Tomorrow night is the Full moon and it will be the first time that I will do a “Full Moon Ceremony” with Amaya. She is smart enough now to understand some of the meanings and it is so fun to do together. It’s not just any Full moon either (Full Moon at 30 degrees of Taurus/Scorpio coming on May 19 at 7:11 pm PDT (3:11 am May 20 Greenwich Summer Time) it’s the Wesak (or Vesak) Festival of Lights when Buddha supposedly descends back to earth to show the path of Illumination to the world.

The Wesak Valley in the Himalayas was where the legendary convergence of Buddha, Christ and other Masters during the full moon occurring in May happen each year. Celebrating Vesak also means making special efforts to bring happiness to the unfortunate like distributing gifts in cash and kind to various charitable homes, the aged, the handicapped and the sick. (thus more donations to Kiva and Food not Bombs).

Vesak is also a time for great joy and happiness, expressed not by pandering to one’s appetites but by concentrating on useful activities such as decorating and illuminating temples, painting and creating exquisite scenes from the life of the Buddha. Amaya and I will do a painting together of a Buddhist Temple on a cardboard box and color and laugh together. I have been teaching her to do deep breathing with me. She laughs and reaches her arms up, mirroring my motions to a sun salutation and she thinks its funny, but she does it with a big smile puffing her lips out with exhaling breathe.

For me this Full moon is about transformation, reflection and the presence of visible and invisible helpers that can lead us into a whole new quality of being now. Buddha was focused on how to live, with awareness that can help us transcend suffering (ours and others) as well. I have an inundation of realizations that are making me understand myself, the life Force and others and now I am refining it. We will bake Moon Cakes (scones) and then eat them with Thimble berry jam and drink Cherry juice in celebration of our helpful spirits and leave offerings to them in the heart of our home and along our waking path. I’ll take this time to ask Amaya to respect others, to be thankful, to love with an open heart and give hugs to everyone. We will go on a walk and thank the trees, the rocks, the bushes, birds, bees and helpful beings that surround us daily.

Release those pent up negative energies to gain freedom from trying to live an ideal beyond one's potential. Find ways to relieve the pressure, old standards can’t conform to our new life conditions. Dispose of judgments and wants and needs. Especially monetary ones, open your heart to others and find solutions to dealing with difficult situations (sufferings of you and others. At night, I will burn a white candle and meditate on this. The Full moon is the best time to get rid of things, clear out the clutter in your home and your mind. (Best time to pull weeds as they come out easier since all their energy is up and not in their roots)Maybe I will weed by moonlight and then collect herbs (and helpful) weeds in my apron.

So these next days meditate, open up, feel the global compassion becoming stronger and more evident, and purify your life and consciousness however you need to in order to open to the timeless truths (use the Slow Year mediation that I wrote a couple of days ago or this one). Mercury is in retrograde so that means that all plans come to a halt right now, its time to go backwards and reflect which just gives more power to this Full moon's enegry.

Sewing Indian Headdress with turkey feathers

Sprouting sweet potatoes

Farm for sale France Languedoc

Carob characteristics

Curried courgettes

Crepe batter (because Amaya scattered my recipe cards and they are not categorized anymore)

Weed that looks like wheat


Not google searches for my blog, I don’t check stats and I don’t use a tracker, nor do I have ads checking your searches to make money from my blog or crazy stuff like that. These are my queries today. And their links. Thank you Novella for Archie's feathers!

Just like the cherries that are bursting forth and Amaya’s body that grows with leaps and bounds each day and the waves crashing from the sea and the mulberries plunging from the trees, we are all connected by an unseen powerful energy. The “Force” that Obi Wan Kenobe was talking about. But you don’t have to wait for it to be with you, it is already inside of you. You are the force. Without the “Force” our bodies would crumple up and die like a spent tulip and its petals that spiral downwards back to the earth where it sprung from.

Like a tiny Ratatouille under all of our chefs hats, pulling hairs and strings to make us eat when we are hungry and tell our mouths via our critical mind to say, “there is nothing to eat” when perhaps there is plenty. Its that same mind that says there is nothing to wear when you have a closet full of nice things to protect you from the harsh elements. In fact, you probably have enough to donate half of them and still be dressed in style.

