City girl, fear not: urban gardening is easy, simple, and fire-escape-proof.

What’s new in the EcoSalon Community? Me! It’s Mike Lieberman of Urban Organic Gardener and the Eco-Salon Manscaping feature from earlier in the year.

For those of you that aren’t familiar with my work, I show people with little to no land how to start growing their own food so they can avoid toxic pesticides, eat healthier and not feel limited by their lack of experience and space.

That’s what I’m going to be sharing with you in a 2012 series here on EcoSalon. Since I’m a man of the people, I would love to know what questions or topics you would like to see covered? I’ll do my best to get them answered.

Have a great rest of 2011 and look forward to connecting with more of you in 2012!

Mike Lieberman shows people with little to no land how to start growing their own food so they can avoid toxic pesticides, eat healthier and not feel limited by their lack of experience and space. Catch him on Twitter and Facebook.

Image: LOLren

ColumnWhat will your do with your wild hair?

Every few years I get what’s known in the parlance as a wild hair. These are more than mere hankerings, yens and yearnings. I feel them before I understand them, but by now I know better than to question them. The result of this is always swift, powerful change. I happened to drive to Los Angeles on Saturday in order to get some EcoSalon matters squared away, and halfway down the 5, it happened. I realized the real reason for the trip was something else entirely. Hello, wild hair.

Dinner with pals at The Tasting Kitchen in Venice (lovely branzino, by the way, order it with a Baby Bird cocktail), 7 p.m. Checkpoint: Oh yeah. Something’s going on. Tossing and turning with enervated, inexplicable insomnia, 1 a.m. Checkpoint: I’m awake, already! What? Brunch with a think-different-now, go-get-em-girl musician friend, 11 a.m.: Like it was in the cards all along. And the unexpected, sudden change in the work schedule for the day, 1 p.m.? No surprise at all.

When I lived in Los Angeles, I used to go on runs to a spot on the bluffs of Pacific Palisades. These hills just beyond Temescal High School are lined with a grassy dog park and benches, only a few feet from the edge, the whole of the Pacific Ocean spreading out below. From this vantage point, you can gaze in the distance at Long Beach and Malibu; you can sense the gentle curve of the planet. The sea sparkles some days, and is a mirage of sunlit mist other days. My bench was lower and more secluded than the others, below some wild chapparal on a ledge jutting out from the bluffs. This was my thinking spot for years, a place where I made many important decisions and renewed commitments. And on Sunday, I knew exactly where I belonged.

The last Wild Hair Incident, just over three years ago, resulted in radical change in my life of the external sort. It’s why I’m here talking to you, in fact. This time is different, a kinder, gentler fire under the ass. So, no: I’m not adopting an African baby or marrying a rock star or moving to an ashram. I’m still me, here. But while I’m here, I want to say something to you.

Right now, what do you really want to say to that person? Stop reading and go say it. You know how to say it. It’s the right thing to say. Say it.

Forget this year. Think about this decade. What do you want out of it? Start working backwards right now. Do not wait. We need you.

And just stop.

Stop faxing. Who faxes? If they want you to fax it, refuse. Insist on an email. Nobody needs to be faxing, period, ever. Get a scanner and tell them to try out the new century, they’ll like it.

Tell the market it is not acceptable that they do not have organic dairy products and are still selling conventional strawberries. Just tell them. They will change.

Don’t text. Pick up the phone. Don’t surf, pick up a novel. If it is not about creating, changing, or cramming things of value into that brain of yours, do not do it. If it is not getting you where you want to go, and you know exactly where you want to go, do not give it any thought.

Don’t wait if you already know the right thing. Good men don’t wait and neither do good women. Everything is always in flux, always changing, and waiting or not waiting does not slow the pace of change or make something more right. Start making your decisions quickly; yes or no, in or out. Light your own fire.

