Weird Kid/Gone Berrying

Posted on June 8, 2017 by Shawndra Miller

My plan was to blog about weirdness today. Knowing my weirdness acutely and beginning to embrace it. The afternoon is fine and my neighbor’s mulberry tree beckons and it seems absolute folly to sit here much longer.

So. To make it quick: I have always felt myself to be The Weird Kid. I didn’t eat paste or anything, but I didn’t really speak to anyone either. Not if I could help it.

Right, I’ll just leave this here, since I can’t find one with my hair in Laura Ingalls braids and my astigmatic eyes hidden behind goofy spectacles. And big buck teeth sticking out.

I’ve gotten over my shyness for the most part, which does help in navigating life. I expect a certain awkwardness at parties, is all.

But sometimes today, people look at me funny, say when I’m picking mulberries or juneberries by the roadside, or when I’m down on my knees harvesting weeds for a salad. When someone gives me That Look, I want to say, “Honey, this is the least weird thing I do all day.”

I mean, I sit at my computer and string words together for little to no remuneration.

I move energy around with my hands.

I talk to trees and bugs and plants and streams.

I ground people for a living.

On occasion a client or friend will tell me something sensitive and then ask, anxiously, “Is that weird?”

I say, No. As someone whose whole body will jerk when some invisible energetic shift takes place, I’m uniquely qualified to judge, and no.

Or rather, possibly, but with me, you can be as weird as you are. To borrow a Martha Beck maxim.

To my tribe: Embrace the weird. In weird is our strength.

Now I’m off to fill my bucket with mulberries.

Catching Abundance

Posted on June 27, 2016 by Shawndra Miller

One day early in June, I looked down at my salad plate and realized my good fortune.

The abundant salad

I saw that an incredible number of friends and acquaintances had contributed to my meal. Here were lettuces I’d purchased as seedlings from a farmer friend. Serviceberries I’d picked from a neighbor’s tree. Roasted chickpeas given to me by another neighbor, and guacamole from yet another neighbor. I dressed it with a drizzle of superspecialyummo high-end olive oil that another neighbor-friend gave me, along with beet kraut from local fermenters Fermenti Artisan.

I mean, seriously now.

And that’s not even mentioning the contributions of all the nonhuman cocreators of my food, the bees and tiny bugs, the sunshine and rain and minerals and fungi and soil itself.

Dan’s tree was loaded. Enough for birds and neighbors to enjoy, while still filling his freezer.

This time of year especially, the sheer plenitude just delights. That is, if we let it.

Nance Klehm of The Ground Rules calls it “catching abundance”—the idea that our job is to show up and appreciate, and make use of, what we are freely given.

I picked these yesterday. Blackberries, red raspberries, wild black raspberries, mulberries, and a couple Alpine strawberries.

It can be food, but it can be other things too. Recently I’ve felt grateful for an abundance of ideas, an abundance of encouragement and support, an abundance of beauty, on and on.

One night, at bedtime, I saw the quarter moon reflected in my neighbor’s window. I let myself be awed.

Gratitude opens the door to awe and wonder, two emotions that promote loving-kindness, so essential in this jaded age. (This article posits that “chronic awe deprivation has had a hand in … making us more individualistic, more self-focused, more materialistic and less connected to others… We need to actively seek out awe-inspiring moments in our everyday lives.”)

Contacting this state then, which I also call spaciousness, is not just the icing on the cake. It may be the entire smorgasbord.

Saturday I took a space at a wellness expo, where I asked people where they encounter spaciousness, or what it means to them. Many generously contributed to my inquiry, as you can see.

I invited people to contemplate spaciousness and add a thought to this board. I caught an abundance of responses!

A few of the answers:

Expansion ♥
In the green of nature
Simplicity
Freedom to be me!
Contentment ♥
Awareness
Love!
Open heart ♥
Unlimited
The stillness inside of myself

And my personal favorite, a drawing of a tree. (Yes! Thank you, Tree!)

I bow in gratitude to the people willing to scribble something for me, and to those willing to pause a bit longer and try out my uber-short meditation for grounding and expanding. What a privilege to encounter so many openhearted souls.

What about you? What is your experience of spaciousness, or where do you encounter awe and wonder? Are you catching the abundance in your life?

Peace Pilgrim’s Breakfast

Posted on July 30, 2014 by Shawndra Miller

Can you stand one more post about berries? Since we don’t have blueberries growing wild in Indiana, I chose this photo of mulberries to accompany the quote.

“One morning for breakfast I had blueberries covered with dew, picking them from the bushes as I journeyed through the New England mountains.

I thought of my fellow human beings eating various kinds of processed and flavored foods, and I realized that if I could choose my breakfast from all the foods in the world, I could not make a better choice than blueberries covered with dew.”

—Peace Pilgrim