A Sweet Slice of Fall

To me, this pie is so heavenly, I just needed to share the recipe...

(If she knew she was going to be photographed, she would have worn her fancy top...)

(I am hoping you can click on the pics to make them large enough to read clearer.)
(Instead of the 3/4 - 1 cup of sugar, I use only about 1/4 cup and then add some agave nectar, and I use half 'n half.

I admit I do not make my own crust. I use the Pillsbury refrigerated rollout crust.)

Mmmmmmm.......

Thank you, Rodney...

For this 'welcome to Maine' cookbook years ago,

For taking the time to teach me how to eat a real lobstah,

For your patience with me as I learned to hear you through that thick accent,

And especially for sharing who you were, and for being who you were without apology.

You remain an inspiration, and you are missed.

This pie's for you, I know apple was your favorite!

A Delicious Revolution

In the interest of completion and a pattern shift from letting things pile up, to creating space for fresh thoughts,

Some random ideas,

Each of which for me could be explored more in depth, and may be one day, but as I understand how the weight of seeing them in my drafts folder affects me (sends a subtle 'have to' message), I release them to the universe...

If there's an original thought out there, I could use it right now. ~ Bob Dylan

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No matter what, you're either sitting, standing, or lying down ~ Byron Katie

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Nocturne ~Jennifer K Sweeney

There is a blue city in mind
constructed slantways 

along a rippling canal,
clean and unpeopled but for a musician

who plays a harp without strings.
The city has one chair 

where he sits by the broad strokes of water.
A lone streetlamp casts 

a blue arc of light.
A Persian door. A zeppelin sky.

The world filters through
his empty frame as he plucks the air.

Maybe you hear a song or maybe you don't.
That is the choice we are always making.

(I donned my apron rather than painting clothes this morning...)

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'Answers' arise following relaxation, and are most often 'found' in what we are taught to understand as hindsight... hindsight is simply wisdom that arises naturally, post-pushing,

after surrendering of the ego's will to 'know', and allowing the channel to the Divine within to open.

(my thought after hearing Philip Glass describe his creative process as something like 'Have you ever stood in the fog and at first couldn't see a thing, but as you softened your gaze, the outline of a tree appears, and eventually you see the complete scene.')

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If you consider the physiology similarities, fear can disguise itself as excitement.

I thought I was excited to go up in the boomlift, but as we lifted higher and higher off the ground, and further away from the base, I was actually more fearful than I had realized. My process of calming down and feeling safe involved first not giving over to the fear (I did not want to get down), then stopping where we were and asking questions to understand the equipment/situation.

Afterward I wondered whether this incongruency is connected with my mom's labor being induced when she gave birth to me. If so, then is my true nature somewhat of a physical thrill-seeker, just on my own terms (don't push me)? Or is it about control?

Maybe the excited feeling was real and the fearful feeling represented my conditioning in the world...

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"...I would like to beg you dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer."

~Rainer Maria Rilke, from Letters To a Young Poet

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 "The opposite for courage is not cowardice, it is conformity. Even a dead fish can go with the flow." ~ Jim Hightower

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"In fact, industrial farming and fast food operate hand in glove, very much like a vast conspiracy. Together they suppress variety, limit our choices, and manipulate our desires by getting us hooked on sugar and salt. What we are calling for is a revolution in public education --- a real Delicious Revolution. When the hearts and minds of our children are captured by a school lunch curriculum, enriched with experience in the garden, sustainability will become the lens through which they see the world."

~ Alice Waters

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A person was continuously sending up the prayer to win the lottery...

One day the Lord finally said

'I'd really like to help you, my child, but could you meet me halfway and at least

buy a lottery ticket?'