How do I know you can do this? Because you’re here, right now, with me. A few weeks ago I was thinking about the EcoSalon audience – yes, I do that – and the thought that twigged me most persistently was how powerful you are. Today’s marketing-savvy consumer can trot out the facts and figures about how women control the dollars as well as any advertiser I know; we’re 80% that, 60% this. You can probably tell me more about what marketers do than they can. Anyone who has seen a commercial or received a promotional offer knows this power implicitly. But do you know it?

AOL just bought The Huffington Post for $315 million. Arianna Huffington is now the president of AOL’s content, and content is their strategy for the foreseeable future. The reason? As put by the perennially rude (and brilliant) Paul Carr on TechCrunch, “Tim Armstrong has just sent to all AOL staffers: ‘The Huffington Post is core to our strategy and our 80:80:80 focus – 80% of domestic spending is done by women, 80% of commerce happens locally and 80% of considered purchases are driven by influencers. The influencer part of the strategy is important and will be potent.’ Or put another way, ‘we bought the Huffington Post because it’s full of important women who buy things’.”

Do you actually know your power? Or are you just saying you do? Elle‘s slogan is “Cherchez La Femme”: Look for the woman. Why? Because women are behind everything. Our motto is “Have a Heart.” Why? Because everything you need, absolutely, ever, to create change, to create a life of meaning, to leave this place better than you found it, is right inside you now.

You’re powerful and you know it and so do I, and I expect you to make good use of it. Consider this your wild hair. Now, what are you going to do?

This is the latest installment in your editor’s new column for 2011, The Insider’s Guide to Life, exploring topics such as media, culture, sex, politics, and style. Cheers and spellcheck!

Image: NeilArmstrong2

1. Diversify your feedback-collection methods.
Nothing like asking a fifteen year old and a seventy-five year old what they think about you, your business plan, or your last relationship decision.

2. Hit up the experts.
Take your CEO to lunch for a preemptive performance review and some tips on how to gracefully scramble the ladder. Ask a gifted writer what they really think of your pitch letter. Hire a stylist to purge your swollen closet. It may sting, it may be a major relief, but either way, expert opinions will propel you to the top of your game.

3. Work with people who are savvier, speedier and more accomplished than you.
Last year, I advised a mega-stellar online magazine that has the #1 community forum on the ‘net – a super savvy duo who are #1 in their industry and have one of the finest business plans I’ve seen, and a kick-ass marketing forum of some of the best and brightest marketers, motivators, and communicators on earth. With each client, I had to leap further to meet my intuition, dig deeper into the industry, and listen more actively. They made me sweat, spin and soar. I learned some new dance moves.

4. Stand naked in front of a full-length mirror.
Don’t leave until you can say three deeply loving things about your physique, the miracle of your health, and your full-bloom humanity.

5. Dust off the chopping block.
Fire your most irritating client, team member, or energy-abusing friend. You’ll wished you’d done it a long time ago.

6. Kill the chatter.
Turn off the TV. Commute without talk radio. Remove the iPod earbuds. The silence may shatter you. With our addiction to noise and distraction held at bay, our painful beauty and genius has room to surface.

7. Underachieve.
Attention, Type-As and workaholics. You are hereby invited to slack off. For one week, cryogenically freeze your to-do list. (I know, your palms are sweating at the very thought.) Set aside your novel, your knitting project, your non-critical responsibilities. Be late just because you wanted an extra five minutes in the hot shower.

8. As the Dalai Lama says, “Love until it hurts.”
Personally, this would mean volunteering at an old age home. I can hardly bear the wastage and scarcity of dignity that characterize most nursing homes. It slays me. I always leave a total wreck, with renewed appreciation for…everything.

9. Say no.
Only offer the simple explanation that “it just doesn’t feel right.”

10. Say yes.
Just for the hell of it. Whimsy rarely leads to social exile, destruction or doom. Be expansive – and see what unfurls.

Editor’s Note: Danielle LaPorte is the creator of WhiteHotTruth.com, which has been called “the best place on-line for kick-ass spirituality.” She is the author of The Fire Starter Sessions: A Digital Experience for Entrepreneurs, an inspirational speaker, former think tank exec, and news show commentator. You can read all of Danielle’s EcoSalon guest articles here, and find her on Twitter @daniellelaporte.

