acting again

Our first rehearsal for Penelope's Daughter was this morning. The author, Laurel Corona, is fantastic, as is the director, Katie Rodda! And Casey and Sonia who will share the stage with me are awesome too. It felt really good to be blocking and reviewing lines.

We'll be kicking off the San Diego City College International Book Fair. This literary event is a multi-media extravaganza, with Greek music and mythological images to be projected on the backdrop, dancers and actors giving life to the story, scholarly lecture to introduce the show, and a very lively author to narrate the evening. I have just 10 lines, but they're great lines, spoken as a half-goddess, sorceress, who is (I'm told) powerful, sexy, and fabulous!

hedgehog potatoes

The potato harvest was smallish, so I decided to make them special. From Super Natural Cooking, I modified the recipe for Baked Purple Hedgehog Potatoes, starting with the obvious fact that these potatoes are not purple.


Harissa is a hot chili condiment in a base of carrot and beet. It's been waiting on the shelf since I brought it home from Northpark Produce, for the day the potatoes were ready. The potatoes are spiked with lots of garlic and harissa before baking.

I used tofu cheese (technique from Real Food Daily) in place of yogurt, added some almond milk and spearmint from the garden, to make the cooling topping.


And here they are!

house of olive

My view from the Sweet Orange Studio is warming up. I have been thinking of these colors as green olive, espresso, and cherry tomato. They could also be picholine, kalamata, and pimiento... the House of Olive!

I removed the crusty old screens and washed those bedroom windows beyond the umbrella, vacuumed the sills, and cleaned the glass with vinegar/water inside and out. Our bedroom has gone from cave-like to surprisingly bright! I can see the figs and cosmos when I wake up in the morning.

The best thing about all this forward progress is that we're going slow, small and steady. Start with an idea, and work toward a solution without attachment to outcome.

For example, my husband loves color. We inherited a house that was aged white with oxidized teal trim, and not very inspiring to come home to. I tried to embrace the bright orange and turquoise I was sure he would want when we repainted. A Mexican villa could be very cheerful, right? The sun is strong here and subtle color gets lost in the brightness. Then we landed on these colors, which make us both very happy. It took time, and pranayama practice, breathing through the challenging places. This joyful outcome is not what either of us would have predicted.

We both feel much more invested in this shared dwelling. OUR house. He is being very patient with the difficult and long process of scraping away old paint and glazing...and getting really good at it! I love the way he honors his own body and works a little every day, taking breaks when his back says it needs a break. I also love that he's learning new skills and that it's his gift to me.

la maestra urban garden

This is Irma. She is transforming a city lot into an urban gardening space for people in the City Heights community of San Diego.


La Maestra (which means "the teacher") is doing so many good things for the community, that I won't list them all here, but you can learn more at their website. A beautifully designed new LEED certified building is at the heart of their operation.


And just down the street a little clinic is buzzing with activity.


The big blue house right next door is the site of yet another valuable program, and provides the space for the garden.


The front garden will be filled with flowers and herbs, and maybe a water feature? The design is still developing. Should the design match the style of the house? Or should it be a wild riot of color?


Around the side and back there is room for a dozen individual plots, plus a nice sized space for composting, and a building with two bathrooms and a shower. What a bonus! If gutters were installed on that small building, rainwater harvesting could begin this year.


Irma is gathering resources, seeking assistance from Victory Gardens San Diego, and from the Sophia Circle. The garden is fully fenced and Irma has her soil test back. She has cinder blocks and good organic compost on the way. We will transform this pile of dirt into a lush and productive garden!

corn

We grew a small cornfield of "Luscious" this year.


Here's a hopeful sprout on June 3.


Looking pretty hardy on June 13. How he's grown in just 10 days!


By July 27 they're all looking strong. Same view, longer shot.


Organic growing results: One-third to the worms, two-thirds to us.

where did July go?

Just a quick post to remind myself to write a bit. I've been working on some new projects and investing far too much energy in Facebook. Today I revisited some of my favorite blogs here, here and here. Everything in my body is happier with these slower paced one-on-one connections, even in cyberspace.

giving birth to a dancing star

One must have chaos in oneself in order
to give birth to a dancing star.
[Friedrich Nietzsche]

Learning permaculture protocols for designing human settlements is broad and all-encompassing, and simple as well. I'm unlearning a lot of my old favorite gardening techniques that have created visual peace and order, and embracing more natural patterns and techniques that actually open up more productive time and space. It's a new take on Zen.

I haven't even fully unpacked from last weekend in Costa Mesa and have had two more seriously mind-expanding experiences this week.

A circle of nine women traveled out to Lake Henshaw for a day on the Double "J" Ranch on Wednesday. In a gazebo overlooking the lake, surrounded by free ranging horses, goats, chickens and dogs we connected and sent our deepest wishes for harmony with the natural world, for clear energy, and for open hearts. We trekked through the woods for a shared lunch under the oaks, and walked the perimeter of the nine-pointed Earth Star labyrinth. The silence and beauty at the base of Palomar Mountain is powerful, and the silence and beauty within each of my Sophia Sisters is positively glowing! Many thanks to Amanda and to our guide Jana, for facilitating the birth of dancing stars.

Yesterday I journeyed to the Tijuana Estuary in Imperial Beach via lovely Coronado Island to hear a talk by UCSD's Teddy Cruz. With the eye of an artist, he had a wonderful way of using provocative headlines and visual images to explore the flows and relationships between San Diego and Tijuana, through the "forensics of urbanism". Walking us along the border fence (with various maps and photos) observing the informal structures of Tijuana, he suggested that Density could be a measure of social exchange or level of collaboration, and that informal energies could be translated into economic value. We could view each parcel (each human settlement) as a small socio-economic system, where Democracy is redefined as the ability and willingness to coexist with others.

What if the border fence makes San Diego the largest gated community in existence? Does this philosophy of separation achieve highest good?