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SS

Stephanie Sugars
Welcome, dear friends and guests!

SS

From Wonder to Wander in five days

Reeta’s garden path

xox

Happy Birthday Variation by Alessandro Palazzani

Thank you Madelyn for sharing this – friends, please pass it on

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXhJbCMxpHw

xox

“We are all just walking each other home.”

~ Ram Dass

xox

I’m living more in dream time than waking time and have been for some time.

From Chronos’ clock time to Kairos’ timeless time.

Yes, I witness evidence of time’s passage, but it’s the wind in the trees and the falling catalpa blooms that tick time from life’s clock now. All is both focused/intent and diffuse/broad. The few plans I allow myself dissolve me.

Monday, I rose from my third nap of the day to attend book group. While meetings are scheduled monthly, I’ve not been since last December. Monday was my day and I’d chosen Rachel Carson’s The Sense of Wonder for a group of nature loving women, several now grandmothers. If you haven’t read this book yet or not recently, I encourage you to check it out. You needn’t be a parent, grandparent or nature guide to approach and appreciate the wonders of nature. You needn’t even go out with others – on your own is fine. To enter the feeling, the mood, the open observation, the not knowing of names or nomenclature, the wonder is the wonder. The sense of wonder carries us through when sarcasm, cynicism and defeat would overwhelm us. (1)

And my book group friends brought me a scoop of lemon ice with a candle.

Tuesday, my birthday, was peaceful. Two appointments at clinics where I was hugged and wished happy birthday by practitioners and staff. I’m in these places every couple of weeks, so see these folks more often than many of my best friends. One of my best and oldest friends took me to yummy lunch – sushi (Yireh on Sebastopol Road).

In between every event I sleep and sleep and sleep some more.

Wednesday was just about all sleep all day, but with the bolster of visit with hospice nurse and IV Iscador infusion. The nurse and osteopath agree that my liver is expanding. It sure feels that way. I’ve put on a couple pounds and inches around my belly, but flesh continues to melt off my skeleton. And, ouch! I’m tweaking the liquid morphine and considering methadone.

Thursday and Friday have been more sleep with a few wakeful periods to eat, drink, pee, poop and be loving my friends via visits and email. My attention span is so short and everyone needs to speak s-l-o-w-l-y, enunciating each word. Otherwise I can’t understand a word that’s said. I’m like a baby with b’s enfolding me in warm baby blankets, the sheepskin below me, the hammock beneath the catalpa cradling and rocking me back to sleep.

I do continue to read – from The Sense of Wonder to The Wander Society with Sacred Food, Zen koans, Seedfolks, Full Moon Feast, Adam Grant’s Originals (3), The Bee-Friendly Garden (4), Louise Erdrich’s LaRose (that was days ago) and Buddhist teacher Pema Chödrön’s Naropa Institute’s commencement speech - Fail, fail again, fail better.

This might seem like dedicated reading, but most of it I pick up, pick at, put down, sleep a bit, pick up again, peruse, enjoy, forget and figure the learning is going somewhere, even though I’m unlikely to cook, garden or wander by foot again in this lifetime.

The Wander Society would have been my favorite book about 45 years ago when I was 15. Instead, I read Ram Dass’ Be Here Now, which had a very similar message – unplug from the dominant paradigm and show up for your life. Nothing wrong with that message.

But neither book holds exactly the right message for me now. I’m not venturing forth as a young person, but venturing into the mystery as a dying person.

Remember I’m Okay, You’re Okay and Transactional Analysis from the 1950s? (5)

I recently realized that my inner adult holds a safe, secure place for my inner parent to care for my inner child. It’s now natural to respond positively and reassuringly to an inner frightened or hurting child. Her needs are my needs and I’m really, really good at reassurance and safety. Not much negative self talk going on in my mind, in spite of various shames that rise like heat through me.

But, in spite of the similarities, dying is not the same as being a baby. I have different needs and it’s good to be here now with what’s evolving.

xox

“It is important to expect nothing, to take every experience, including the negative ones, as merely steps on the path, and to proceed.”