Image: mahalie

Multi-functional furniture like the ottomans with extra storage inside? A media console that houses our tech gadgets and a few rows of books, too? Love it all. But those can hardly compete with the awesomeness that is pigeontail design‘s papervore coffee table.

See, this clever contraption serves as paper shredder, coffee table, and conversation piece. It actually “eats” paper as you feed it through the slot at the top and turn the crank, then the colorful paper shreds becomes part of your décor until you’re ready to recycle it.

The papervore is made of bent, powder-coated aluminum for a sleek, modern look. Its hand crank eliminates the need for electricity or unsightly cords (and ensures that you don’t accidentally shred anything important.)

We love the idea of making something practical like a paper shredder into a focal point of the living room, rather than something you hide in a corner until you’re ready to use it. And now that we think about it, you could store or display other items in the clear tray, since it pulls out when you need to remove the paper. Maybe a colorful vase or a stack of books?

Hi, I’m Sara and my life is one big, fat, unmitigated episode of relentless luxury.

I can explain.

I came to this realization this morning as I was getting ready for work. Yes, work, where I change the world by surfing the tubes, swapping tweets and drooling over sustainably shiny shoes. The indignities never end. There’s me, at 8 a.m., swirling something shimmering and organic on my eyelids with a very soft, very small brush. Fifteen minutes before that was more trial and tribulation in the kitchen, where I was shivering thanks to my bare feet on the equally bare bamboo floor and was forced to reach for my handmade-by-adorable-developing-world-children-of-legal-working-age, soft wool slippers.

Thankfully, my fair trade French press coffee with local cream warmed me up enough to make my way back to my master bedroom where I reviewed the contents of my closet and pulled on all sorts of also soft, stylish things. Layering can be stressful, so it’s a good thing I’ve got my chosen companion animal milling around my ankles, helpfully mewing moral support. Poor thing, she’s soon to be carted off to the groomer’s for an earth-friendly bath and blow out. Like me, she suffers.

It gets worse, this crashing series of mainly soft things that is my life. Each night, if I don’t have dinner plans, I have to cook dinner. That’s the merciless reward at the end of a long day of work, which required getting up before noon, showering in a big glass shower with all sorts of scrubby, fruity, flowery gels and potions, making myself pretty and fresh, and did I mention making myself pretty?

But wait, there’s more!

These things are not stresses or difficulties at all, and of course that’s my point. This morning, looking into my considerately-lit vanity mirror, I became aware of what I was doing. I mean really aware. Makeup. Hair. Products. Jewelry. Clothes. Music and meows in the background, I saw myself in the mirror. The ridiculous luck of it! I’ll say it again, and believe you me there’s neither guilt nor irony, just sheer, stupid, what. the. fuck: the ridiculous luck of it!

Mornings, my cat, Roo, knows to wake me up if I miss my alarm, sweetly chewing my face until I pop out of bed, scoop her up and “dance” with her for a few minutes as I make the coffee. It’s our routine and she expects it. If we don’t dance, I don’t hear the end of it: the digging-to-China-in-the-litter-box-till-4-a.m. gag is a sure thing. What an odd luxury that is, too, the litter box treatment. Odder still that I have a small housebound animal, a pet, with acres of fur so soft it startles me, who loves nothing more than to hang around me all the time. It’s all she knows. It’s her gig.

So here’s yours truly, far from perfect, being honest: I could really stand to be more grateful more often. We all could. Even when we’re tired and sick; even when the mortgage is late. I’m not even close to the millionth person to say this, but the actual, physical moments of life are so spectacular it boggles. That you have that soft brush to caress your face. That there’s coffee and before that, blankets like clouds. Music and food and movement and sex, and perhaps most of all, bills. (More on that in a moment.)

So here’s what I’m wondering: when did feeling good become such a chore? I did not sign up for that.

If you’ve ever groaned about having to apply your “face”; if you’ve ever sighed at just having to pick up the dry cleaning; if you’ve ever grumbled because you couldn’t afford yet another night out and needed to use those farmers’ market vegetables in a home cooked meal, you and me, my friend, we need an attitude adjustment.

