On being responsible
Holistic Living - Susanne Meyer Fitzsimmons
by Susanne Meyer-Fitzsimmons
2y ago
Life is demanding, hence we love to be led, told what to do, and be absolved of responsibility.  One thing less to worry about seems often like a really good idea. Yet, when you turn over responsibility, you give up control and agency, and the opportunity to formulate your own approach or direction.  When you order takeout for dinner, you give up control over the ingredients in your food and what nourishes your body for the convenience of not having to cook.  When you go to the doctor and come unprepared to discuss your own research and preferred approach, you give up ..read more
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Over the head with a bang
Holistic Living - Susanne Meyer Fitzsimmons
by Susanne Meyer-Fitzsimmons
2y ago
Activists, scientists, and politicians tread a fine line between the need to alarm and the need to inspire the public.  Exclusive and relentless gloom and doom messages cause us to cower in fear and overwhelm.  But at one point it’s also time to get our heads out of the sand and decide what future we want to create for our children and grandchildren. Climate change is no longer drowning the far away Seychelles, it is now violently banging us over the head in the Pacific Northwest, the Southwest, and Middle Europe.  Will we get the message in time to avoid our own ..read more
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It's ok
Holistic Living - Susanne Meyer Fitzsimmons
by Susanne Meyer-Fitzsimmons
2y ago
Friends who come over for a meal and help clean up afterwards are often surprised that we don’t compost.  I’ll buy my favorite whole milk raw milk yogurt in plastic, and sometimes I dilute some smelly toxic bleach stuff to clean the mold spots on the shower grout. The 80/20 rule applies to me, and doing the best I can instead of being dogmatic and unwavering seems sensible. Composting is currently not convenient, and since we otherwise produce so little garbage, and recycle everything that can possibly be recycled, I won’t feel bad about throwing my produce waste into the ..read more
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Trust and surrender
Holistic Living - Susanne Meyer Fitzsimmons
by Susanne Meyer-Fitzsimmons
2y ago
Since March 2020 I haven’t felt particularly productive with all this anxiety around the virus, partisan politics and all the social suffering, the accelerating effects of climate change and our collective hesitance to act decisively.  That anxious energy is all around and difficult to escape.  Hence, I haven’t yet had the motivation to write that “other cookbook” that’s been germinating in my mind.  Just like a pregnancy, the cicada cycle, or a sour dough can’t be rushed, an incubation period, personal or societal, takes its own time.  Unfolding takes ..read more
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Food thrills for our times
Holistic Living - Susanne Meyer Fitzsimmons
by Susanne Meyer-Fitzsimmons
2y ago
Chicken of the Woods Some people look for race car driving, roller coaster rides, or bungee jumping for thrills. I look to food for an adventure that stimulates and excites my senses.  I am simply curious how things taste in hopes it’ll be pleasant and delicious, novel and delectable, or perhaps foreign and unexpected. Many traditional exotic foods are no longer acceptable fare because they’re animal based, their harvesting is unsustainable, or they are cruelly made, and we are starting to know better, think foie gras or shark fin soup.   Hence, we need to look to the ..read more
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Polarity and the human condition
Holistic Living - Susanne Meyer Fitzsimmons
by Susanne Meyer-Fitzsimmons
3y ago
photo credit yeswevibe.com Judging and evaluating, comparing and taking sides define the human condition.  We exist in a world of opposites.  Remove the concept of darkness, as for example in the Dark Ages, the concept of the Age of Enlightenment is impossible to define.  Take sickness away from our earthly existence and you cannot desire to be healthy since you would never have been sick or had ever experienced sickness in others.  Health would be an incomprehensible, unreal and abstract concept.   A heavy cast iron skille ..read more
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As abundant as nature
Holistic Living - Susanne Meyer Fitzsimmons
by Susanne Meyer-Fitzsimmons
3y ago
photo credit Jamie Street We have been gifted so many plants from friends over the years, by splitting root  (lily of the valley, hosta, hydrangea) or rizome clumps (tiger lilies, irises), separating shoots (lilacs, raspberries) and transplanting runners (strawberries, strawberry begonia), as well as accepting seeds (hollyhocks) and whole seed heads (echinacea).  Many of these plants have grown big enough that we can now share and provide a never ending supply of joy to others.  And we know how quickly animals can multiply, the smaller the faster.  One ..read more
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Let's make a little room
Holistic Living - Susanne Meyer Fitzsimmons
by Susanne Meyer-Fitzsimmons
3y ago
photo credit wtrf.com We just learned that zoo baby births increased by 25% over the past pandemic year because the lack of human visitors put the animals more at ease.   Good things happen when we humans get out of the way.  When our impact lessens everything else – the air, the water, the animals, the environment in general – recuperates and flourishes, as we saw so immediately last April. We need to shift our thinking from I to We and consider the bigger picture, the benefit of the many versus the personal benefit to just one person, then we all prof ..read more
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Coming to your senses
Holistic Living - Susanne Meyer Fitzsimmons
by Susanne Meyer-Fitzsimmons
3y ago
Just now I walked by a bowl full of ripe peaches and their subtle peachy waft followed me for a few feet into the kitchen.  On the window sill sit two ripening pineapples that exude that characteristic and densely sweet pineappley aroma as I stand at the kitchen sink.  Walking by the roses that are just beginning to flower in the garden is intoxicating, yet so fleeting.  The scent is there one second and gone the next, so subtle, so elusive, so elegant, so delicate.  You can’t catch it, and you can’t make it last forever.  I can only tell ..read more
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The secret of the universe
Holistic Living - Susanne Meyer Fitzsimmons
by Susanne Meyer-Fitzsimmons
3y ago
From the dawn of time, we have been trying to unlock the secret of the universe in order to find a reason behind why things are the way they are and why we feel the way we feel.  For a long time, those who discovered the secret held on tight to that knowledge which was called “occult” or hidden.  But it was only hidden because we looked in the wrong direction, not because it wasn’t available.  We looked out and played the blame game.  We thought things were “done to us” and felt victimized.   Turns out we need to look in, not out.  W ..read more
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