Follow the force to the source. With your minds eye think of that energy inside of you, shed the body and the image; go past the computer room of our mind control center; ask for the leader and go over the head of the little Ego sitting his judges chair; a giant ray of sun that illuminates every living thing on this earth. Ultimately we are all connected. Tell your mind to take a break (you have control over your perceptions and reactions), bask in the light and feel the warmth. Think of all the power that you have to manifest all your dreams. Also remember how you are just one nano blimp of that light that makes up the force of the world (our problems are just as small and insignificant). Then send out love via your ethereal link and know that you are fulfilled by the force. Watch the light grow and circle the planet as we all find love, right there in ourselves.

What an awesome Dumpster diving day! I don’t know if it’s the charity Karma from yesterday or that I picked up recyclables along the way to our recycle drop off center, but we scored. More about that later, but first I was already set to tell everyone about how this month is a “Dollar A Day for the month of May” where we are only spending a dollar (euro, quid, pound sterling, dinar choose your own denomination) a day on food.

It happened quite by accident. We went to the chicken farm, but because of demand (new sign on the fence) he only can supply a limited number of us who want to see our chickens roaming freely and pick soft downy feathers off our big brown eggs. From May 1^st onwards, he is only open two days a week now instead of four and only for two hours! That’s a huge demand. We left empty handed no chickens; no eggs. A couple of days later, I sent my husband to the organic pig farm near his work where she shook her head no sorry, she didn’t have any meat left except for sausages (which we have plenty of) and to come back later in the week. Scary.

After baby swim class this Sunday, I had a moment to spend at the farmers market where I snatched up a duck carcass with lots of breast meat still attached (duck wonton soup!)for 1€ and much to my delight he had chicken carcasses (chicken broth) with guts for the same price. Bonanza, because Amaya loves chicken liver and hearts. He also sells rendered duck fat for 50 cents a kilo so I got two. Then I spent seven euros on cheese, glorious Epoisses smelly monks socks cheese. I noticed a trend as I spied the vegetable and fruit stands, summer is coming, and it’s selling for 1€ for a kilo of tomatoes or potatoes, melons and radishes too. I quickly added up how much had spent and divided that by the day. A euro a day. I’ll try to keep you updated on what food we find for a euro a day and that means that I won’t spend more than 31 euros this month in total!

Besides, the Dumpster Gods were shining on me today: 20 meters of chicken wire fencing! On our walk we found a neighbor cutting his relatively new fence down with a wire cutter and the cement mixer was parked in his driveway. Building a cement wall, I asked? Are you going to “jeter” (throw out) that “grillage? (chainlink fence)” Because I know someone (ha, us someday) that has chickens. This would be perfect he says. Ok, I’ll come back with the car this afternoon. Thank you! He is so happy that he doesn’t have to haul it to the dump. Then about ten feet away and old tv antenna that wasn’t even rusty. Why would I want that? Because I have been wanting to make a weather vane forever out of silver ware! This will be the perfect frame.

Speaking of frames on the way home from our stroll (imagine Amaya in the stroller with the tv antenna) I found a solid walnut head board (with scrolly top) leaning against a Dumpster. Soon we want to make Amaya a kid sized bed and it’s the perfect width, Benji just has to make a square frame to attach it. I put Amaya down for her nap, put on my gardening gloves and walked no more than 20 steps to the trash cans and hefted it home (it’s heavy!). I also spied a broken broom stick which we can use to airate the compost bin so I snagged that too.

My mom matched my mother’s day donation to Food not Bombs and then she told me about Kiva—microloans (www.kiva.org), a non-profit that allows you to lend as little as $25 to a specific low-income entrepreneur in the developing world.

You choose who to lend to - whether a baker in Afghanistan, a goat herder in Uganda, a farmer in Peru, a restaurateur in Cambodia, or a tailor in Iraq - and as they repay their loan, you get your money back. It’s a powerful and sustainable way to empower someone right now to lift themselves out of poverty.

Mom also told me another travel writing paycheck arrived in the mail. I just put them in the bank as I have for years. Since we don’t shop any longer or let’s be frank, I don’t shop-- my husband never did, they are our slush fund for emergencies now. Those paychecks used to be for the next new thing that we wanted but really never needed. Even this week we didn’t do any food shopping, we transferred yet more money into our interest earning savings. My husband has the look of a casino winner when he looks at our bank account. For a family of three we have been living on way less than we ever thought possible. About 900 a month. That is what my rent was five years ago. Heck, I know people with car payments that high.

