Praying For...Gracie and her family, that they will have joy, peace, prosperity, health, and safety. These same blessings I ask for the families, orphans, and neglected children of the world. I pray that leaders of nations will loosen their tyrannical hold on the lives of people, go plant a garden with their children, do dishes with their spouses, listen their parents' stories, and work for peace on earth and good will toward ALL men. I pray that the people (including me) of the earth will stop fighting and act with charity.
The Herbalist...This week I helped someone help themselves right out of a case of pneumonia. Every waking hour this person drank a warm cup of honey tea that also included 2 droppers of lung formula, 2 droppers of x-ceptic, and 4 drops of frankincense essential oil. A few days ago, the pneumonia was so bad that SOB and chest pain were acute plus coughing was severe but not productive. Now there is no pain and breathing is easy with only an occasional very productive cough. X-ceptic contains white oak bark, golden seal root, myrrh gum, comfrey root, garlic and cayenne in a base of pure grain alcohol. Lung formula contains mullein, chickweed, marshmallow root, pleurisy root, and lobelia in base of vegetable glycerine, distilled water, and grain alcohol. Boiling water evaporates the alcohol. When I was a child, I didn't understand the gifts of the wise men to the Christ child. Ill with pneumonia or other such illnesses frankincense and myrrh are worth their weight in gold. The other herbs are wonderful, too.
The Sound of Music...More and more I am grateful that Jean Davis was hired by William C. Jack Elementary School in Glendale, Arizona to teach Suzuki violin. As I play hymns on my violin and piano, I feel the music as a prayer, a wonderful and even sacred experience. Indulging in this delight almost daily, I feel unimaginable joy. Without the patience and kindness of Miss Davis, this just would not be possible. (She was actually Mrs. Davis, but she was from the south where everyone is called Miss. Some children called her Miss Jean.) I wish I knew how to contact this dear friend and thank her for everything she did for me.
Movement...Lately, I've discovered the joy of yoga. Attending a class by the invitation of a friend, I experienced the peaceful, spiritual, prayerful nature of this form of meditation/exercise. It is wonderful to experience and appreciate the wonderful blessing of a healthy body. But....I just don't like the whole get ready, travel to, engage in, and travel home again drill of exercise classes. I found a free wonderful online yoga instructor and peaceful music. Now I can spend an hour or ten minutes expressing appreciation to God for my health and pray about so many things to this form of movement.
Garden Gate...I planted a few fruit trees in my yard. The cherries and espalier apple are doing wonderfully but the others are not so great. Maybe it is because the mini-dwarf cherries and espalier apple came to me packaged very well with root ball bound in damp paper and wrapped in plastic. The others came in a plastic garbage bag without any wrapping of any kind on the roots. The apple is from RainTree and the cherry from White Flower Farm. I also put in lots of new strawberries, shukstan's in memory of our years spent selling them at Pike's Place Market and seed started alpines to try something new. I probably have planted 300 strawberry plants in my flower beds over the years. They make a wonderful ground cover that choke out other weeds very sorta well. If I could keep the birds off, they might even feed us.
Bibliophilia...I'll ever be grateful that God led me to the healing science of plant-based nutrition. I'm reading Dr. McDougall's new book, The Starch Solution, that compliments Dr. Esselstyn's book, Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease and Dr. Campbell's book, The China Study. DE said the work of DM influenced the direction of his medical practice and research quite a bit in the beginning. Since I have a new group of scholars beginning this fall, I've been re-reading the book schedule from the beginning. Here is the first quarter. It's delightful-History of the Ancient World, Peter Pan Ponderings, Religions of the World: A Latter-Day Saint View, Mainspring of Human Progress, Whatever Happened to Penny Candy, Whatever Happened to Justice, Economics in One Lesson, The Drawing Textbook, The Spiritual Lives of the Great Composers, The Story of Art, Vocabulary for the College Bound Student, How to Read a Poem, Words of Delight, Our Young Folks' Josephus, Brightest Heaven of Invention, The Family Shakespeare, Plutarch’s Lives, The Children’s Homer, Botany for Beginners, Plants and Their Children, Astronomy for Amateurs, Discovering the Days of Creation~The Sixth Day: Anatomy Physiology, and Health, Keeping A Nature Journal Handbook of Nature Study, A First Course in Logic, Math, and Foreign Language. Plus, I am working with a 14-year-old scholar that has finished my program but opted out of CL testing. Because she is much too young to go off on her own, we plan to study a schedule of Gateway to the Great Books, The Great Books of the Western World, Complete Works of Shakespeare Edited by Thomas Bowdler, and the Harvard Classics over the next two or three years.
Lifelong Learning...I've been watching these lectures and reliving all the Montessori activities we did in our home years ago. I sooooo miss having small children. No, I don't miss everything, but I miss reading and doing things with my little children. Her lectures remind my of what I set out to do 30ish years ago and what I did/didn't accomplish.
Cucina Fresca...I'm having a delightful time inventing new recipes lately, which I post at Kate's Kitchen. Of course they are all oil-free, plant-perfect, nutrient dense, high fiber, no-cholesterol, soy-free, gluten-free, sugar-free, and filled with satiating complex-carbohydrates. The new twist is they take 15 minutes from start to finish. Of course I always have a pot of beans, brown rice, and potatoes in their jackets cooked and ready to go in the fridge, which allows for the short cooking time. This practice is frugal, takes little time, and keeps me from using processed products.