Think about all the things that feel like chores for a lot of us: working out, cooking, showering, getting dressed, putting on makeup, running errands, paying bills, and yes, sex. How many moms have said goodbye to makeup except on days when there’s an appointment in the city? How many couples have let their sex lives dry up? How many singles opt for expensive dinners or cheap, unhealthy takeout over cooking up a bite to eat?

Ugh, I’ve got to work out. Yes, moving the body, such an onerous and unpleasant task. Which means I’ll have to wash my hair. Oh, the delicious smell! The invigorating scratching of fingernails against scalp! Steam-streaked smiley faces on the shower door!

Absolutely exhausting.

It is exhausting. Looking in the mirror here, we’ve all got way too much to do, and not nearly enough time to do it. Something’s wrong with this reflection.

There’s a character in the film Friends With Money, played by Frances McDormand, who struggles with chronic depression. Her compassionate husband is a shampoo tycoon and she can’t be bothered to wash her hair. In one scene, against the sunny backdrop of a Los Angeles farmers’ market, her friend (played by Catherine Keener) asks, kindly but firmly, how many weeks it’s been since she washed her filthy strands. McDormand’s lady grows visibly upset and mutters a helpless defense about it just getting dirty again.

In one of the final scenes in the film, she’s in the bathroom with her husband. They’re talking about life and marriage via shampoo and hair, and she reveals how sad she was to learn from him, early in their marriage, that all shampoos are pretty much the same beneath the scents and special packaging.

For her, and so many of us in one way or another, feeling good – feeling essentially human, in my book – has become a chore. What’s the point? It’s as if a collective depression has settled over our culture, like a pedal that won’t quite let up from the pump of the heart. All the wonderful things that define and enrich our humanity, our aliveness, seem with alarming consistency to be relegated to the Chore category. Whether it’s rouge or riesling, we’ve simply taken what used to be Sins and anointed them as Chores. Work, too, which in its own way feels good and enhances the spirit, is a chore for most of us, a means to an end that’s increasingly meaner.

No wonder going green is a tough sell. For Christ’s sake, we even frame that as a chore. Use less, consume less, sacrifice more. Sounds like a real scream. Nothing like inducing images of misery to get folks behind a cause. (The major marketing thrust of the green movement, that is, the idiocy of it, is a post for another time.)

Existence As Chore is pervasive, all right. Exhibit A: We all have a so-called chore at which we particularly excel in avoiding. For me, it’s not cooking. Cooking is a luxury, never a chore – it quells the wired in me. For me, honey, it’s money.

I thought about that this morning, too, as I twirled the mascara wand. (I’m taking another WTF: embellishing eyelashes.) I’m forever thinking of bills as to-do’s – annoying but necessary tasks to be crossed off until the next month. I suddenly saw that my relationship with money is, um, putting it mildly, dysfunctional. Really, those “bills” are tickets to living. The car insurance isn’t a pain in the butt that leads to something great, it is, in itself, great. I’m serious! By the time I got to the eyeliner I was shaking my head at myself in the mirror. Self, I thought, paying bills should bring you joy.

Yes, joy, and so much joy I can’t stand it. I can get so focused on the payment, whether in the form of the last few seconds of Warrior pose or clicking “Confirm Amount”, I forget that the means themselves are wonderful ends, rich and rewarding in their own right.

I don’t know about the power of positive thinking on this one. Sociological shifts aren’t usually a happy thought or two away. And, hey, maybe my radar is bent and we’re all a bunch of chipper chipmunks after all.

If we’re fine and we’ve got it all figured out, I’m happily the fool. But has anyone stopped to ask when, and for the love of god why, we started considering the basic elements of living, of feeling good, of being human, as chores? If we learned anything from crazy pants Nietzsche, it’s that a culture that accounts for good as bad is a sick one. All these chores are not chores at all. They’re part of life, and they’re the better part. They are luxuries.

