fortification

or, some thoughts on surviving the next wave

It’s been many, many months since I last had the energy to write a newsletter. As I prepare to shelter-in-place and ease my way back into this practice, I thought I’d share five of the sweet, heart-warming things that are most nourishing to me right now.

Samin Nosrat’s adas polo o morgh (chicken with lentil rice)

I’ve been eyeing this recipe since I first got her Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat cookbook. I ~finally~ got motivated to try it out during those non-stop rainstorms that were battering the city. I made two batches: First, for a close friend recovering from the virus and for someone dear recovering from a deep loss, and both times there was enough to portion out ample helpings for them and for me, with leftovers. Samin wrote that she was always asking her mom to make this meal as a kid, and I can see why: It comes together almost effortlessly, filling the entire house with warm, grounding smells. There’s a step that involves toasting dried rice in butter, onions, saffron and cumin that is unbelievably rich. Then you add dates and golden raisins…..sumptuous. The final result is sweet and savory, finding the balance of depth without being too heavy. It’s a generous recipe, the kind you can imagine returning to again and again, like bone broth, when you need to eat your comfort and remember that no matter how awful and endless this time feels, it will eventually pass.

Derek Jarman’s Garden

In the late 1980s, the legendary British filmmaker Derek Jarman bought a cottage off the coast of Kent, England, shortly after learning he was HIV-positive. With the help of friends, including longtime collaborator Tilda Swinton, he painted the outside pitch black with a buttery yellow trim and renovated the inside to suit his minimal needs. Then, he began the real work: The landscape that accompanies his house. Jarman spent his final years nurturing a magical garden filled with sea kale, sculptures crafted from sea refuse, stones arranged in circles, herbs and wildflowers, all within clear and comical view of a nuclear power station. The garden itself grew a reputation — the photographer Howard Sooley spent many months there, capturing the plants and Jarman at work tending to them. Lovers and friends often visited as well. It was the subject of a film, and more recently, a fundraising project to restore the house, preserve his letters, and keep the house from falling into disrepair or the hands of private collectors. It will also be a public center and perhaps even an artists retreat. To me, Jarman’s project became a meditation on prioritizing care in the face of state-sanctioned neglect, finding beauty in desolation and turning ruin into creation. It's winter, so I'm not able to garden as much as I'd like, but reading about practice as purpose and the value of finding art in everything around us is almost as good. I’m reminded of the value of inviting friends in to work our gardens, and enjoy the seeds we sow, too.

Singing Bowls

A short sound meditation that is the equivalent of taking a Xanax or downing two glasses of pet nat for my brain. Immediate, effective, but no guilt or hangover. The bowls are transcendent, their healing properties legendary, even digitally. I play this to go to sleep, to unwind, to meditate. It’s delicious, and transports me to my last major gathering pre-pandemic - sound teacher training in upstate New York.

Keith Jarrett, The Köln Concert

When I’m not blissed out to Tibetian singing bowls, I’m root chakra-deep in this album from January 1975. The lore goes that Keith drove six hours to the concert in a pouring rainstorm, wearing an uncomfortable brace to support an aching back only to find that the Köln Opera house didn’t have a functioning grand piano for him to play. The pedals barely worked. There wasn’t time to eat before he had to perform, so he sat down to play hungry, in pain and with mediocre tools. Yet the concert, four improvised songs, about an hour, became the best selling piano album in jazz history, an honor I think it still holds. I especially love Pt 2, B. The transition from lucidity and calm to the tension, the way the piano is appealing yearning, wanting. It’s sublime. I heard about the album from Rob Fields, the executive director of the Weeksville Heritage Center, who wrote that he admired and felt inspired by brilliance made from sheer dregs. “You go to work with the tools you have,” he said.

Mugwort

I’ve decided to stop resisting the arrival the cold and lean into the bounty of it. The darker months are a time for hibernation, for slowing down and stillness. It’s a time to examining our subconscious, to go inward, for paying attention to the moon and her cycles. Shorter days means more sleep and cooler temperatures mean less movement. Mugwort is my favorite plant ally for that. It soothes the nervous system, helps with upset stomachs, loosens the imagination. I grew some over the summer and dried it. I got an enormous bundle in my CSA this summer and dried that too. For my birthday, Mary gave me a tender bundle wrapped in blue cloth — lifted from her mother’s sacred stash, she later told me. I put some of that in a bath, the muggy scent blending with the dried vetiver I keep above the tub. Some of my favorite tinctures with mugwort: Awaken the Dreamer, by Candace of Conscious Homestead which I sometimes take before bundling up and having a walk; dream oil by Su of Moonmother Apothecary which you can use before bed and this Sync dried blend by Dropping Seeds which is great for teas, bathing or smoking. My dreams are always extra vivid and luminous after working with mugwort. It helps me traverse underworlds and envision otherworlds. And what are doing now if not traversing an underworld in search of other worlds?

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