I just returned from watching a preview of Ghost on Broadway. It's a musical for our times. Why? I believe that we are slowly moving towards a more heart-based culture (or at least towards a culture that balances head and heart better than in the past), as well as a culture that acknowledges the unseen part of our reality more readily. This musical opens us up to both, as the characters move between different realities, seen and unseen, life and death, emotional and rational, mix them up, turn them inside out, and toss them up in the air. But besides all this emotional and in-between-life-and-death planes stuff, the production is a totally amazing technical tour de force and aesthetical eye candy. I just loved it.
the geraniums are back out
Although it’s early in the season, I think the geraniums are out for good because it has been such a warm winter and early spring.
There was a time when I didn’t know that geraniums are perennials. I rebought them every year like pansies. Now come November I take them in and keep them on the kitchen counter by the window where they bloom all winter long in their popping red. The children don’t like their peculiar smell and my husband finds that they take up too much space on the countertop. But I can’t bring myself to let the geraniums freeze to death in the fall and then rebuy new ones every spring. Not only is it wasteful and feeds that industrial machine, but I like feeling the circularity of the seasons via the geraniums. There is comfort in knowing that some things don’t change, that, come fall, the geraniums will be back inside with us.
an egg is not just an egg
Why do we complain so much about the price difference between organics and conventional foods? Quality – in eggs in this case - is something inherent that arises out of how and where the chicken lives, what it eats, and how it is treated. When eggs are grown in conditions as Nicholas Kristof describes them in today’s New York Times, is it any wonder that eggs from farm hens that run around freely and feed on grubs cost more? Their shells are strong and healthy, their yolks a deep yellow or orange, and the whites don’t run. While science has not yet come up with quick ways to measure the energetic and qualitative difference between a healthy and a weak and sick egg, yesterday’s cat food story illustrates the difference clearly. So, an egg is not just an egg. Without balking many people pay more for the perceived value of some name brand purse, then complain about the high price of organic foods. I believe we need to reevaluate our priorities.