Image: Mattia Campo

There’s green action. Then there’s green soul. You can change your light bulbs, recycle and buy organic. Or you can choose to be green – living with consciousness and integrity – deep in your very core.

The book Most Good, Least Harm explores this difference, which the author, Zoe Weil, dubs MOGO. She urges readers to investigate their actions and impact in order to live and create a life that works for the highest good. In her own words:

This is not a how-to book with prescribed choices for doing the most good and least harm. It is, instead, a call to define for yourself your deepest values and to live accordingly.

But the author also takes into account the conflicts this can cause. For example, she used a computer to write her book and educate about MOGO, but is aware of the toxic chemicals used in computer production. She promotes critical thinking for all of us to address these challenges in our everyday lives and, after analyzing the situation, work for the highest good.

The seven keys to MOGO are:
Live your Epitaph
Pursue Joy through Service
Make Connections and Self-Reflect
Model Your Message and Work for Change
Find and Create Community
Take Responsibility
Strive for Balance

For those who could use some down-to-earth guidance beyond the rhetoric, a helpful questionnaire and action plan is included, plus pages of detailed information and a list of online resources to help you on your way.

Living your epitaph – it puts things in a diffferent perspective, doesn’t it? Clearly, creating a life of the highest integrity requires a great deal of introspection and the changes required can seem intimidating. But the author is not asking for overnight change; rather, she seeks to inspire us to think and act from a higher place and make the changes we feel we need to make, at our own pace and one at a time. MOGO is a process, and it’s one we urgently need.

Author Zoe Weil

Over the last 12 months, we’ve seen some of the best, worst and most unusual that green architecture has to offer, from shipping container hotels to conference yurts. We’ve seen a host of exciting new ideas brought to the table – and here are a few that particularly won us over.

Bricks and mortar…on water?

It’s been hard to escape the Lilypad this year – thanks to a stunning design, jaw-dropping promotional images and an idea that seems way ahead of its time. A method of living on the two-thirds of our planet’s surface hitherto denied us – and doing so sustainably? Much more appetizing than growing gills, I’m sure we’re agreed.

Except – a nagging doubt. Look at the above picture. The word that springs to my mind isn’t “society” or “community” – it’s “elite”. Are sea-housing projects going to become something that local governments could afford to invest heavily in…or just a series of privately-financed, ultra-exclusive floating Dubais? If sea levels rise catastrophically, would the less wealthy be left stranded?

The Rise of the Truly Fab Prefab

Terraced houses. Entire streets that look exactly the same. Apartment blocks that look like a bureaucrat’s dream Lego set. And all because houses are built before they’re sold.

Let’s imagine something. Let’s say you buy the land first, then go shopping for a house to put on it. It’s a practice only just creeping into the mainstream housing market – and we couldn’t love it more (see here and here). Prefabs all look different, they’re custom built, and they’re testbeds for the cutting edge in new eco-friendly materials. I dream that one day, our children will buy their houses out of a catalogue.

Branching Out and Hanging Around

Tree hugger -”An environmentalist or one who believes trees and all living things should not be cut down or harmed.” In decades past, popularly equated with “nut”. But now, designers are waking up to the potential of living wood – whether it’s affixing human homes within the branches of trees, having trees growing (or “pleaching“) through houses or, most recently, the perfect tree hugger abode. We’re not going to see city-sized Lothloriens or streets looking like Patrick Dougherty sculptures anytime soon…but we’re thinking about it.

Scraping the Sky v2.0

It’s only recently in human history that we’ve starting building upwards on a skyscraping scale. Now these vast structures are becoming self-contained worlds, gathering energy, self-regulating and even growing their own food. So why do they have to be so boxy? They don’t. Take the Superstar (above): a model for a new kind of Chinatown.

Or the amazing pulled-spiderweb shape of the Crystal City, Moscow.

Or this Moon Shaped Skyscraper proposed for Baku, Azerbaijan.

On one level, genius at play – on another, mad as a hatstand. But the wider implication is that skyscraper designers are leaving behind the Giant’s Causeway urban template and borrowing a wider range of shapes from the natural world. More, please.