A family of three. And I think that we live a pretty good life full of delicious, healthy food, outdoor activities, creative fun pastimes but we never shop. We wear what we have, we don’t upgrade our stuff; we fix it, we don’t even fix scratches or dings on our car nor have we ever washed it (something unfathomable for this transplanted California girl). Someone told me recently I should wash it to help restore the paint for its resale value. But that’s the point, we are never going to re-sell it. It is supposed to last us for 20 years (Volkswagon diesel should last longer, don’t you think?) or more.

If we can live on so little, I know that a chunk of change can make a big difference. That is why I am donating (lending which I will loan again) that check and others to Kiva. I found a lady in Nepal that needs money for milking goats and a mom with two kids in Peru that sells lunches from her house who will use the loan to buy ingredients for her mothers lunch program, "Purisima Concepción." This is more exciting than any shopping I have ever done. And it’s raining so the car is getting washed by nature.

( There are a lot of journalists (ny times)and bloggers (101 cookbooks) that have done due diligence with Kiva and with the amount of publicity and attention they’ve received (and the microfinance institutions with whom they partner) gives them a great deal of credibility.)

I had no idea the amount of momma bear instinct that I would have for my child. Literally I would chew off my right arm and feed it to Amaya if it would save her life. After I tried all the nearest tree barks and edible flowers, of course.

Being a mother I have an all new respect and awe for my mother who raised my sister and me to be decent and all in one piece. ---Sorry, that I made your life hell for 13 years, Mom (my teens started early and ended late). At night I tell my husband stories of all the horrible things that I did and let him fear for his daughter's life as I do each and every day. Then he shoots back to me “she IS going to do all those things, you know”. That is when I writhe and squirm and shout in a hushed whisper, “NOOOOOO. Please, don’t let it happen” as to not wake our angelic though at times barbaric cave tot.

Happy Mothers Day Mom!

Instead of sending you a dozen roses or some tchotchki like a photo mug, I donated some money in your name to Food Not Bombs. You brought me into this world with perfect faith in humanity and now its my turn to try and heal Mother Earth, to make our world a better place, based on peace and justice. I had also considered Heifers and donating a hive of bees in your name to a village in El Salvador, but you'll have to wait for your birthday for that one.

In these times of war and tragedy from Afghanistan to Slovenia to New Orleans, Food Not Bombs are planting community gardens through Food Not Lawns and providing free medical help through Healthcare Not Warfare.

From their website:

We provide food to the homeless and hungry, at actions in support of Native American and aboriginal land struggles and we feed people defending the earth. We also donate food to day care centers, and the families of workers on strike. New Food Not Bombs groups are starting every day all over the world. There are hundreds of chapters collecting, cooking and sharing free food. We are also organizing gatherings to investigate new ways to bring peace and social justice to our world.

We are all talking about our gardens. Whether it’s potted plants in our sunny windows or cold frames in Maine. Growing food instead of lawns and eliminating as many miles as possible to your plate. In Russia 2/3rds of the population grows at least some of their food, the other 1/3 are the ones who pay cash for their limousines. And in Cuba 80 percent of food comes from urban gardens. Two of my favorite foods in the world Cuban and Russian, rustic, old-world, truly colorful and with great purpose: feeding families.

We have eaten spinach, nettles, lettuce, cabbage, carrots, chives and strawberries from our garden so far this year but I got to thinking about what is growing around here naturally. Stuff that I didn’t plant, nature did—perhaps thousands of years ago. "Habitat-ovore" could be what you call it when I make salads and tartes from borage and redbud flowers. Or when you bake a Yucca Banana pie with fruit foraged from the Phoenix DMV.

Gathering plums, walnuts and olives in your neck of the urban city woods is easy enough to do. Even a group called Fallen Fruit can help you locate places to glean. But I started thinking about herbal remedies, vegetables, leaves and fruit that people don’t normally eat (although our hunter gatherer forefathers and mothers did) which led me with a camera around my neck circling my block; walking the baby; snapping photos. I documented so far 12 very edible and wonderful plants with in a three block radius. It doesn’t include my garden nor the common Mediterranean basics like olives, rosemary, thyme, and mint which I already use almost daily.

I’m not done yet, this is has been a buried desire of mine since 5^th grade Fort Flagler when a guest camp counselor came in and told us how to survive in the woods like Davy Crocket eating the new bright green buds of pine trees and their nuts nestled pinecones. Now my inner camp kid has been released and allowed to play in her neighborhood. Funny thing is that I have been asked to go and be that guest (I probably wont make it this year- maybe next) at an organic camp for kids in Vermont; Teach them how to eat weeds, survive on foraged food and make cheese with stinging nettles.

