When you’ve spent as much time as I have with most of your friends being ministers, therapists, and hypnosis gurus, you tend to pick up a lot of useful quotes. This one, which popped up on Friday, comes from an ancient Sufi teaching story I’ve loved for years.
We don’t know if this is good news or bad news!
Here’s the short-ish version…
On Wednesday I started thawing local, grass-fed, sustainably raised bones for a big batch of beef broth.
Thursday afternoon, I roasted some of the bones and seared the well seasoned chuck roast for a rich, healing, satisfying stock. I soaked the raw bones in filtered water and organic apple cider vinegar, with “The Mother”, to help release the important minerals and collagen from the bones. Then, just before my paint buddy arrived for bonding over CODEX, moon 10, I fired up my biggest, most prized cauldron and started the magic.
Bones, meat, big hands full of herbs from the garden, bubbling away like the world’s best aromatherapy.
And bubbling on through the night.
About lunch time on Friday, we drained off a gallon or so of broth via the magic spigot at the bottom of the pot for my FODMAP diet friends. Then it was time to add heaps of Vidalia onions and organic garlic, along with some celery, parsley stems, and a dried Mexican pepper.
And more bubbling. And big dogs camped out in the kitchen.
Before dinner, we got things strained and cooled and into the fridge.
I was feeling like it was really good news! In addition to about three gallons of bone broth, I had figured out the next step on my painting, written descriptions for the new ones going up in my shop and made progress on the plan for an upcoming workshop.
Then, after dinner, I heard a bang and a bunch of #%*@* from the kitchen. It took a minute to extricate myself from the laptop and magic chair, while Bill yelled back that he was sort of okay.
When I got there, he was clutching a huge garbage bag, standing in pool of broth, and picking up a bunch of big bones from the floor.
Ooops!!!
Garbage finally out, along with a roll of soggy paper towels, I started with the wet Swiffer magic.
Suddenly, there was the sound of glass breaking.
Somehow, the cauldron lid crashed into a wine carafe and a very useful measuring cup resulting in glass everywhere and more #%*@* from Bill.
Obviously, lots more cleaning ensued.
And laughing.
We don’t know if this is good news or bad news!!!
If I had to pick, though, I’d go with more good news than bad.
We have healthy, delicious, inexpensive food headed for the freezer and for our friends.
We just bought a new garbage can last weekend so nothing should leak out.
And, laughing is way better than yelling!
Mostly, though, we’ve had teachers who’ve helped us learn that good or bad isn’t always the most helpful question.
Often, it’s what do we do next?
Which is, by the way, an excellent notion to teach the littles in your world. It works for art, too!
According to the plan, the answer to that is to go pick up some more paintings from the magical scan land and add to my book of options. That’s pretty exciting!
So, by the way, are oysters!
