Day Twenty-six

I engaged in a ritual today that I look forward to all year long (no, it did not involve making myself bleed or chanting any spells). I planted the year's first seeds. Every February, I pull out my little seed pots, my soil, my worm castings, and my precious seed packets and get my hands dirty. It always puts me in a joyful and introspective mood when I plant things. Today I kept thinking about how exciting this first planting was and how within a few weeks time, I will be seeing little shoots and sprouts pushing up through the dark soil and reaching for the light.

This 30 day project has made me feel that way personally. I feel like a little seed that's been planted and is struggling and yearning to reach the light. I love the analogy of growing seeds and personal development. I am reaching and reaching for the light and growing steadily and surely towards being the person that I want to be: a person who is compassionate, conscious, and aware.

The growing seeds will be a reminder to me to continue my own personal growth even when that light seems hard to find.

Daily Meals ~

Breakfast ~ steel cut oats with coffee

Lunch ~ pinto beans and rice

Dinner ~ rice

Daily Totals ~ $1.43

Just a little bit of food for thought...

Kelly

Day Twenty-five

Among the goals of this project was the desire to shift our personal consciousness and increase our awareness. Something that goes a long way towards doing that, I think, is compassion.

Being compassionate is not always my first response towards others, but that is something I'm working to change.

Ryan picked up Karen Armstrong's book, "Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life" at the library recently because he thought it would be a pertinent book to read during this project. He was right. We are both reading it now and it is well-timed.

Here is an except from the cover notes of the book: "The twelve steps Armstrong suggests begin with 'Learn About Compassion' and close with 'Love Your Enemies.' In between, she takes up 'compassion for yourself,' mindfulness, suffering, sympathetic joy, the limits of our knowledge of others, and 'concern for everybody.' She suggests concrete ways of enhancing our compassion and putting it into action in our everyday lives, and provides, as well, a reading list to encourage us to 'hear one another's narratives.' Throughout, Armstrong makes clear that a compassionate life is not a matter of only heart or mind but a deliberate and often life-altering commingling of the two."

A deliberate commingling of heart and mind. For me, this was a call to action. A call to not only be compassionate emotionally, but also intellectually. A call to not just show compassion to those less fortunate, but also to my peers and colleagues. To cut some slack, to put myself in their shoes, to not be so exacting, to not take it personally, to open up my heart and mind and search for understanding. Henry Ward Beecher said, "Compassion cures more than condemnation." And the Dalai Lama says, "Compassion is not religious business, it is human business, it is not luxury, it is essential for our own peace and mental stability, it is essential for human survival...If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion."

Daily Meals ~

Breakfast ~ steel cut oats and coffee

Lunch ~ popcorn

Dinner ~ rice and beans

Daily Total ~ $1.60

Just a little bit of food for thought...

Kelly

Day Twenty-four

From the St. Louis Consolidated Five Year Plan:

THE HOMELESS PROBLEM

"Homelessness is a persistent problem nationally and the situation is little different in St. Louis. Lack of education, lower socio-economic standing in the society, psychological problems caused by trauma, war, rape and a host of other causes, inaccessibility to adequate housing: these are just a few of the problems that face people who are at risk of losing their residences and live in dangerous, uninhabitable conditions, are doubled-up and/or are living on the streets.

Calculating a fair estimate of the number of homeless people in the city of St. Louis is difficult; estimates range from a low of 8,000 to 13,000 (see "Needs and Challenges" section). Though definitive numbers are difficult to quantify, the problem of homeless has not improved in recent years, and will in all probability become worse with the continuing implementation of welfare reform. Governments and private agencies often end up providing stopgap measures in the face of complex problems associated with this often-desperate population. Real change in the overall situation is hard to quantify; often, the best that can be hoped for is adequate provision of maintenance services to homeless individuals and families, with the expectation that the families will not fall into even worse situations than they presently find themselves.

In the midst of this otherwise bleak picture, many agencies in St. Louis have been providing important services to the homeless. Special populations, such as veterans, the mentally ill, HIV/AIDS clients, adolescents, families with children, pregnant women, and domestic abuse survivors are being attended to with programs that attempt to adequately address their issues. Improvements, often difficult to manifest in this environment, have occurred, such as a centralized intake system that has been created to more efficiently refer homeless persons to programs which can best serve them, and outreach aimed at the hard to reach homeless, plus a modicum of prevention programs."

I'm feeling very thankful for my warm home tonight and acknowledging how blessed we are.

