Philosophical news at the Daily Nous .
Getting my all-things-japanese fix at Storied.
I’m not sure what to call this, but I’ll go with these sounds (as a more suitable alternative to this music, or this song), which took me back to this album I was listening on repeat about two years ago.
And, everything that’s coming out of Andrew Huberman’s lab, but especially his IGTV and his recently launched podcast.
“Tea has taught me to love simplicity. There is a scam we play on ourselves, as individuals and as a species, that we need something to be complete. But we don’t. Our wholeness – our health – is inside us, and it is unadorned. Our lack is also in us, created by our mind. And you cannot fill an imaginary lack.”
If you follow me on Instagram you might have noticed that I arrived from Taiwan and Hong Kong completely obsessed about tea and tea rituals. During the winter, I read dozens of articles about tea, watched dozens of videos about tea rituals, and served dozens of tea cups, mostly to myself. My – healthy - obsession did not pass unnoticed, and this summer my dear friend Claire gifted me this inspiring book called “Tea Medicine”.
What I love about a tea ritual is its reverence and proximity to nature. Tea sharing is simple and universal. And just like eating, the act of drinking is just as intimate. Less distracting too, and that’s what makes tea drinking and sharing such a beautiful way to be in the present, without being too abstract, like in a meditation.
Another book that I’ve read this summer was also a gift. When you are gifted a book called “You’re Not Listening” by someone you just started working with, your first thought is “I’ve hardly started working and I’ve already messed up”. But not if that someone is Paul, the kindest assertive person I’ve came across recently, maybe even ever. There’s no beating around the bush with Paul: he read this book, realized it carried an important message, one that might very well be at the core of all our problems when interacting with others, and it became his current most gifted book. For me, this book felt half informative half reprimanding (if the hat fits…, right?). On one hand, it made me really curious about the work of a handful of people like the physicist Richard Feynman, the qualitative researcher Naomi Henderson, the sociologist Howard Becker, and Parker Palmer, the founder of the Center for Courage and Renewal; on the other, it slapped me in the face by making me realize that while I tend to listen more than I talk – I’m a sound introvert – the quality of my listening was pitiful. Real listening requires the whole of you not just your ears. It asks for the same presence, concentration, attention and compassion that meditation does. Except instead of being aware of yourself, your body, your breath, your thoughts, you focus on the other.
And since we’re talking about listening, here’s a short list of the best podcasts I’ve listened to this summer:
On Being with Krista Tippet and Pauline Boss, Navigating Loss Without Closure
We all face losses, or will in the future, or know someone who has suffered from one. This is such an important conversation, which is not only about the ultimate loss, death, but so many other losses that happen in life.
A combination of technology and language in an episode about how the Chinese managed to successfully create their computer keyboards.
Tara Brach, Awakening from the Trance of Bad-Othering
Just like any other person I have my gifts and talents, and relating with other human beings is not one of them. I’m a struggling beginner at interacting with others, I suffer from misunderstandings more than I’d like to and I can’t seem to grasp how to navigate relationships. Listening to Tara Brach soothes me and her teachings help me understand myself and others better.
Have a glorious Monday and a delightful Equinox!
Being a life-long introvert, self-isolation has been my modus operandi as long as I can remember, especially so over the last few years when I decided to move to the countryside and work as a freelancer. I understand that the current distancing behavior can be hard for some people because we are social creatures after all, we love sharing, touching, talking, being listen to and seen. Yet good things can come from some time spent by ourselves: we can catch up on reading and podcast listening, rest and practice more self-care, and I think it’s the best time to pick up a new routine or heathy habit, given that there are less distractions in our daily schedule.
Anyway, I thought I’d share a handful of ideas, some practical, others that allow for exploration, which hopefully will help you through the next few weeks.
Tips to keeping your fruits and vegetables fresh
I’m sure that by now your pantry and freezer are well stocked on non-perishable and frozen food, but we all know that the best source of vitamins and minerals is in fresh produce. After being harvested, plants remain alive for some time – a few days in the case of leaves, a few months in the case of stored potatoes – and it’s the plant’s continued metabolic processes that may cause some of their loss of flavor, and that eventually makes them deteriorate. Here are some general tips to help slow down the deterioration process, keeping your fruits and veggies in good shape, and your trips to the supermarket to a minimum:
Plant foods are best kept in restricted places like refrigerator drawers, bags and containers, lined with absorbent paper, to slow down moisture loss and capture condensation;
Ideal storage temperature is different for different fruits and vegetables: those from temperate climates keep best at or near the freezing point and the ones from warmer regions keep best at 10ºC, sometimes even at room temperature (like melons, eggplants, squash, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, beans);
Refrigerator drawers and fruit bowls should be regularly cleaned to reduce microbes;
Mushrooms, berries, apricots, figs, avocados, papayas have a naturally high metabolism and deteriorate faster than apples, pears, kiwis, cabbages and carrots;
Some fruits like bananas, avocados, kiwis, mangoes and pears can be picked when mature but still green and will continue to ripen after picking.
