Over 22 months ago, this blog turned into a Substack post called "It's 3AM" which was the last blog post I wrote here before today. Unless you have been living under a rock, you must know that October, 2023, literally changed the world and continues to rock our foundation.
My heart cracked wide open as the destruction of Gaza and Palestinians continued month after month and here we are watching a genocide become a campaign to see how long it will take to starve a population out of existence which is and has been the zionist goal since the founding of Israel.
If you are still supporting Israel after all of this I have nothing but sorrow for you and your mental health not to mention your soul.
So I came back here, to Healing the Heartland, to find some respite, or perhaps some inspiration, on how to live going forward. While my life in terms of safety (for the near term) and health and stability have not changed, the madness of violence, repression, elimination of our social safety nets, racism and the thrust of fascism swirls around me and all of us.
As I have done all of my life since I was old enough to crawl through our front yard and pick dandelions, my solace, my true freedom comes from Mother Earth, Mama Gaia. Grateful for these acres of woods and wild things (except the gopher and that rascally raccoon that ate the first ears of sweet corn.) If you need a break from social media, from YouTube videos, from your strange uncle who wears his MAGA hat to every family dinner, please join me here.
I'm still writing the edgy stuff on my Substack if you want my latest responses to the madness of king Donald or the lack of compassion and empathy that has been sucked out of our alleged elected leaders by AIPAC or military corporations. But here, here is my safe space, my quiet interlude between the first light of dawn when I toss back the new quilt my older daughter made me, put on my crocs and ease outside. For those first crystal clear breaths of the day, I am calm, even happy, that I live here on this funny little island of a few homes scattered around this rectangle that remains from a former farm and where the only noise I'm subjected to is the woodpecker on the dying pine tree and the chattering of a thousand birds preparing for their morning ascension into the world.
Today is a day to visit former neighbors and take them some hand-me-downs' from my granddaughter to their two year old. Later, after the sun has gone down, I'll make 'winter salad' with tomatoes and garlic and parsley from a favorite youtuber My Kitchen Tanja. If you haven't found her yet, it's a treat, a vast compendium of knowledge gleaned from the lean times around war and suffering. But the recipes are delightful and remind us that we can preserve damn near anything with just a stove, a pot and a few things like salt, vinegar and sugar. Check her out. I'll let you now how my 'winter salad' turns out this year as I downsize a little from standard quart jars to pints. I learned from last year that as a woman living alone right now, it takes awhile to eat a quart jar of this scrumptious stuff. I don't want any of it to go to waste so voila! in to pint jars it will go.
Bless the earth as you shop for food, make your food and eat your food. So far, AI can't feed you and I hope the day never comes when it, like 3D printing, attempts to create substitutions.