Let’s talk trash. Anything dirty or dingy or dusty. Anything ragged or rotten or rusty… sound familiar? I took out the trash today, it was the first time in 3 or 4 days. Most people create 4.6 pounds per person per day! We don’t make that much since we don’t have anything coming in because of our pact to not shop. All the food scraps either get used, given to the swarm of stray cats or donated to the compost god.

Waste Reclamation: Urban Foraging, Dumpster Diving, Gleaning

Each time I take out the trash, I try to take something back must to the embarrassment of my husband, but he is learning. Cardboard boxes, nice paper gift bags, pieces of wood and dry wall, packing materials, tissue paper, tote bags. I have even rescued plants out of the trash. In a way that evens out my trash usage which I am trying to get down to zero. Have you seen the trash piles during a garbage strike? It’s incredulous the amount of trash we each make.

Stop Throwing Things Out

No new trash is part of the challenge of living sustainable. We use everything. While I hate plastics, I hate waste more so I reuse our zip lock bags even if they have holes they can still hold something like crayons or medicines. It's part of the creative thought process and I make it tedious for us to throw things away. The trash bin is under the sink with an elastic hair band wrapped around the cupboard knobs five times. You have to spin it around and around and around and by then you think of another “use” for that thing you have in your hand.

Use Less Packaging

Trying to live plastic-free in is hard, it’s everywhere. I’ll use the Tupperware that we have, but more and more we use recycled jars to store food, for lunch boxes, to-go cups, and long term storage. The same jars over and over. We don't have new ones coming in anymore. Some random plastic packaging like the milk bottles we recycle each week (though less than ¼ of recyclables across the land are just that: recycled. I have been picking up plastics and bottles in trash cans destined for landfills along our route to our recycle drop off area).

Recycling: Turning Waste Material into Raw Material

I also reuse the plastic jugs to make Kombucha, Kefir, Vinegar and Beer. The flat plastic stuff, I have been keeping in a bucket to fuse it all together, then I can sew it into shopping bags, a shower curtain, use as a cover for the outdoor couch, liner for the trunk of the car, ie make it all into something useful.

Oscar was a nice education on respecting others and not judging peoples choices and appearances. So don’t judge me when you see me taking stuff out of the trash, maybe I am looking for a rusty trombone? I am just doing my part and it's kind of fun you never know what kind of treasure you will find in there. There is a Dumpster lady that gives you the facts and low down of gleanings found here. She donates a lot of the things that she finds to charities, homeless shelters and helps with Food not Bombs.

It’s not just that organic milk is over 8 dollars a gallon here (the gas is even more expensive, but we are used to that) it’s that we had a hard time finding organic milk last week. Five stores later we found one measly liter. I don’t know if it was some sort of French strike that lead to the lack of organic milk or that I live too far in the countryside or that the heavy stream of tourists dried up our supply.

Normally, I feel like we are sitting pretty making our own sodas, vinegar, even beer. And with our CSA basket each week we have bridged the gap to our farms where we buy directly chicken and beef. I can’t deny it any longer nor shake that feeling. I know that fear has reached even me in this time. That pre-depression era fear that is all around. If not, why am I enthusiastically taking photos and identifying and recording each and every tree, bush, shrub, flower that we could possibly eat in my neighborhood?

Returning to my house with a bundle of sage and a clipping of a fruit vine that I rooted into my garden, I shake my head at the beautiful ornamental flowers, “why didn’t I plant more edible ones?” I think. That is changing now. Watermelons, calendula, tomatoes, tomatillos, eggplants, green beans, peas and Indian corn are growing up around me this summer as well as my annuals of thyme and rosemary.

My freezer is getting heavy again like a pregnant woman bulging. I added three liters of menudo today after we both ate two bowls for lunch, I made enough for a Cinco de Mayo mariachi band. I save all the scraps of vegetables in the fridge for Chinese stirfrys, additions to Indian dahls, eggroll ingredients, you name it. We are not wasting it. The rest goes into the freezer in a catchall for future soups.

