I've been wrestling with the double-edged sword of communication by computer. There are so many benefits in terms of ease and visibility, connection to friends and family, sharing photos and spur of the moment thoughts and even giving support when there is pain in somebody's words. I love that side of it. But then there are the viruses, the time that gets eaten up while I sit at a screen, the things I read that I'd rather not see, and the whole idea that I am visible to the powers that be that are not interested in being kind or supportive to me. I shared that conundrum with a friend on Facebook today and then proceeded to get on my treadmill for my 30 minute make my heart beat hard routine. I was running on all cylinders when my treadmill suddenly stopped. The wind today has been wicked...chilly and insistent. I moved about the house to discover that there was no power. Powerless...I entertain a metaphor in my brain. The power going out is alot like quitting coffee. My computer shuts down and I must use my pen. Quitting coffee is a form of unplugging. There is an electrical buzz to coffee that stimulates...it is a connecting drink and a start the day ritual that I have shared all my life with friends and family. I love the taste and the buzz and the whole shebang but as I approach my 60th year, I find it is not liking me too much. I love the lift but the crash is no fun at all and the result of drinking coffee for 5 days in a row after quitting for a week and then quitting again, reveals the level of exhaustion that I feel when I buzz on coffee. I inevitably take on more that I can handle and it leaves me wiped out and irritable, weepy and weak. I have recently been introduced to chaga...a form of mushroom/fungus that grows on the white birch that is prevalent here in my area. A little research on the medicinal benefits of chaga reveal a substance that is anti-inflamatory, anti-cancer, sugar and cholesterol balancing, beneficial to the heart/liver and for stomach problems. I love nothing better than foraging about in the woods and chaga hunting has become a regular obsession. I add some fresh ginger, cinnamon, clove and nutmeg to the chaga when I grind it up and the result is a delicious chai-like drink that has the consistency of coffee but none of the buzz. It gives a burst of energy that is more subtle and it is a substance that gifts it's fans with long life. The Siberian people drink chaga regularly and have a life span of 85-100 years. The Inuit do not drink chaga and their life span is 50-60 years. Thats pretty remarkable given they both live in similar climates with easy access to birches.
So, today was unusual because the power failed. I cut my workout short and took to the woods with Sadie because I couldn't compute, clean, wash or cook with no power. The spirited wind was gusting and the ravens played on the draughts. I walked up the back hill on a road that was covered...not in pavement but with tiny flowers...bluets and violets. As I walked I became so grateful that I had to lie down and kiss the ground. I ate a few violets and bluet blossoms and tried to see if Sadie might like them too. She wasn't too impressed. Lucky me. I get to walk on a road paved with flowers. While I scoped out birches and potential chaga, Sadie pretended the world was her agility training course. She played with the fast running stream, rolled in who knows what and raced over obstacles having a blast. We walked for an hour or so and headed back to see if the power had been restored. No. Not yet. So I warmed up my dandilion green soup on the woodstove...slowly but there was a fire to feed and once fed, it did the job. I enjoyed my dandilion soup. It was made of all the dandilions I took out of my garden...the small ones without flowers, but still bitterness was part of the interesting flavor of the soup.
I love knowing I'm eating something free and wild that is tonic to my body, helping my liver and filling my hunger for life.
With power out, I couldn't make coffee anyway. Coffee is an electrical buzz that helped me move through lots of situations I wasn't that motivated to do and a ritual I shared with my Mom and sisters and friends. Now that I'm not living in the buzz of Massachusetts and my life is slowed down to a more natural pace, I find drinking chaga is envigorating. It is to partake in the grace and flexibility of the white birches...to feel the power of rootedness and the upward reaching of the tree branches...to feel a oneness with the woods around me. In fact a tree branch is what caused the power outage...that and the gusty spirited wind. So this power failure today? It was just my cup of tree.
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