• About Judith A. Ross

Shifting Gears

Shifting Gears

Category Archives: meditation

Signs of Spring

12 Sunday Apr 2015

Posted by judithar321 in aging, environment, health, inspiration, meditation

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

daffodils, narcissus, spring, spring peepers

signs of spring

It is an April evening sometime in the past, and I am standing outside on my back deck. The air is chilly, but it has lost much of winter’s cutting edge. As the light slowly fades, I am suddenly awash in waves of sound. It is the high-pitched trilling of the spring peepers.

Hallelujah, spring is here!

I’m a spring baby. My March 21st birthday falls either on or adjacent to the official first day of spring. But living in New England, I scoff at those who believe in Punxsutawney Phil’s February prediction, or even the date on the calendar. Spring’s arrival is much later and more nuanced than all of that.

In fact, long, hard experience tells me that waking up on my birthday means I’ll be facing another 4-6 weeks of winter. It often isn’t until late April or even early May that I can bear to shed the layers of wool, fleece, and cashmere that protect my neck, hands, and ankles from cold, outdoor air.

When spring finally does arrive, the first buds appear slowly, almost reluctantly, until they gradually gain momentum and then, like the peepers’ loud and insistent declaration, the season asserts itself all at once in a flush of cheery, Easter egg colors.

The earliest signs of spring have gained a more personal meaning over the twenty odd years I’ve lived in my house just west of Boston. Their yearly return has become a reminder of my own resilience.

It begins with the daffodils. When we first moved here, they were far from my favorite flower. Yet I’d dutifully buy several bunches of the straight, yellow-tipped stalks when they arrived at the office each spring during the American Cancer Society’s annual campaign.

I’d plunge them into a vase of water, set them on my desk, and pretty soon the buds would open into daffy yellow schnozzes that reminded me of mole snouts, or some exotic creature from Down Under.

Then, one September I bought some narcissus bulbs — their more restrained colors and less prominent proboscises made them seem more sophisticated than the lowly daffodil. I planted them alongside a patch of day lilies and promptly forgot about them.

That winter, I had a health scare that required an unexpected medical intervention in late March. A few weeks later, I noticed the dark green stalks of narcissus pushing up through the frosty soil. “Welcome to the other side,” they seemed to say. My shoulders relaxed and for the first time in many weeks, I believed that I’d be okay.

Six years later, there was another medical procedure — this time a surgery in early December, scheduled months in advance. Remembering how much the last batch of bulbs had meant to me, I bought an even bigger bag that fall, and planted them under a willow tree in full view of the kitchen window. The act was a promise to myself. I would make it through the tough winter to come and when the plants emerged from the ground, I’d be here to welcome them.

Eight years later, it is April again. A few weeks ago, I celebrated my 60th birthday, and right now I am standing outside on my back deck. Until just recently, the yard was knee-deep in snow. Today, however, I can see clumps of green shoots around the base of the old willow tree, and I strain my ears, eagerly listening for the opening notes of the peepers’ joyful chorus.

When I hear it, I’ll know. Spring is here.

daffssun

This post was written in response to An April Invitation at Women’s Voices for Change.

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Rules of Engagement

19 Friday Dec 2014

Posted by judithar321 in environment, friendship, inspiration, meditation, politics

≈ 4 Comments

IcedSmoke1

A few weeks ago, the dried blossoms on our smoke tree froze into spidery orbs of  ice. They hung from bare branches like fragile Christmas tree ornaments. And then, just like the real stuff, the iced smoke drifted away into the cold, steady, rain.

Life’s moments, whether they are filled with pure joy or something more complex and challenging, are just as precious and transitory as nature’s spontaneous beauty. Every one of them is worth noticing and savoring.

To notice, to savor, to argue, and, especially, to listen, are all acts of engagement. When we do those things through every kind of moment, even the ones that bruise our ego, or try our patience, they are also acts of love. I’ll do those things for my husband and sons every moment and for all time.

But, because I also love this world, there are moments I will no longer engage with. Those are ones taken up by voices that say we can’t or won’t make things better.

Instead, I’m turning up the volume on those who want to build, create, improve and are proud to turn their desire to save the world into action. That’s where my time is going in 2015.

When you think about all of time—past, present, and future—we each have only a few moments. And then, poof, they float away like an icy wisp of smoke in the rain.

