winter

Tender Season

November 20, 2022 By Allison

This being human is a guest house
Every morning a new arrival […]
Welcome and entertain them all!
–Rumi

As we move into the holiday season, I find myself approaching each gesture with reverence. Zipping up my long, puffy jacket to meet the icy morning becomes an act of self-protection. Carving out 20 minutes to light a candle and practice yoga is a sort of prayer for a good night’s sleep.

These chilly, emotionally charged months call for tenderness. First and foremost, we must be tender with ourselves. I’ve spent the year learning to welcome all the emotions that arise. Exhilaration and sorrow both visited and stayed on for a while. Anger made its way through my guest house, but so did joy. When I tried to oust my uninvited guests, they hunkered down. In The Guest House, Rumi encourages us to

Be grateful for whatever comes,
Because each has been sent
As a guide from beyond.

At some point in this mind-boggling year, I stopped resisting the emotions I’d rather not feel. Sadness, grief, and outrage took up space in my house. I finally befriended them. I engaged with them. I ultimately tamed them. And then they left me. Allowing these guests to hang out for a while created an internal ease because I wasn’t focused on resisting them. My life went on, more or less uninterrupted. I traveled, I rested, and come fall, I threw myself into my work. All the while, I tended to my guests, moving through successive ups and downs.

I learned to be tender with the effects of betrayal and the deep hurt that ensues. I was patient with my healing process, extending grace to myself when I seemed to backslide. Thankfully, my house is now less crowded and far less confusing. Rumi teaches that unruly guests may be clearing you out for some new delight. I hope this is true. In the meantime, I’m content to move about my spacious, bright, relatively empty self.

Inspirations

Rumi’s The Guest House, Translated by Coleman Barks

The Rumi Prescription, by Melody Moezzi

Yin Perspective

December 1, 2019 By Allison

The depth of nothingness is directly related to the experience of everythingness. —Matthew Fox

On the cusp of winter, I feel myself falling into a state of yin—darkness, passivity, slowness, and cold. Although I usually give into my yang tendencies—speed, light, energy, action—these deliciously still yin moments bring balance. They allow me to integrate the experience of everythingness. I settle, I breathe, I go within. When my mind finally clears, I sink into the depth of nothingness. In this state, breath trumps thought. Sleep comes easily, and every so often I catch glimpses of how life’s pieces fit together.

Shifting to a yin awareness is not necessarily comfortable and definitely not easy. Mind and body resist the quiet descent to dense nothingness. When my instinct is to pursue and achieve, the breath helps me to yield and allow. In my emptiness, breath swirls, clears, and cleanses. My yin perspective becomes regenerative, making space for creativity. Winter is dreary and cold, but when we nourish yin, this dark season reveals its abundant creative potential.

Inspirations

Hygge for One

Tea Meditation

Original Blessing by Matthew Fox

The Complete Guide to Yin Yoga by Bernie Clark

Luxurious Boredom

February 4, 2018 By Allison

Tea and citrus got me through my week with influenza. When I got sick, I immediately cut myself off from the world and settled in for a week of quiet recuperation. I didn’t have much of an appetite during my bout with the flu, but fluids perked me up. Warm lemon water with honey soothed my throat, sparkling water quenched my thirst, and hot tea gave me warmth and comfort.

Being sick and alone is boring. I hadn’t experienced boredom in years, and so it was odd to get reacquainted with this sensation that I knew so well as a child. I binge-watched The Crown—a welcome distraction. But my mind was too cloudy to read, my voice too shaky to call friends. I spent most of the week wrapped in blankets and scarves, sipping tea.

I’ve long understood that silence is productive, and I now see that boredom is too. Expansive, quiet minutes slid into hours and days. I stumbled upon empty corners of my mind that didn’t house thought. My internal chatter slowed, my anxious mind relaxed, and for a time, I stopped thinking. Spacious boredom replaced my drive to achieve.

The flu drained me, yet my week of isolation revived me. Tea and water were life-giving and clearing, and so too was boredom’s hollow loneliness.

Snowy Day Breakfast Salad

January 27, 2018 By Allison

Here at the hermitage, in deep snow, everything is ordinary and silent.
—Thomas Merton, 1963

Last week, snow slowed me down. After many busy weeks, I welcomed a few quiet, snowy mornings. I moved slowly and intentionally. Minutes and hours seemed to expand. These mornings were ordinary and uneventful. I gave more time to waking up and more time to breakfast.

