MILK ALTERNATIVE

I love the lines in Earth Verse, a poem by Gary Snyder, writing about our planet as Wide enough to go on finding/Green enough to go on living/Old enough to give us dreams, and I thought it was thematically appropriate for my piece today on food self-sufficiency with adherence to sustainable agriculture - for earth's sake. Making milk from nuts (today I used wal, hazel and cashew combined) is one of those permaculture practices that keep our earth living (v. cattle extraction from industrial feedlots contributing to the global warming phenomenon we all know about by now). The green earth has almost infinite sources and ways to find food and medicine (not including trees and primary deforestation), instead I am talking about plant-based sources ubiquitous like grass - the meadows, for example, have wild flowers and herbs and berries we could share with the birds and the bees and moderately create "honey from a weed," as Patience Gray would say. And I used legumes, which made all the difference. Indigenous Knowledge which goes back thousands of years had understood and respected the ecological rhythm of earth's terrestrial (including fresh water) and marine environments that their physical survival was corporeal and spiritual to the seasonality of fruits and fish - and according to research was disease free. In the ancient Nō plays of Japan (which Mr. Snyder had experienced first hand in that county living there during the 60's; these plays were harbinger to the famous kabuki theaters) a performance line there (my current reading list is the plays actually, because Gary, my hero, did and it made all the difference in his art; and I follow my teacher's lead) struck me, saying: Life lays in a dream and we wake up to it. Veganism-Buddhism-Haiku Poetry are all altruistic philosophical tenets I reckon intertwined in my lifestyle and emotional intelligence, including in cookery. When I make my alternative-sourced milk I think of both earth's wellness and it's gifted to me by transcendence. And I think of our ancestors paving the way for this return of earth-man sacred interrelationship. 

Walking on walking

undefoot

earth turns

streams and mountains stay the same 

(G.S)

        

PS

After posting this blog I quickly googled for the bio of one of the most iconic American beat poets/professor/Zen Buddhist I've followed more than half my writing life, Gary Snyder, for whether he was still around or not, and Wiki gave me a born date plus his educational (UC Berkeley) and literary achievement (a Pulitzer Prize in 1975 for Poetry which I knew) background, but what I didn't know and frankly didn't expect to find out (born date wasn't hyphenated so he's still around, age 92), yet to my surprise and what made me cry, honestly, was that: we shared the same birthday. It touched me so much. and my feelings free fell wistfully and I didn't know what to say anymore than here.