***

Apologies for the multiple postings. WordPress is not my friend today 🙂

The Essence of Home

24 Monday Nov 2014

Posted by judithar321 in marriage, meditation, writing

≈ 3 Comments

essence of home

Thanksgiving is this week. As we enter the 2014 holiday season, thoughts of home — the good, the bad, and the ugly — are inevitable. I hope that all of my readers are able to relax into their own sense of home, whether the feeling comes from reenacting old family traditions, or from creating something new.

Today, I want to share my just-published “Talking Art” column, inspired by the work of writer and urban forager, Marie Viljoen. In it, I explore what it means to create a home, whether it is a physical space or an image that you hold in your mind and heart.

To read it, please click here.

Grey Morning

18 Tuesday Nov 2014

Posted by judithar321 in environment, inspiration, meditation

≈ 4 Comments

Grey mornings are one of autumn’s greatest gifts. The water-filled air feels like a soft, cashmere shawl that warms our shoulders and muffles noise.

The extra layer of quiet encourages us to walk silently, and engage deeply with the water-colored scenes all around us.

birches

talltrees

contrasty

water_stump

 

 

Fighting for the Light

11 Tuesday Nov 2014

Posted by judithar321 in environment, health, meditation, politics

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

2014 election

espalier_long

Last week we had an election. The results mean that those of us who view things like clean air and health care as basic rights are going to have to work harder and speak more loudly and clearly than we ever have before.

espalier_closeup

We have to wedge ourselves into the cracks, take root, and push through the wall of short-sighted self-interest.

breakingfree

Last week’s election results were dispiriting, but we can’t give up, we have to get through to the other side of that wall, and climb that fence.

Fence

Until we can light it up from the inside out.

lit from within

Morning Walk

29 Wednesday Oct 2014

Posted by judithar321 in environment, meditation, pets

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

autumn leaves

color

Karina and I had some time alone in the woods this morning. It’s a dampish day, no actual rain but the air is full of water. That cushion of soft, gauzy air made me feel a bit wraithlike — as though I was wrapped in the spirit of the woods.

The two of us padded lightly over the leaf-strewn trail. Walk with us, will you?

herewego

deeper

We stopped, we listened, we noticed:

Soft grasses, and how their verticality matched the trees around them;

vertical grasses

verticals

the fragile nests of dew in the pines;

dewynests

dewynests2

and the sound of water dripping and leaves falling. Can you hear it?

listening The muted colors created a bubble of calm all around us.

stone wall

bare limbs

And man-made totems added an air of mystery.

totems

With only the woods whispering in our ears, we were able to focus on the details. The cloud-filtered sun lighting up these copper-colored leaves, for example.transparent copper

Or the shine on these leaves — can you see it?

shine

This evening the air is set to turn colder and wetter, but I am still cloaked in the warmth of the everyday, extraordinary beauty of today’s morning walk. I’m letting those woodsy spirits nestle deep in my bones. They are my armor against the chaotic bluster of the winter winds to come.

Rain on Stone

18 Wednesday Jun 2014

Posted by judithar321 in environment, inspiration, meditation, pets

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Emily Dickinson, nature

needles

Last night’s rain swept everything clean.  This morning, Karina and I headed to the woods. As we entered the trail we were both startled by a wild turkey that took off in a rush of feathers a few steps ahead of us.

As we walked further into the woods, my racing heart quieted. The sound of the wind running through the trees enveloped us, broken only by a single robin belting out her sunny tune.

girl in the woods

We stopped to admire how the rain had stained the stone, and then we stood there and listened for a long, long time.

water on stone

Emily_1

SOME PEOPLE KEEP THE SABBATH GOING TO CHURCH

By Emily Dickinson

Some keep the Sabbath going to Church –

I keep it, staying at Home –

With a Bobolink for a Chorister –

And an Orchard, for a Dome –

 

Some keep the Sabbath in Surplice –

I, just wear my Wings –

And instead of tolling the Bell, for Church,

Our little Sexton – sings.

 

God preaches, a noted Clergyman –

And the sermon is never long,

So instead of getting to Heaven, at last –

I’m going, all along.

 

Spring Changes

16 Friday May 2014

Posted by judithar321 in aging, environment, meditation, uncategorized

≈ 3 Comments

fiddleheads

Late spring/early summer is a glorious time to be out in the woods. Bird song and the tap, tap, tapping of local woodpeckers is so loud, so distinctive, that you’d swear someone had planted speakers in the trees and cranked the volume up as high as it would go. The air feels softer, it smells cleaner, and the colors of the trees and plants reflect that rain-drenched freshness.

