in 2006, I felt like an outsider for the first year or so. Most people hadn’t heard the word vegan, and it took some detective work to navigate restaurants and grocery aisles. Over time this became much easier as I became familiar with products, options, and most importantly, other vegans.

As veganism gains increasing public attention, I notice that it does so, mainly from a health perspective. Most people touting veganism’s health benefits do so claiming that you will lose weight. Although this may be true for many people, this was definitely not the case for me. My weight has always been an issue for me, and continued to be so after going vegan. Talk about feeling like an outsider among outsiders.

This experience resulted in feeling a complex mash-up of emotions including: Guilt, fear, anger, and sadness. Each time I read about someone claiming the amazing weight loss they’ve experienced from going vegan, I felt like a failure. I wondered what I was doing wrong. I wondered if people doubted my being vegan with thoughts of “she must be sneaking in dairy”. I also believed that I was a bad representation of veganism. Oh this mind of mine can spin, but I also know that I’m not far off the mark here. This society fat-shames and objectifies women. Add veganism to the mix, and you have a setting prime for being picked apart.

Now, weight itself is no stranger to me. I was a chubby baby, who grew into a fat kid, and chubby teenager. Growing up, I had no safe place to go. Home, school the neighborhood, family members houses, birthday parties, everywhere I went, people felt the need to reference my weight. “Hey fatso” (chubbo, tub of lard, butter ball, etc.) What 5 year old can defend themself from such verbal abuse from adults and peers? If I became visibly hurt, some adults would say “I’m just kidding”, but a child’s brain can’t discern such semantics. A child’s brain understands things literally. Children also learn who they are by what adults’ project onto them. I wondered what I did wrong, and why I was so “fucked up”. Where were the adults who were supposed to protect me? As years passed, this mindset would manifest in many ways. One of which was the cycle of self-abuse known as dieting.

Like many women I compared myself to the women placed on pedestals by the men in my life. I hated my body and tried to eradicate it through every diet and exercise plan imaginable. It’s a well-worn story, you know, go on a diet/fitness plan, lose weight, and gain it all back (plus some). It’s an old path that many women have travelled down. When all efforts have failed, we blame ourselves for being weak, stupid, hopeless, etc. It’s a horrible thing to go through and more abusive than we allow ourselves to believe.

So here I am again. All 41 years of my life stacked in me like nesting dolls. This morning started off no different, with me dreading the task of trying to make myself presentable to the outside world. I beg my closet “Please, work with me here!” I made my selection and as I began to undress, I could hear the familiar voice in my head. “Ugh, I hate my body. Why do I have to have THIS body? Why is it so hard for me to lose weight? What’s wrong with me?”

Just then I realized that I was talking to myself no different than the adults and peers around me did when I was a child. This defenseless child inside me, who is still hurting from past harm, was being bashed by none other than myself. In short, I was abusing the shit out of her.

You still with me?

I immediately felt like a bad mom. Luckily, before I could go bashing the adult in me too, I remembered that what I needed was compassion and forgiveness towards myself and my little girl.

Afterwards, I debated about posting this experience. What would people think? Insecurity can be such a turn-off. But the idea would not let me be. So, why go public with this experience? Well, I know I’m not alone, and I also know that where light is shown darkness fades. I don’t want to keep me or my little girl in the dark anymore. I want light and love to be here in us. I want this self-inflicted war to stop. I truly do have to rebuild my love for myself.

You see, I know and really love me. Me being the Mind-Spirit me. I know my strengths, my growing edges, my gifts, and character. I know I’m as valuable and beautiful as any other living creature on this planet. I know who I am and look forward to getting to know who I am becoming.

Paradoxically, I don’t like the body that this “me” inhabits. So what I have is a disconnected relationship between “me” and my body. As a child I learned my body was “wrong” so I discarded it by leaving it through disconnecting from it. Ways that I could feel “in” my body were through food, starvation, or excess exercise.

So I’m attempting to heal this relationship as I have healed other internal relationships with myself; slowly, compassionately, trusting, with mindful insight and reflection, and safe people. This body deserves love and recognition and as I begin to heal this separation, it’s important that I stay connected with those who can see the beauty in me as well.

After drafting this post, I found this newsletter message by Louise Hay in my email. Quite appropriate don’t you think?

“Little babies love every inch of their bodies. They have no guilt, no shame, and no comparison. You were like that, and then somewhere along the line you listened to others who told you that you were “not good enough.” You began to criticize your body, thinking perhaps that that’s where your flaws were.

Let’s drop all that nonsense and get back to loving our bodies and accepting them totally as they are. Of course they will change—and if we give our bodies love, they will change for the better.”

