Christmas and keeping it
DECEMBER 25, 2008
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Merry Christmas! Is it really Christmas? Last night the guys brought home 5 snappers from the fish market along with a few packets of corn tortillas, avocado, cheese, and cabbage. We made corn tortilla fish tacos, and they were outstanding. This was actually my first time eating a freshly caught/cooked fish. All of the ingredients from the tacos--tomatoes, red onion, cabbage, avocado, rice, black beans, fish, corn tortilla--just turned into a large heap onto my plate. I crammed way too much in those little tortillas. They are the same used for the tamales that we will have tomorrow night.
This morning Chris is supposed to make crepes for breakfast with the Nutella we had received from our visitors the other day.
[Make fudge]
[Sq. ft. garden for Chris]
I've started a new book. It is called Voluntary Simplicity: Toward A Way of Life That Is Outwardly Simple
This exert is used in the book to describe the material side of living. I have thought about it much of today, as I have many times before. Having and wanting excess is an unnecessary commodity. Extra. Unused or unneeded taking away from others that are unable to obtain "enough". I have yet to conquer this. I see this in the things I collect, in my over-preparation, in my overzealous desires. Is it possible for people to combat all methods of self-serving controls and desires? How do I do it? Can I overcome what feels to be my last crutch? How? This place needs to teach me how.
"As long as you derive inner help and comfort from anything, you should keep it. If you were to give up in a mood of self-sacrifice or out of stern sense of duty, you would continue to want it back, and that unsatisfied want would make trouble for you. Only give up a thing when you want some other conditions so much that the thing no longer has any attraction for you."--Mahatma Gandhi
Everyday I stare at the small, but ever-growing pile of rocks and shells that I have collected here. What are these attachments that we contrive from individual finds that makes us feel like they belong to us. I know... it's just rocks and shells, and I love rocks and shells, but they are microcosms of all things in my life. The boxes and buckets of rocks and shells at home collected over the years. The piles of shoes, bags, pieces of jewelry, articles of clothing that sit dormant and still we create value for new things that cover old and blind us of our obsessions. I must relieve myself of such attachment and clutter; unnecessary spending, and the things that never made me happy with purchase. 'If you want it enough, commit to picking it up, turning it over in your fingers, loving it, using it, and keeping it.
Jacob Krieger is one of the only people that I know that really gets life. My spiritual friend. My friend for life. He taught me that true understanding leads to the freedom of choice. Do here. Live there. Contradict and compliment. No right. No wrong. No measurement in a non-man created environment.
Merry Christmas from our PRETOMA crew!
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