But I need to take it a step further. We looked at a ruin of a house that had no electric and no water (it had an empty well and cistern). My husband said NO emphatically, but it made me think what if we had to live like that. I look out the window and see my neighbor’s rain catcher and think we need to all start thinking about the future and find solutions, not fear. We are running on zero power right now except the fridge and the freezer and this laptop which is about to be turned off. Benji is bbqing dinner (I put a copper pan full of spinach to defrost on there too) and then we will eat by the sunset and go to bed. Power off. Almost. In our sink is the washing up water from lunch. We will reuse it. What if we only had a gallon of water per day? Or less. If I challenge us more, maybe we will find acceptable solutions.

Since we don’t shop and haven’t for 9 months (it’s our nine-monthery of "a slow year"today) we have a few minor, very little things that would be nice to have.

We use jean/flannel sponges for the dishes and counters, one for each lunch and dinner and they get washed in hot boiling water. But they don’t scrub that great so we have one dangly little wire scrubber for baked on rice and burnt pans, you know the hand sized ball of basically large thread steel wool? It’s looking pretty lame after 6 months of usage. See, I didn’t plan anything ahead or stock up on things before the slow year started. I announced it on a whim to my family and just did it.

Today at the park we were visiting the spring time baby goats for Amaya (wink wink-they were adorable and my husband had a great time letting them nibble on his fingers while feeding them stale bread). Near the donkey and horse area (they have pony rides in the forest on a nice trail for kids) I stopped to take a photo of a Tamarisk tree close up. I love taking tree, plant and flower photos right now. As I bent down I found a wire scrubber in the scrub land. Funny sense of humor the universe has. Of course, I “harvested” the unused shiney scrubber into my purse.

Later at home while trying to find my natural sea sponges for you know what, I found wedged in the back of the drawer, two brand spanking new toothbrushes! We were both overcome with happiness since ours are also worn for wear and we are not about to start using sticks to brush our teeth though our baking soda, salt and peppermint oil tooth powder is a huge hit with us and the dentist.

Then my friend Tiffany in Canada wrote to me and asked “what kind of things would you want in a care package from here?” Sweet! It was hard not to say fill it with Fritos and Reeses peanut butter cups as my PMS personality was demanding in the back of my mind. “Rubber bands, incense, rechargeable batteries… you know crap in your junk drawer” I said. Definitely one persons junk is my treasure. She wrote back and said that she had a blast filling a box full of stuff for me (and it helped her clear out some clutter in her life). I am sure that I will cherish each last piece and find a use for it. What a wonderful friend and giving universe.

If you are willing to wait and improvise, you will find that everything you need is right there. I truly believe it and it's nice to see it in action so many times in one day. Throughout the last nine months I have seen it happen time and time again. Either I will figure out a solution or some helpful spirit will point us in the right place, or a generous person will help us, often with out us even asking like grandpa's gift of a roll of packing tape when I really needed it to mail out packages. He doesnt even know that we are doing "a slow year" nor did we ever ask him for tape, how random that he gave it to us that day. The world does work in mysterious ways.

For May Day, I did see Red. Red here and then another red there in the form of little gibbous bumps “where the hip bone connects to the leg bone…” (sing it with me!) “ and the leg bone connects to the knee bone…”

Chicken Pox! She is a cranky crying mess, fussy—I want this, I DON’T to eat, I want this, give me that, no THAT waaaahhhh, barfy, nauseous—walks like she is drunk, scratchy mess. The red roses sit on the table undelivered in exchange for a oatmeal and calendula petal tepid body temperature bath to bring down her fever and alleviate -for at least ten seconds- the itchiness.

There is not much that we can do except clear your calender for a few days because you are not going anywhere. (sensitive to sunlight) You will have give her lots of love, hold her a lot, give her baby Tylenol (do not give aspirin or ibuprofen) ever six hours and apply a cool wet washcloth to her head. But there a couple of natural holistic herbal treatments to help out, in France doctors prescribe homeopathic remedies often.

One is the well known anti-viral Echinacea. A little in her water each day will help the virus run its course quicker and build up her immune system. You should not give Echinacea for more than ten days (the pox should be gone in less than that) because it looses its affect.

For the restless behavior and crankiness and mineral loss from vomiting and eating like a bird (after the scabs have healed if your child is still vomiting go to a doctor) I made her chamomile and red clover tea. They calm and they have important trace minerals required by the body. These help in the detoxification and elimination of the lesions on the skin. And I had some too for my nerves.

By morning, the vomiting is gone, the fever is down, but her red pocks have spread onto her hands and face. For the runny nose, rising bumps, and redness, time to give her some honeybee, the entire bee crushed and diluted by a professional. Apis mellifica. It's interesting to see how our friend the pollinator can help us with hives, stings, swellings and could be useful if we had to improvise in nature.