Buildings That Earn Their Keep

Everything we do around the home expends energy (unless you’re as lazy as I am). We ingest food, it turns into chemical energy, we expend it in mechanical effort. And then, that energy is wasted, usually as heat (friction). Could we divert some of it into powering our homes?

The signs are good. Take the door of the Natuurcafé La Port in Driebergen in the Netherlands – similar to a project undertaken by Fluxxlab. Take the power-generating floors of the Tokyo railway station. It’s not otherworldly technology, although it’ll be years before we see domestic housing using such features as standard. We can’t wait.

Something Sustainable Afoot

Forget polyvinyl flooring – the kind you see poking out of landfills with depressing regularity. Forget synthetic carpets that only really tell you what they’re made of when you singe them, filling the air with a smell you’ll take to your grave. No – we’d rather see acres of cork and bamboo flooring lining the next generation of homes. Green, gorgeous, great potential.

Turfing your Turf

Covering the outside and inside of your house with grass might sound like the work of a deranged golfing fanatic – but it makes sense. Now we’re seeing the concept at work in the street, such as the above fashion store in Seoul, Korea.

Electricity as a Last Resort

As wonderful as the rise of alternate energy is, there’s something we like even more – a home that doesn’t need it. Take the role of sunpipes in casting natural light deep into our homes without the slightest sizzle of power – and how about us rethinking our need to set our homes ablaze in the evenings? Take passive housing. Will the dream house of tomorrow have a dream electricity bill?

Buildings That Make You Sweat

Here in the U.K., obesity has just been labeled “one of the greatest public health threats“. Part of the root cause is lack of exercise – and part of that is surely the rise in modern labor-saving devices. So we applaud designers like Bruce Fowle who want to turn buildings and cities into gentle gyms.

These are our favorites. What are yours? If you’ve found something relevant (or blogged about it), share the link in the comments.

Image credits: Vincent Callebaut Architectures, miniHome, Apartment Therapy, Inhabitat, MAD Ltd, Foster and Partners, Civil Engineering Portal, Globus, Ann Demeulemeester, seeks2dream and Dustin Diaz.

The usual Thanksgiving suspects can be so heavy – especially when all are combined – mashed potatoes, stuffing, and rolls, oh my!

Try this ethereal soufflé. It will dress up your Thanksgiving table without causing havoc in the kitchen. It really is easy. Cook the squash a few days ahead and you can mix it up quickly and bake it while the turkey (or tofurkey) rests.

When selecting your squash, do yourself a favor and visit a local farmers’ market to savor all the gorgeous local, organic varieties available right now in every part of the country. You’ll want something orange-fleshed and drier, rather than moist. I used kabocha (shown) when I developed this recipe.

Do the first step of the recipe up to three days ahead for Thanksgiving Day ease of preparation. Simply cut the squash into chunks of equal size and put it in a baking dish. Pour a little water in the bottom of the dish, cover it tightly with a lid or foil, and bake until tender at 400 degrees. When cool enough to handle, scoop the flesh from the skin and refrigerate until ready to use.

Now to the recipe:

Serves 8

3 1/3 cups of cooked orange squash flesh
1 teaspoon chopped fresh organic thyme
6 organic eggs, separated
2/3 cup organic buttermilk
Salt and pepper
1 cup grated organic cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Put the squash in a medium bowl and mash it with a potato masher until broken down and fluffy. Add the thyme, egg yolks, buttermilk and salt and pepper. (To taste for proper seasoning, microwave a small amount or cook a little in a non-stick pan.) Add the cheese and mix to combine. In another medium bowl, with a handheld electric mixer, beat the egg whites until medium peaks form. Fold the egg whites carefully into the squash mixture, being careful not to over mix and deflate the mixture.

Transfer to an 8 cup casserole dish and bake for 40-50 minutes until dry, firm, and beginning to brown. Serve immediately.