My mother died in early summer. It was many years ago, when I was still a teenager. Every spring, as the air begins to warm, that deep feeling of loss resurfaces, and I just want to stay quiet. This year, I’m focusing on the beauty around me.

reflection

into the blue

intothesun

Mill Brook

worn couple

May is Clean Air Month. I’ll have more about that next week.

“Full of Winter”

18 Tuesday Feb 2014

Posted by judithar321 in environment, friendship, inspiration, meditation, pets

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Heather Robinson, Lost in Arles

“Full of Winter.” My friend Heather used that sentence in her post today about her lunch in a village that was quiet, empty, yet “Full of Winter.”

We are full of winter here, too. Full up, filled up, fed up.

yogi

Our walks have been white and cold — frigid, in fact. Too frosty to expose already numb fingers to the icy air and snap a photo.

And yet, on a snowy day like today, when the dog has been walked and I have nowhere to go, I have the luxury to sit quietly on my indoor perch and watch the flakes slip from the sky.

I am warm, safe, grateful: “Full of Winter,” Full of Peace. 

A Recipe for Love from the Men in My Life

12 Wednesday Feb 2014

Posted by judithar321 in adult children, marriage, meditation

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

Daily Plate of Crazy, food, love, Morocco, Pizza, Shakshuka, Valentine's Day

Shakshuka photo

Shakshuka

It has taken me half my life to associate food with love. For many years, especially when I was a young, single, working woman, food was fuel consumed with a large dash of guilt, and I closely monitored my intake.

But recently, I’ve realized that morsels of edible love have been coming my way for a long time—most of them prepared by the men in my life.

It started with my dad, who would cut my peanut butter and jelly sandwiches into four precise pieces. “Triangles or squares?” he would ask.

My relationship with my father was a rocky one and I often found him difficult to be around. But whenever I envision those tender triangles of grape jelly and creamy peanut butter layered between two slices of Pepperidge Farm white bread, the negative feelings fade away, and I feel cossetted and adored.

Once I became the mother of two young boys, the “food as love” concept was delivered more forcefully through a traditional Mother’s Day breakfast in bed.  One year, “fortune” muffins were on the menu. A soggy slip of paper baked inside one of them announced in a penciled scrawl that I was “The Best Mother in the World.”

These days, that message of love, folded into a heaping cup of caring, is delivered with more subtlety via elaborate meals cooked by those same boys, now fully launched adults. Shakshuka—a spicy mélange of vegetables, feta cheese, and eggs—and crusty homemade pizza are among their specialties.

They absorbed this technique from my husband, who has also delivered a steady stream of edible love notes throughout our long marriage. There have been more pots of chicken soup to cure a cold than I can count, and for much of our time together — especially after the boys arrived — he has taken on what I once viewed as the daily drudgery of putting a meal on the table.

At first, cooking was a novelty. A rich minestrone soup or homemade brownies were a way to impress boyfriends, and, I naively thought, get them to take me seriously. But once I’d hooked my man via quiche and a curried mushroom soup, the novelty wore off when we became ensconced in family life. It was no longer fun to deal with food through the nausea of pregnancy and later through the film of fatigue and time pressure that came with combining work and kids.

But lately, there’s been a shift. I no longer get defensive if I don’t have an answer when asked, “What’s for dinner?” (What kind of wife/mother was I that I didn’t have a week of menus at the ready?) Now that we both work from home and it’s usually just the two of us, I look forward to the discussion — and even manage to plan a few meals in advance.

Homemade pizza and shakshuka are on regular rotation. They are my favorite meals, because when my husband and I are kneading dough, or chopping herbs and feta, it’s as though our sons are here too. I’m surrounded by my men, cossetted and adored all over again.

The Recipes (Shakshuka and New York Pizza)

The first time I ate shakshuka was in my older son’s Brooklyn apartment. He moved around his compact kitchen with ease, chopping and tossing ingredients into the pan like a pro. Watching him do all the work was incredibly relaxing. It was the best breakfast I’d had in a long time. Later, he sent me the recipe, which came from the New York Times.

Younger son is a Peace Corps volunteer in Morocco, where all baking takes place over a gas flame inside a blue box. Oven temperature is gauged by eye. Pizza is not readily available there, and he often makes it when other Peace Corps volunteers arrive at his door. Recently, he sent us this recipe for New York Style pizza. The dough is best, he says, when it’s left to rise in the refrigerator for three days.

The Pizza King, photo courtesy of Kitty O'Riordan

The Pizza King, photo courtesy of Kitty O’Riordan

This post is part of a series on Food and Love over at Daily Plate of Crazy.

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