~ Ram Dass

xox

Food and drink continue to challenge me. (6) I’m so very grateful for Isa’s continued contributions to my well-being. All she touches is love and beauty, nourishment and delight, temptation and fulfillment.

Here are two homemade recipes that suit me well:

Instant saffron and rosewater tapioca

1 egg, separated

1 Tbsp. white sugar for egg white

1 Tbsp. white sugar and 1 Tbsp. brown sugar for milk

3 Tbsp. MINUTE Tapioca

2 cups full fat milk

pinch of saffron

a few drops of rosewater

½ tsp. vanilla

Recipe:

Beat egg white in small bowl with electric mixer on high speed until foamy. Gradually add 1 Tbsp. sugar, beating until soft peaks form.

Mix tapioca, remaining sugar, milk and egg yolk in medium saucepan. Let stand 5 minutes.

Cook on medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture comes to full boil. Remove from heat.

Quickly stir egg white mixture into hot tapioca in saucepan until well blended. Stir in saffron, rosewater and vanilla. Cool 20 minutes; stir. Serve warm or chilled. Stir before serving. Store leftover pudding in refrigerator.

Serve with fresh fruit – berries or stone fruit are especially lovely.

x

Crescent Dragonwagon’s Ginger Sorbet

3 cups of water

1 ½ cups sugar

2-3” piece of fresh ginger minced (no need to peel)

¾ cup fresh squeezed lemon peel

(optional: minced candied ginger may be added with lemon juice)

1. Combine water and sugar in a medium nonreactive saucepan over high heat. Bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and add the ginger. Let cool, cover and refrigerate for 24 hours.

2. Strain the syrup, pressing down on the ginger to extract as much flavor as possible. Discard the ginger. Combine the syrup with the lemon juice, place in an ice cream maker, and freeze according to the manufacturer’s directions. When sorbet is done, transfer it to a freezer container with a tight-fitting lid. Let it rest in the freeze for 3-4 hours to firm up slightly before serving.

xox

Friends, my hour is up and I’ve so much more to share.

I dreamt I received a letter from Malaise-ia extolling my lack of virtue, my wandering from the straight and narrow medical path. The script was so gorgeous and the message so mysterious that I wondered over those and the sender who seemed to know me, but didn’t really.

Tiny veins and arteries on my ankles and legs continue to appear as bright red lines that purple and bulge with exertion. My body, in wisdom, is conserving, drawing into the core, rather than finishing the path to the ends of my body’s world and return to heart-home. There just isn’t time or energy to run the circulation circuit in just 2 minutes. So, my wise body economizes and I’m just amazed!

Oh goodness, California’s Death With Dignity law went into effect yesterday and while I share news frequently at Smart Patients, I’ve not written about it here for weeks now. Maybe soon, dear ones. (7)

May each of you enjoy both wonder and wander today. May you take time to drop clock-time and enter eternity. May you be and belong.

Big love, Stephanie

Xox

To see a World in a Grain of Sand

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand

And Eternity in an hour.

~ William Blake

References:

(1) The Sense of Wonder

By Rachel Carson

https://www.scribd.com/doc/19957581/Sense-of-Wonder

http://www.rachelcarson.org/Books.aspx

https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/2339969-the-sense-of-wonder


(2) The Wander Society

By Keri Smith

http://www.kerismith.com/blog

http://www.thewandersociety.com


(3) Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World

By Adam Grant


(4) The Bee-Friendly Garden: Design an Abundant, Flower-Filled Yard that Nurtures Bees and Supports Biodiversity

By Kate Frey and Gretchen LeBuhn

http://freygardens.com/?p=957


(5) I’m Okay, You’re Okay and Transactional Analysis

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27m_OK_–_You%27re_OK

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transactional_analysis


(6) Food the four letter word in End of Life Care

http://www.slideshare.net/LifeAndDeathMatters/food-the-four-letter-word-in-end-of-life-care


(7) Physician Assisted Termination of Life conversation at Smart Patients

Free registration required

https://www.smartpatients.com/conversations/14991-physician-assisted-termination-of-life

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