A mixture of thoughts tonight, starting with…

Weekly shopping

Delicious homemade organic potato and onion soup for supper.

Tuesdays are shopping day for me. I only shop in one place – Beanies – it’s a privately run wholefood shop that in addition to having a fantastic range of natural foods, has the freshest local organic fruit and veg in Sheffield. I have a standing order for a vegee box, which costs me £9.50 a week. This is an increase from last year’s £6 as the real price of vegetables has gone up due to last season’s extreme weather. Unlike supermarkets, which tend to only pay farmers what they feel like paying, places like Beanies will pass farmer’s costs on to consumers, and I am only too happy to pay the higher price if it means I am not supporting the exploitation of others.

Thus, almost half of my weekly shopping bill of about £22 is accounted for by delicious organic fruit and vegees, the other half by things like organic bread, yeast extract, raisins (for my porridge) and soya milk. I was fortunate to be given about 5kg of rice at the beginning of the year, and I bought myself 3kg of organic pasta, 2kg of which remains waiting to be eaten!

All this is a far cry from my shopping habits last year in Tokyo. There, our local wholefood shop had very few organic vegetables – most were just labelled “eco” meaning they had less pesticides on than normal vegees.

(Did you know, Japan uses more chemical fertilizers than any other country in the world. Even more than China).

I hope that next year I will be able to afford the high price demanded by producers of organic produce, as it really changes my whole relationship with food, and feels far more in harmony with what I feel my body needs.

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The Wedding Date

The wedding date is set – Friday 25th July 2008! I’ll be phoning the vicar tomorrow to discuss what we’re going to do. I’m dead excited though…

Oh, and I think we might be able to invite ALL Mumblers too. Will keep you informed re. those plans.

So how does one organise a wedding anyway? What needs to be done? All ideas welcomed.

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Daily Effort: Kanji & Ego

One week ago I decided that I really needed to put some energy into what was important but not urgent – study kanji. Over the past 7 days I have revised 100 kanji per day – it’s already having an effect. Oh, and I’m really making progress with my getting up time too; after one week of training my body clock is pretty close to a 6.30am wakeup. Good stuff. Daily exercise is proving to be fun too, and getting more enjoyable by the day as the tilt of the Earth makes for warmer mornings.

With so much going on I felt myself in need of reassurance at the weekend, and so started listening to Wayne Dyer‘s take on LaoTze’s TaoDeJing again (all 81 verses available here. In it’s raw form it’s not for the feint hearted – but with a guide one can really appreciate the wisdom it contains).

I do find it truly inspirational and uplifting. The central message for me is to trust, and let go. Such a simple thing, yet such a powerful tool for dealing with whatever challenges I may attract into my life.

It’s interesting how the first time I listened to it (a process which took about a month I think) I found myself drifting off at times, not really taking it all in, or struggling to understand these ideas which at times ran contrary to my own beliefs. Listening to it a second time, it feels a lot more natural, and in line with how I try to live my life – although a lot of it remains beyond me. But this time, I do recognise some of the benefits that are spoken of in my life, so some of it must have sunk in.

The biggest area for improvement for me lies in ego management. It’s so tricky to balance ego demands (for attention etc) with what I feel deep inside is ‘right’. Only the other day I caught my ego galloping off down the road, having latched on to the interest that the other party had shown in my activities. I was aware of this, and made a conscious decision to let it run its course – I’d pick up the pieces afterwards. I would like to get to the stage where even when beckoned my ego doesn’t feel the need to gallop off, but is content to just ‘be’.

It’s a tricky one, because I’m a great advocate of people accepting that they are indeed amazing and incredible, and of giving people the recognition that they deserve. But in oneself, well, if one’s not careful the resulting good feeling of that sort of attention can get hijacked by the ego – making for arrogance and ignorance.

Anyhow anyhow, it’s late, and all this blogging isn’t getting my dissertation off the ground. Best go to bed so I wake up happy and refreshed. And probably smelly after all those baked beans I’ve had today.

🙂