Recipe Copyright Vanessa Barrington 2008

Image: The Kitchn

The tradition of celebrating Dia de Los Muertos or “Day of the Dead” in Mexico dates back to Pre-Colombian religious rituals of the indigenous population of Mexico. Death was not something to be feared or dreaded, nor was it something final. Instead, Mexican philosophy held that the spirit of a person continued to live even after the physical body ceased to exist.  

Halloween is around the same time that Dia de los Muertos is celebrated (November 1st and 2nd,  two of the most important dates for this celebration). While we are out gathering candy, in Mexico people are traditionally decorating home altars and grave sites and making elaborate food for picnics at the cemetery of their loved ones who have passed on. It is customary to prepare food and drink and offer up utensils to your loved ones who have died to assist them in their journey into the afterworld. Of course, I am sure a few of my relatives wouldn’t have minded a few Reeses Pieces or Mars Bars for their journey; however, some good home cooking at this culturally important time of year can leave all of us feeling pretty peaceful. Whether you celebrate Dia de Los Muertos, Halloween, or both, here’s a fantastic and healthy recipe that comes out of the dynamic celebration:

Pumpkin Guacamole

2 ripe Haas Avocados
1 small pumpkin
1 onion finely chopped
1/2 Jalapeño finely chopped (optional)
1/2 apple chopped
1/2 cup pomegranate seeds
salt to taste
1/2 lime squeezed 

Cut off top of pumpkin. Scoop out seeds and roast pumpkin until soft in an oven set at 350 degrees. Mash in avocados, fold in onion, jalapeño, apples and pomegranate seeds. Squeeze lime to taste, and add salt to taste. Use shell of pumpkin to stuff avocado mix and serve with warm corn tortillas.

Image: tambako the dragon

This is my favorite season, late summer. I recall the dimming and faint sound of crickets as their time comes to a close and other sounds of nature simply just seem to be slowing down and becoming more still. Leaves are fullest and the wind captures this heaviness. Gardens look different, fruit and vegetables are abundant and some are even rotting on the vine. There is a gathering in feeling, a slowing down of production.

On the flip side, our culture doesn’t generally heed to nature’s call and we seem to get busier as school begins, and the hustle of both business and school take a spring-like feel. (Once again, an example of humans vs. nature, and humans go against the natural flow of nature’s slow-down at this time.)

In Classical Chinese Medicine, this season of late summer is referred to as the season of Earth. The Chinese associated the power of “decrease” with late summer, and at the same time referred to it as the period of abundance; as such, it connotes nourishment and abundance. With the coming of late summer, nature returns the fruits it has made, which are ripe and ready to be picked. And as we move into autumn we have an abundant harvest, enabling us to survive the winter without scarcity.

Though most of us today may not grow our own food, we ought to keep sight of the fact that prior to being put in packets and stacked in supermarkets, the food we consume is nonetheless a gift from the earth.

Here are my suggestions for living in harmony with the late summer season:

Enjoy the abundance of fruits and fresh vegetables. Be aware of their special qualities, each succulence different from the next. Luscious tomatoes, sweet peaches, dense eggplants, cool cucumbers, crisp carrots”¦

Look at the seeds, and reflect on the fact that within each harvest lays the seeds of the next. Be conscious of the harvest of your life. Think about yourself, your relationships, and your work. What parts of your life are bearing fruit? Holding your harvest in mind, ask what is overgrown or unneeded and consider what you need to do to make ready for the next season: autumn, a time of letting go.

My favorite recipe for this season: tomato salad.

You’ll need 5 ripe tomatoes (heirloom tomatoes are wonderful) sliced in half; some fresh red onion sliced lengthwise in thin paper-like slices; 1 cup of fresh basil leaves, no stems; 1 fresh garlic clove; 1 cup of extra virgin olive oil; white balsamic vinegar; fresh cracked pepper; a dash of salt.

Put basil leaves, garlic, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar, in a food processor and mix until a pesto is made. Drizzle over tomatoes and onions. Salt and pepper to taste. Toss and serve. My favorite is to serve this with a pilaf of quinoa and finely-chopped dates. Recipe to come.

Image: ellievanhoutte