Tamale Power

My family has gone through many challenges over the years, and this year proved to be quite intense. Two of my brothers passed away (one in May, the other in August), after battling cancer. As these things go, each member of my family is dealing with these loses in their own ways.

Like many men, my Father absorbed his grief somatically (in his body) and spent many months in increasingly debilitating pain. This effected his ability to sleep, move, sit, walk, and keep food down. As a result he lost quite a bit of weight, and at the age of 81, these symptoms have greater consequences. As you can imagine, I was pretty scared. I’ve only known my dad to be a strong man who never let anyone or anything get in his way. To see him in so much pain and to hear the distance in his voice was terrifying.

Months of Dr. visits and tests resulted in some understanding of what was going on, and provided information on what he could do to get stable. He has degenerative disks in his spine, which causes the nerve pain, and stomach ulcers that kept him from being able to eat.

These last few weeks have been a gradual improvement and I am really thankful that my dad still has fight in him. This is how I’ve always known him. This is how everyone who knows him, knows him.

So what do tamales have to do with all this?

Per last years “Vegan Tamales” post, you’ll read that making tamales is an annual Christmas tradition for my dad. This year, as October came around, I would hear my father say, “May God give me life so that I can make tamales this year.” Due to his physical pain, I figured he may make a small batch this year instead of his usual dozens. Boy, was I wrong.

The Saturday before Christmas, despite his physical pain and decrease in energy, my Dad managed to make 20 dozen tamales. Making this amount takes a lot of time and energy, so when he told me this, I was a little concerned. “Wow Dad, how are you feeling?”

Without hesitation, he replied, “Como un TIGRE!!” (Like a tiger!).

That response is my Dad in a nutshell.

It was good to hear his familiar self again after so many months. To hear my Dad’s energetic response filled me with pride, gratitude, love, and much needed happiness.

After losing two of his sons, this annual tradition was all he had to look forward to. It may seem trivial to some, but for him, making tamales is his way of paying respects to the poverty he grew up in, and showing gratitude for the prosperity he created.

This is what tradition and culture can do. It can give us a sense of normalcy during times of loss, and allows us to live from a place of agency when we feel vulnerable. It allows for some joy to grow in our hearts, and makes way for healing. For this, I am grateful.

“The Ayurvedic Vegan Kitchen”

Photo from: http://ayurvedicvegankitchen.com/

Last night I had the great pleasure of meeting Talya Lutzker during a cooking demo and book signing for her new cookbook “The Ayurvedic Vegan Kitchen”. I found out about this event from an article in the Santa Cruz Weekly, and was really excited to see how Ayurveda and veganism would be presented. I wasn’t familiar with her work, but it didn’t take long to realize that she is quite loved by many. After only a few minutes into her cooking demo, I could see why. Not only is she knowledgeable, funny, and humble, you can tell she truly loves what she does. Her passion for food that is both good tasting and good for you radiates off of her as she speaks. In the end I was so glad I attended as I learned about a few new foods (mesquite powder) and new uses for foods (tahini in desserts).

I spent some time today with the cookbook and all I can say is, “WOW!” I haven’t enjoyed and been so excited about a cookbook like this before. This book gives a clear summary of what Ayurveda is, revisits some practical advise, and is full of information regarding the properties of specific foods. Even if you aren’t into Ayurveda, you will certainly benefit from knowing more about the foods you choose to put in your body and how they interact with your body. The recipes are so amazingly beautiful. Each ingredient seems to have been chosen with great care and attention, so as to bring out the very best in, not only the individual ingredients, but the end result as a whole. What I really enjoy is that some recipes can be made in batches, and she indicates how long the finished product will keep. This is VERY helpful for someone like me who has a busy work/school schedule. I encourage you to read a few preview pages of the book at Amazon.com to see for yourself.

So needless to say I am really looking forward to trying more than a few of these recipes. This is saying a lot since I am quite the lazy cook. Knowing the health properties of the foods I use really adds a whole new perspective to the cooking/eating experience. Instead of just eating to live or for enjoyment, it expands into a conscious choosing to nourish myself and listening to what my body needs. I suppose this cookbook is helping me to shift from understanding eating as a something I do, to understanding eating as a relationship with myself and the foods I choose.

To learn more about Talya Lutzer, stop by her website and YouTube channel. Her blog and videos will give you a good idea of why she is such a pleasure to be around. There are also a few recipes to be found there as well (not all are vegan, but many are). I hope you are just as excited as I am to get cooking Vegan and Ayurvedic style!