Barefoot in Winter

Some of my spiritual friends are doing a cold therapy such as cold showers.

Are you kidding? I'm not doing that!

But this winter, i decided to go barefoot around the house. I don't put on slippers when i go out to the deck to sprinkle bird seed on the railing for the birds three times a day. Our guest cottage is 30 feet out the back door, so i dash over to there in bare feet. I go to the wood shed barefoot and return with two logs for the wood stove.

An interesting side effect of this minimal cold therapy is that my restless leg syndrome has subsided. It's not gone altogether, but it's definitely weaker.

Proponents of cold therapy say that exposure to cold increases circulation, deepens sleep, and reduces inflammation. I will say that my sleep has improved apparently from having cold feet. It's really not so bad. I seldom notice that my feet are cool.

I know if my body is warm, i am more likely to drift into torpor during meditation. Maybe the next time i begin to drift into dreamland, i should just go take a cold shower.

The Stink of Life

While slicing and dicing vegetables for salsa (a.k.a. Garden in a Bowl. See the recipe below.), i contemplated a few rotten tomatoes, rotten onions, and rotten peppers. Usually, the rot was just beginning. I cut off the smelly, brown part and salvaged half the tomato or pepper.

It's amazing, isn't it? Out of that smelly rot springs new life. Green onion tops were growing out of stinky brown, gushy onion layers.

In our culture, we've mostly lost the smelliness of life. I grew up taking one or two baths a week with Mom washing my hair once a week. Now everyone showers every day, and we forget the smelliness of life unless we're alone in the bathroom with our bodies.

We begin to believe in the beauty of the body. We believe that cleanliness is the natural state and feel quite uncomfortable with our sweat and other natural by-products of the body.

Living stinks (bad breath, farts, post-sex juices, underarms, crotches, feet). Before we erase this lesson from consciousness with the ease of a shower and some
fragrant shampoo, we have the opportunity to look life square in the eye, smell life square in the nose, and stop deluding ourselves about beauty.
Even if we are beautiful.

Garden in a Bowl
Dice 1 cucumber into a bowl.
Add 1/4 cup umeboshi vinegar. (Or cider vinegar plus salt.)
Dice 1 onion.
Dice 1 pepper.
Mash 2 cloves of garlic.
Dice as many tomatoes as you wish.

You might also add cilantro.
In late summer, i also add tomatillos.

You can also add corn, black beans, mango, or shrimp.

Photo from blenderbabes.com