To Begin with the Beginning

Paraphrasing Dickens, I'm excited today to begin at the beginning of the 30 Day Vegan Workshop hosted by Beauty That Moves. As I mentioned previously, I can't focus as exclusively on vegan food as I had originally planned, but I am striving to meet other wholesome, whole-living goals. And today was all about self-care.

Continuing the reorganization of my environment started this weekend, I cleared my desk of its accumulated papers and emptied my nightstand of all the detritus that had accumulated during my 6 weeks of bed rest. It looks less like a hospital side table and more like a nightstand now. In fact, while our house-decorating style will always be more Victorian horror vacui than modernist simplicity, I'm coming to embrace several aspects of wabi-sabi, the Japanese appreciation for beauty in used, old, or otherwise imperfect objects. In cleaning out my magazines, I came across an article in Mother Earth News (February/March 2011) that elucidated several of the principles, including, with my own descriptions:

• cultivate slowness, which reminds me of "when you wash the rice, wash the rice" and other Zen mindfulness teachings
• cultivate vision, or really look at what is in front of you
• cultivate craft--I recently heard of the "slow craft" movement (called "slow clothes" in this article on sewing in Brooklyn)
• cultivate cleanliness, going back to Zen, this reminds me of much of Karen Maezen Miller's writings, including her book Hand Wash Cold
• cultivate solitude, a "mommy time-out" to meditate for me
• cultivate space, space and light being two major aesthetic principles
• cultivate silence, which for me is turning off the noise of technology
• cultivate sabi, or respecting the beauty that comes with age and history
• cultivate soul, by embracing people over technology in what you buy, keep, and do
• cultivate imperfection . . . because I won't be able to enact all of these all the time!
• cultivate hospitality, so that I have a warm drink and a treat on hand for friends
• cultivate simplicity, again people over things, experiences over objects

It makes me want to re-evaluate every room in our house, taking out that which is simply there and leaving that which is most beautiful, most useful, and most meaningful. I also want to re-read with the kiddos Wabi-Sabi, the children's book by Mark Reibstein and Ed Young about the cat and the philosophy.

Finally, after all that cleaning, I've also done my treadmill exercises, spent some time outside during a break in the rain, and even brushed my teeth, washed my face, and cleaned my glasses midday for a little personal rejuvenation. Which is exactly what this course is giving me.