by Roxanne -

How Does Your Garden Grow?

Lately, because of traveling and other commitments I haven’t been able to post very often. We’ve been enjoying outdoor concerts, grilling farmers’ market vegies and gathering with friends. However, in spite of and in the midst of everyday living our garden is doing surprisingly great. With all the rain we’ve had and some extra help from my friend L, my flower pots are having a banner year. She gave me a formula (“thrill, fill, spill”) for planting the pots and introduced me to some plants I’ve never used before. It was really a fun experience working with her and discovering new textures, sizes and plant colors. They provide amazing color, scent and beauty every day. Take a look – enjoy!

FlowerPot1

FlowerPot2

FlowerPot 1-13

 

ZenGardenEven our Zen garden – with its herbs, scented flowers and native grasses is happy and content. Plus the wood is getting a nice weathered patina that I really enjoy.

This quote, also sent to me from my friend L, says something about what flowers and all things beautiful can bring to our lives;

26 Iyar 5773 | May 6, 2013, 41st Day of the Omer

Beauty takes us beyond the visible to the height of consciousness, past the ordinary to the mystical, away from the expedient to the endlessly true. Beauty sustains the human heart in the midst of pain and despair. Whatever the dullness of a world stupefied by the mediocre, in the end beauty is able, by penetrating our own souls, to penetrate the ugliness of a world awash in the cheap, the tawdry, the imitative, the excessive, and the cruel. To have seen a bit of the Beauty out of which beauty comes is a deeply spiritual experience. It shouts to us always, “More. There is yet more.”

Joan Chittister, Illuminated Life

 

by Roxanne -

Summer Arrives

Photo R. Meshar
Photo R. Meshar

Today it finally feels like summer may arrive. Brilliant sunshine pouring in through bedroom windows this morning woke me up. Nice way to awaken!

Lately it feels like we’ve been living in an eastern location of Seattle – too many cloudy days. The arrival of sunshine energized me to get outside, head to the Farmers’ Market – which I did yesterday – and prepare our living space for summer. I think it’s important to mark the seasons in what we eat, and how we live. It anchors us to the earth, its cycle of seasons, and to the place where we live.

Farmers’ Market vegies have encouraged me to grill a number of meals so far. Grilled potatoes, corn, onions, parsnips (wintered-over), tomatoes, sweet potatoes, fresh pineapple and asparagus are just a few of the vegies that have made it to our grill so far. Finish with a light gyoza sauce and they’re ready to serve up.

Yes – summer is on its way. . .

 

by Roxanne -

Mothers’ Day Wishes

Photo R. Meshar
Photo R. Meshar

Mothers’ Day greetings, wishes and blessings to all those who are mothers or have mothered others in their lives. Those who have cared for our physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being are many and today we acknowledge them.

Interestingly, counter to our cultural understanding, today is also an acknowledgment that no one is “self-made.” Rather our relationships with many others have helped to form who we are. Those who have been generous, kind and caring towards us have helped to bring out the best of who we are.

Today we give thanks for kind, caring and generous nurturers everywhere.

by Roxanne -

My Health Insurance Makes Me Sick

HellmannsOliveOilMayoWow. Unbelievable. Today I received coupons in the mail from my health insurance provider –  Blue Cross Blue Shield. The coupons were for fat-loaded, sweetener-filled junk foods that should not be part of anyone’s healthy diet: Sweet Freedom Ice Cream Bars, Fudge Lites and Ice Cream, Weight Watchers Ice Cream Sandwiches,  C&H and Domino Sugar Blends and Hellmann’s Mayonnaise Dressing with Olive Oil. Really?? I should be loading up my diet with sugary snacks, processed food and olive-oil-fat-filled mayo?

Why isn’t Blue Cross promoting healthy hummus instead of mayo? Or frozen vegie-fruit smoothies instead of ice cream junk food?

Because Blue Cross is in bed with big food corporations and the $$$ that mailing coupons for these corporations produces. Further, as a healthy person I don’t generate much income for health insurance companies (healthy people have lower premiums), health care services, or the drug industry. To increase their profit margins it is much better for me to be chronically sick, taking diabetes, blood pressure or cholesterol medications – ideally for the rest of my life.

How best to do this? Promote bad health, of course! Junk food coupons – here we come! Worse, I’m paying the cost for this unethical marketing with my insurance premiums.

Don’t assume your health insurance or health care providers are even remotely interested in maintaining your good health. Always ask, “Who benefits?”

You may also like Lunch To Go and Mango Delight.

by Roxanne -

Voter ID = Racism

We call it “voter ID” – but we should really call it by its true name – voter racism.

What does systemic racism look like? Continue reading to find out.

Overt legal efforts to limit voting are underway by the Republican party along with a denial of the higher than whites black turnout voting rate –

Summary: The Republican Party is thus more officially racist than it was in Nixon’s day. Back then, at least they had Jackie Robinson and Sammy Davis Jr. And at least, back then, the Republican Party did these things in code, and not via the law. It was not so brazen as to think it could on the one hand be waging efforts in half the states to keep black people from voting and on the other be improving its “outreach.” The black vote will dip a bit when Obama retires, but as long as Republicans insist on these tactics, they will be doing more than they know to keep turnout high and keep hope alive.

Reality: state tracking demonstrates that voter fraud is so small as to be almost statistically invisible. However, requiring photo ID eliminates the possibility to vote for most of the weakest among us; the working poor, indigent, homeless. Not surprisingly these groups are primarily people of color – those made poor by racist policies just like this.

Click all the voter suppression efforts currently on offer across the country to see just how bigots work to incorporate racism systemically into our legal system.

You can’t be neutral. Either those of us who are over privileged work to make voting a possibility for everyone or, by our inaction, we actively demonstrate that we believe in oligarchy – government by elites, the over privileged few.

You may also like Unfair By Design and Excluding Others Comes Home to Roost.