For that burning, crawling with itch feeling, (makes me squirm just thinking about it) change their diapers and clothes often and let them wear cotton and breathable fabrics. There is Pulsatilla, a purple pasques meadow flower, also from the Boiron laboratories (homeopathic medicine is at all French pharmacies, just ask) is where I’ll be getting our concoction of Pulsatilla.

And lastly, for the aching muscles, stiffness, extreme restlessness- her refusal to sleep a wink at night, Rhus Tox. (poison Ivy) It's a wonderful treatment and great for the pus and vesicles.

I wouldn’t advise doing all of these at once, each one has its moment of appropriateness. In the order that I have listed them but you can also read more here with how much of each to give or ask your doctor.

Maya is worshiped as the Good Mother on May 1st where she is celebrated with a (phallic) maypole (symbol of fertility) around which the young single men and women of the village would dance holding on to the ribbons until they became entwined, with their ( hoped for) new love.

Many countries, including France, have a national holiday on May 1st (In Paris in 1889 the International Working Men's Association declared May 1st an international working class holiday in commemoration of the Haymarket Martyrs. The red flag became the symbol of the blood of working class martyrs in their battle for workers rights.) But most people do not realize they are in fact recognizing a pagan festival by marking this day. Connection to Ancient Roman rituals thousands of years old, in fact. In pagan Europe it was a festive holy day celebrating the first spring planting. The ancient Celts and Saxons celebrated May 1st as Beltane or the day of fire. Bel was the Celtic god of the sun.

May is RED for me in my mind’s eye, when I think of the word I see RED from deep symbolism of the heart and life-force that pulses in all of us to the first tiny strawberries and cherries of the season. Red roses burst forth on a trellis in our garden and remind me that Spring has arrived, love is in the air!

We will be celebrating May day since my husband has the day off. (I wish I had some like minded friends around to make a may pole to dress in ribbons and dance around) Amaya will wear her red gingham dress and matching hat from Jan (thank you!) and we will go to a nearby farm to see the baby animals. Then we will garden, pick roses and make May baskets. Probably she will sprinkle rose petals throughout the house. She likes to smell the roses.

Other May day activities of lore include walking the circuit of one's property ("beating the bounds"), repairing fences and boundary markers, processions of chimney-sweeps and milk maids, May dolls, May hobby horses, archery tournaments, morris dances, sword dances, feasting, music, drinking, and maidens bathing their faces in the dew of May morning to retain their youthful beauty.

Take a walk through nature and enjoy spring in full beauty. Make May Baskets filled with flowers and give them to friends and neighbors, or to people in nursing homes or other facilities, shut-ins and loved ones.

Dance and sing in celebration of the day. Place a lit candle on the floor and jump over it for good fortune. Bless your garden and houseplants. Happy May Day!

Fragment of an Ode to Maia
By John Keats, 1795-1821

(Written on May-Day, 1818)

MOTHER of Hermes! and still youthful Maia!
May I sing to thee
As thou wast hymnèd on the shores of Baiæ?
Or may I woo thee
In earlier Sicilian? or thy smiles
Seek as they once were sought, in Grecian isles,
By bards who died content on pleasant sward,
Leaving great verse unto a little clan?
O give me their old vigour! and unheard
Save of the quiet primrose, and the span

Of heaven, and few ears
Rounded by thee, my song should die away
Content as theirs,
Rich in the simple worship of a day.

The Fool wakes at dawn from his long, restless night to find that the wild river has, at last, come to an end, quietly floating him into a serene pool. There is a walled garden around this pond dominated by roses, lilies and splendid, nodding sunflowers. Stepping ashore, he watches the Sun rise overhead, bright and golden. The day is clear. A child's laughter attracts his attention and he sees a little boy ride a small white pony into the garden.

"Come!" says the little boy, leaping off the horse and running up to him. "Come see!" And the child proceeds to take the Fool's hand and enthusiastically point out all manner of things, the busy insects in the grass, the seeds and petals on the sunflowers, the way the light sparkles on the pond. He asks questions of the Fool, simple but profound ones, like "Why is the sky blue?" He sings songs, and plays games with the Fool.