My “breakfast salad” is so simple that it doesn’t require a recipe. But it does have a few components and is not for busy work mornings.

Here’s how to pull it together:

“Jammy” Eggs

Bring saucepan of water to a gentle boil. As water is coming up to temperature, prepare an ice water bath in a large bowl. Place on counter, next to burner. Once water boils, use a large spoon to ease eggs into the bowl, one by one. Boil gently, for 6.5 minutes. (7 minutes if you want a more solid yolk.) Use spoon to move eggs from saucepan to ice water bath, to stop cooking. When they’re cool enough to handle, remove peels under running water. Set peeled eggs aside.

Bread

Prepare toast and set aside. I made pita toast last week. Use whatever bread you have on hand. No need for butter.

Salad

Chop English cucumber, tomatoes, and radishes in to bite-sized pieces. Place in a small bowl. Toss with a little extra virgin olive oil, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. If you don’t mind onion in the morning, add a little red or green onion. Set aside.

Yogurt Base

For each serving, scoop 3-4 generous tablespoons of whole milk or Greek yogurt into another small bowl. Squeeze juice of ½ lemon into yogurt, more if you’re preparing multiple servings. Add a pinch of salt and stir. Spread onto breakfast plate(s). Set aside.

Assembly

Gently place salad on yogurt. Slice eggs(s) the long way and nestle into the yogurt. Drizzle a little extra virgin olive oil, squeeze a little lemon juice, and sprinkle with salt and pepper (Piment d’Espelette, if you have it.) Serve with toast.

Revel in your slow morning.

Light and Sky

January 8, 2018 By Allison

“Space is the breath of art.”
–Frank Lloyd Wright

Sometimes big cities suffocate me. It seems that every inch of space is occupied by buildings, kiosks, and concrete. I often find myself needing more green and more sky.

My recent trip to New York was bitterly cold, and the wind was brutal. Venturing out was a process and a challenge, but my walks were freeing—the icy wind invigorating, the snowflakes dreamy. Ice and snow dotted grey-green Central Park. I easily weaved my way through the crowds on 5^th avenue, stumbled into a toasty bookstore when my toes were too cold, and late one afternoon, found a French bistro serving soupe au pistou.

The constant chill of those days froze my senseless, minor worries, and the wind then blew them away. Amongst and between the traffic and skyscrapers, I reclaimed my inner spaciousness. New York gave breath to an elegant artfulness that refreshed and reset my own desire to create. I bring home color, texture, light, and sky.

Inspirations

Afternoon Tea in Astor Court

Pablo Picasso’s Bird on a Tree at the Guggenheim

Odilon Redon’s Pandora at the Met

Mozart and Tchaikovsky at Lincoln Center

Hygge for One

December 15, 2017 By Allison

Although there is much to be done in the coming days, I am taking a hygge day—choral Christmas music, ginger spice candle, fuzzy clothes, baking,and tea…

I realize that community is central to the Danish practice of hygge—coziness, togetherness, sharing, and reciprocity… board games, comfort food, and mulled wine…

Seeing that my near future holds an abundance of family time, I am content to build a solo hygge experience right now. Let’s hope that this cozy “me time” helps me to refrain from snapping at my family next week. (Who are we kidding? I will be short with them!)

Later today, I will prepare a savory pork roast. I will roast vegetables. I will sip lush red wine. I will listen to podcasts, and I will write in my journal. Maybe I will Netflix and chill.

But for now, I am indulging in freshly baked cookies: David Lebovitz’s Buckwheat Chocolate Chip Cookies. They’re earthy, sweet and robust. I pair them with an appropriately cold-weather tea—Nilgiri Frost Oolong. This rare tea—from India—develops its intense fruitiness during chilly winter months. Its assertiveness stands up to the chocolate, buckwheat and walnut. This cookie-tea pair is quintessential winter fare.

My solitary hygge day is not lonely—I deliver Buckwheat Chocolate Chip Cookies to a baker friend, I chat with my stylist about her holiday plans, and I text a sleepy friend in Europe. My hygge mindset weaves a web of meaningful togetherness that will gently carry me into the chaos of the coming weeks.

Inspirations

The New York Times on Hygge

The New Yorker on Hygge

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