Fast and simple pantry-style meals
Most of the meals I’m making now are smoothie bowls and soups. I’m making them as nutrient dense as possible and I love the fact that they’re easy to digest - which is good if you can’t be walking around.
My main tip for the smoothie bowls is having them at room temperature or warmer if the ingredients allow for it. Right now, I’m more concerned with having functional smoothies than super tasty ones so I tend to avoid sugar or syrups of any kind. Instead, I’m using licorice tea, which is naturally sweet, and fresh bananas. I then top them with more fruit, bee pollen, seeds and nuts.
As for soups, lately I’m using a lot of garlic and onions, ingredients I wouldn’t normally use because of its effects during meditation but that I now give privilege to in order to build a stronger immune system. To these two I’ll add another “pantry-style” ingredient, like a cup or two of beans (canned is fine), a jar of roasted red peppers, a sweet potato, a chunk of pumpkin or half a pack of frozen veggies, pour enough water to barely cover everything, cook, blend and serve, topped with fresh herbs or kimchi. Here are a few ideas, starting with a base of onion and garlic, add:
Sweet potato, ginger and curry spices, top with lots of chopped fresh coriander
Frozen peas and leaks, top with lots of chopped fresh mint
Sweet potato and roasted red peppers, top with lots of chopped fresh parsley
Red kidney beans and smoked paprika, top with homemade or store-bought kimchi
Also, there’s a general recommendation to drink plenty of warm water, with or without lemon juice, and herbal & spices infusions along the day. I’m making licorice and ginger, fresh thyme tea, and chai with plant-based milk every day, having at least 2L in total.
Give your body some extra love with an Ayurvedic morning routine
Ayurvedic morning routines have always seemed too complex for me, even though I love morning routines. But remember what I’ve said above, about now being the perfect time to pick up a new habit? I’m giving it try now. It takes close to an hour, depending on how much time you want to practice yoga and meditate, and it follows this order (click the links for instructions):
Oil massage followed by a warm shower
Breath work (I’m doing 6 cycles, each cycle is an inhale from the left nostril, and exhale through the right, and then a inhale from the right nostril and an exhale through the left)
Yoga (I’m adapting these series and doing 6 sun salutations, 3 standing poses, 3 sitting poses, including at least o1 twist, 1 shoulder stand and 1 bridge to compensate, and finishing with 5 minutes of Shavasana)
Meditation (I tend to practice Vipassana meditation, but I sometimes do other mediations, see tip bellow)
Spiritual and mental care with Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield
At unpredictable times like this, it wouldn’t be unusual to feel some anxiety and fear. Both of these emotions are perfectly understandable as long as they don’t paralyze us or make us panic. Jack Kornfield was just at The Tim Ferriss Show last week, sharing his wisdom on this pandemic in specific, and Tara Brach has a beautiful podcast too, with many guided meditations and with a couple of talks focusing on fear, like this one and this one.
Expand your knowledge by enrolling in a MOOC
Another option to keep your mind busy and making the most of your spare time is learning something new. I’ve been a fan of edX almost since their launch in mid 2012. With thousands of Massive Online Open Courses (MOOC’s) to choose from, it will be hard to pick just one. What I normally do is enroll in three or four courses, browse the materials (check if the videos aren’t too boring), and then focus and finish just one. This gives me time to really dig deep into the subject that I chose and a feel sense of accomplishment after I finish the course.
This is it for now. I’ll keep on writing about the second trip I took to Asia last year, share it very soon. Take care, stay safe.
It’s hard to believe that the year is almost ending. I barely updated or wrote anything here. It’s not like nothing happened, on the contrary, I had one of the most incredibly active and fulfilling year of the decade, and I’d love to share it with you.
As you might figure, it would be quite indigestible to pour everything out in just one post so I decided to break it into seasons, or acts, like a play. My life’s play over the last year.
There is, however, little tidbits that don’t fall into any of the seasons or acts but are still worth a share. Here they are, also in groups of fours.
4 favorite podcast interviews:
Rupert Sheldrake on Under The Skin with Russel Brand
Safi Bahcall on The Tim Ferriss Show
Rory Sutherland on London Real
Robert Macfarlane on On Being with Krista Tippet
4 most played songs:
Sisyphus by Andrew Bird
Metal Pluriarc with one Woman, Instrumental Music of the Kalahari San
Fallen Through Time, Outlander Soundtrack
Jealous Guy by Donny Hathaway
4 aha-moment quotes for which I don’t have the source as I just wrote them casually on my journal:
All emotions have a story behind them
Self-sabotage is misdirected self-love
Absolute perfection comes from faith not behaviour
Joy is best served without a side of shame
4 favorite food combination breakthroughs:
Beet & tahini, sweetened with banana and apples, warm, for breakfast
Sweet potato & red pepper, in a smooth soup
Cashews & preserved lemon, creamed, as a salad dressing
Dried apricots & any type of curry powder blend, in a warm sauce
This is it for now. More on this past year very soon.