At one point the Fool stops, blinking up at the Sun so large and golden overhead, and he finds himself smiling, wider and brighter than he has in a very long time. Since he started on this spiritual journey, he has been tested and tried, confused and scared, dismayed and amazed. But this is the first time that he has been simply and purely happy. His mind feels illuminated, his soul light and bright as a sunbeam. Like the great Sun itself, this child with his simple questions, games and songs, has helped the Fool see the world and himself anew, to wonder at and appreciate both. "Who are you?" the Fool asks the child at last. The child smiles at this and seems to shine. And then he grows brighter and brighter until he turns into pure sunlight. "I'm You," the boy's voice says throughout the garden, "The new you." And as the words fill the Fool with warmth and energy, he comes to realize that this garden, the sun above, the child, all exist within him. He has just met his own inner light.

At 7am, while I hung the cleaned-with-nuts and handmade laundry soap diapers, the birds chanted a sing-song. Chatter, chatter, chirp, chirp. No one was around except the stray tiger cat who was sleeping in a box in my garage where I string up our wet clothes and store food staples including carboys of water, wine and numerous jars of fermenting goodies like kimchee.

At night before I went to bed, basically we go bed when it gets dark, I heard frogs gribbiting to each other like a gregarious senatorial debate. We don’t even live out in the countryside (yet!) While our village is rural, this summer it will bulge to 100,000 tourists flocking to the sandy beaches and discoing the night away often ‘til 4am right outside our frontdoor. One of the biggest reasons to move to the country, into the mountains, I am hoping is to be really alone. That and to have chickens and our own power.

We already live slower here so I guess that is a headstart. I just finished reading My Life in France about Julia Child’s years in France and she kept mentioning how they unwound when they arrived in France, how they slowed down their pace and relaxed. I loved her focus on food and getting out to know the producers of her food as well in France. It was a lovely book.

The other day, I saw a woman walking across the main square of our nearest big town, Beziers. She was dressed up, walking very fast amidst a sea of people ho humming slowly, dragging their feet, taking life in. She looked so incongruous. I thought to myself, that used to be me. Recently, I gave away all my high heels and business suits. With a toddler, I don’t have the need or the arches to wear those any longer. I also move slower (for me). I watched a video of Amaya dumping cereal on the floor and my voice is paused, relaxed, unreactive. “Oh, Amaya, what did you do?” I said very slowly. She giggled and stomped on the corn flakes. I kept filming.

We are off to the farmers market to get some fresh milk. Then we are going to the beach before the hoards of tourists arrive. I will pack a picnic lunch with fruit, zucchini ricotta tarte, a bottle of rosé, baguettes, and a chocolate pie and enjoy the company of our friends. This is our slow Life in France. The laundry will be dry by the time we get home and the cycle will start all over again.

It’s Earth Day almost everyday at our house so I thought that I would recap what we have been up to now that our slow year is almost 9 months old. It’s gone so quickly and I feel at each step I am learning something new about myself and my impact on the earth.

Last night we all took bath using the same water. We only bathe twice a week. Our water bill was cut in half this last year. Could be because we also reuse that bath water to wash our floors and our hand washables and a bucket is reserved for soaking poopy cloth diapers and I rinse the stairwell outside of stray cat pee (we have 5 stray cats right now that sleep in our garage). Occasionally, I’ll use a bucket of bath water to flush the toilet too. Mostly we follow the yellow/mellow rule chez nous.

This week I have been boiling our good spring tap water on the woodstove (yes, it’s still so cold here) and storing the water in food grade carboys that I found in grandpa’s garage. The boiling sterilizes the water, but I will also put a drop or two of Iodine in it to make it keep longer. The carboys used to contain wine, so in a way the acid of the wine will also inhibit bacterias. Water is so precious, I don’t think we realize how much we take it for granted.

It would be great to plant a tree today, that is one of best things that we can do to replace the oxygen that is being lost due to aggressive capitalism and materialism across the globe. Our little garden is doing well, 3 inch tomato plants are striving, we have lettuces, cilantro, shallots, potatoes and tomatillos coming along. Not enough for us to eat solely, we rely on our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farmer to plant and provide a basket of vegetables and fruit each week in exchange for 12€ a week that we gave him months ago. He told us that April is not a good month so we are eating a lot of kohlrabi and leeks which we don’t mind at all. I enjoy eating what is in season and living through all the ups and downs of a farming lifestyle. We plan to go visit his farm and check out his ostriches that he is raising for meat.

