Greetings from Shelley - April 20th 2007

[shelley]

April 21st is Earth Day! Do something nice for the planet!

I have a tradition: every year around this time I go through my closets and bookshelves and get rid of everything that I haven't used or needed in the past year. I donate clothes to the local woman's shelter (unless they're really old in which case they go to Goodwill), books to the library. If I don't have enough stuff for my own garage sale, there are plenty of neighbors who give them to support church functions and they're happy to take the sundries off my hands, yippee!

This is a pretty powerful "spell." I'm outflowing energy and since Nature abhors a vacuum, something always comes on in to fill it. Since it's Spring, usually what happens is I start meeting new people and getting out more. Now that the sun shines later my cave instinct abates and I just want to get out and enjoy life! The keywords for me in the springtime are joy, laughter, abundance, gratitude, and appreciation for all that is good and fine.

I don't tend to need to spoil myself with decadent foods at this time, I'm quite satisfied with a chopped salad. Warmer days means more raw foods in my diet, supported by warm herbal teas. I tend to eat much less dairy, red meat and breads. Since turkey is cheap, tasty and has more grams of protein per ounce of meat than most protein sources, nearly-cheeseless cobb salads and ground turkey stir-fry make it onto my menu quite frequently, along with soul food like traditional Japanese soba (buckwheat noodles) served cold with rice wine vinegar, a bit of soy sauce, grated ginger, scallions and toasted sesame oil. Yum!

A hearty welcome to all the new members. Some of you may be visiting from http://www.colonzone.org as the creator of that site just doesn't have time to offer a forum so she's referring her readers to mine. Please do check out this site if you're unfamiliar with it.

So do you have any spring/summer rituals? How does spring affect you? Please share!

All best,
Shelley