Speaking of meat, since our month of Meet your Meat we are still doing that. It’s a respectful thing to do and forces us to know where our meat is coming from and because of that we eat a lot less of it and use more things that we wouldn’t have previous like the offal, head and feet. We placed a big order for organic beef where I will also be getting the tripe and bones. We haven’t been to the chicken farm near our house in two months so today we will go and get two really, really free range birds and a few dozen eggs to keep us for a couple more months.

Our food costs? We spend about 1/4^th of what we previously spent and it’s all organic. We eat like kings, I think! I use up all of each item we have like it’s a blessing which it is; in the fridge is a bowl for scraps of vegetables to be used somehow and another bag in the freezer. 100 € for 12 kilos of organic beef (ground beef and steaks) plus 2 kilos of liver and tripe, the bones she gave us for free will last us for half the year. 30€ at the organic pig farm keeps us in bacon, lard, pork ribs, pork loin and sausages for a month and a half. 40€ at the chicken farm will give us guinea fowl, rabbit and eggs for two months. 50€ per two month gets us our pantry items.

Last week, I made sausages to last us for half the summer and this week I am curing bacon with maple syrup which should last us two months or more. I love making things that I love to eat and drink: Kombucha, Kefir water made with lemons and figs, or blackberries (that I picked last summer) are so good and now I will try my hand at making my own honey wheat beer! I finished up the last of the ginger beer and will make another batch of that as well. We have no lack of drinks around here.

Cloth diapers are doing well and Amaya is transitioning to the little pottie. We found Benji’s toilet training chair (an antique for sure) in grandpa’s garage and Amaya made her first caca in it last night! We all clapped with joy. While we keep a roll of toilet paper for guests, we ourselves use family wipes. My husband may want toilet paper at the end of the slow year, but I prefer the softer and more sanitary cloth wipes.

We keep finding clothes and shoes and books to give away. We have no need to buy clothes or fabric, if we are willing to be creative. This week we are giving twelve pairs of mens and womens shoes to a shelter. Our friends have generously given us clothes for Amaya and now its our turn to find friends that need them for a third or fourth wearing. I have culled my clothes three times and know that there is room to get liberate more.

Our electric bill has been cut in half. We try to be smarter about when to use appliances and when not to. Also doing laundry in cold water, unplugging everything, replaced our old fridge, cooking most dinners on the woodstove, not using electric heat nor air conditioning, not washing our clothes as often, keeping the water heat turned off, replaced all the light bulbs with energy efficient ones are the little things that we are doing. Eventually we will get better and when the time comes that we use only solar and wind power, we will be able to live off less watts off the grid. That is our goal. Maybe we will plant a tree today too.

Six days of being lulled to sleep on gentle waters after glasses of perfectly paired wine and glorious dinners (made by someone else) turned out to be my recipe for back relief, unlocking that Rubix cube that is my brain and opening my eyes even further. Doing yoga on the deck while the barge slowly plowed through the scenic waters and talking for hours with a psychotherapist for days didn’t hurt either. How lucky was I that one was taking her vacation onboard? (thank you Linda, I *heart* you!) I didn’t write anything for a week nor did I get near a computer, I let my mind break down and I lent towards the flow instead of against it.

As we passed through each lock and there were at least 12, my mind opened up to a specific false pillar in my life, another layer was shed. The waters filled rapidly and lifted us all up, the metal doors creaked open and we barged forth, full steam ahead until the next set of doors. Closed in much like the trash compactor from Star Wars. I made the Chewbacca roar as the waters spurted into the olive shaped basin and my heart beat quickly as all control of my life was swept away.

I dreamt that my back was covered in bruises and in that dream the bruises evaporated like invisible ink until they were totally gone (I also dreamt that I was Amish and had 8 children so who knows). My back is better. The hurt is gone. I drank copious amounts of local wine; let plenty of strong Languedoc winds blow through my soul; I photographed stone ruins and baby ducks and ate some of the best regional food ever.

For a few moments, the captain let me take the helm and I steered like a drunk sailor just barely nipping the edges of the tow path which were lined with yellow water irises. We visited Cathar castles and 13^th century wine making chateaux on land excursions, wandered cobble stone streets and marveled at the beautiful French countryside.

It was with tears in my eyes, I walked the plank to disembark this morning, waving goodbye to my ship mates, the ones with whom we shared our secrets under whispering plane trees deep in the heart of the Languedoc. Back home, my responsibilities fall heavily back onto my shoulders. I hope to take what I learned from the locks and use it to wash away the tears, to lean into the current of the water and let it take me further along, to use my resources to unburden myself (like the water which distrib