Daily Meals ~

Breakfast~ steel cut oats and coffee

Lunch ~ black eyed peas and rice

Dinner ~ popcorn

Daily Totals ~ $1.19

Just a little bit of food for thought...

Kelly

Day Twenty-three

We've been working hard all weekend to get through the list that we made Friday morning. This list was of the things that HAD to be done before the end of today. I'm proud to say that although we are still working on that list, we are almost through!

"I want a treat because today is Sunday," I said to Ryan this afternoon. He looked quizzically at me and used his standard response that he uses whenever I make random comments (which I do quite often), "Is that because of something in your childhood?" I thought about it...yes, it was from something in my childhood. Every Sunday in my family was (and still is) family day. We went to church (my dad was the preacher) then we came home and had a large Sunday lunch complete with my mom's nice china and stemware and of course, dessert! We would then all move to the den and each would pick their entertainment of choice: books, the Sunday paper, guitar, tv, a craft project. We'd all hang out until late afternoon at which time, we made a snack. We always had something fun for Sunday: chips and dip, popcorn, ice cream, homemade snack mix, etc... (my family is the king of appetizers and snacks). We didn't always eat this way, but we did on Sunday afternoons. I guess that's what was going on with me today. As soon as Ryan pointed it out, it made me very nostalgic about sitting in my parent's house on a Sunday afternoon without a care in the world enjoying life's small pleasures and the comraderie of family.

Anyway, we haven't really had any snacks for twenty-three days and I was missing the "crunch". We decided to have a treat today. We walked to the market and bought a bag of popcorn. Let me tell you, the first taste of that popcorn with salt still has my mouth watering! It was wonderful and well within our budget ! So, I got to reminisce and fulfill a tradition that I suspect my five siblings and my parents were probably fulfilling also today in their own way!

Daily Meals ~

Breakfast ~ steal cut oats with banana and coffee

Lunch ~ chickpeas and rice

Snack ~ home popped popcorn

Dinner ~ more rice

Daily Totals ~ $1.90

Just a little bit of food for thought...

Kelly

Day Twenty-two

As we've been eating so much less for the last twenty-two days, my mind and heart have constantly been turned toward those who are less fortunate. Most of the time I envision families in developing countries that are overworked, underpaid, and most definitely hungry. Hunger, though, is not something reserved for other countries or even for the homeless population. St. Louis is a very hungry city according to recent studies. Ryan read recently that according to the Food Research and Action Center, St. Louis is the 11th hungriest city in the US. According to this acticle from stltoday.com, the state ranks 5th in the nation for hungry children. This is a good reminder that poverty, hunger, and homelessness are right at our doorstep.

Daily Meals ~

Breakfast ~ steel cut oats with banana and coffee

Lunch ~ rice

Dinner ~ lentils and rice with sprout salad

Daily Totals ~ 1.97

A little bit of food for thought...

Kelly

Day Twenty-One

Here is my friend, Jason's Facebook update from this morning:

"The world produces enough food to feed everyone ... enough to provide everyone in the world with at least 2,720 kilocalories (kcal) per person per day (FAO 2002, p.9). The principle problem is that many people in the world do not have sufficient land to grow, or income to purchase, enough food. - worldhunger.org"

"The day that hunger is eradicated from the earth, there will be the greatest spiritual explosion the world has ever known. Humanity cannot imagine the joy that will burst into the world on the day of that great revolution." ~Federico Lorca

Daily Meals ~

Breakfast ~ steel cut oats with banana and coffee

Lunch ~ pinto beans and rice with sprout salad

Dinner ~ rice

Daily Totals ~ $1.87

Just a little bit of food for thought...

Kelly

Day Twenty

Ryan and I presented at St. Louis Pecha Kucha night tonight for our Green Strum Project. What a great gathering of conscious, motivated people doing great things in this city! I was talking to a friend of mine there and she was asking how the diet was going and what was difficult about it. I've been realizing more the last few days what really is difficult, at least for me. The portions we are eating are really quite satisfying and our bodies have adjusted to the amount of food we are eating. We are also getting balanced nutrition, so we don't feel we are lacking in that department. The hard part is knowing that there is nothing else. What I mean by that is, once we eat our portions for each meal, there is no other food to be had. I find myself wandering into the kitchen several times a day and just standing there looking into our bare cabinets and refrigerator shelves. There is no snack food healthy or otherwise. I realize how often I mindlessly do that...wander into the kitchen and consume without really needing to. I do experience some bouts of hunger these days with no way to assuage it, but most of the time when I wander into that kitchen, I'm not really hungry, I'm just looking for something that I can't have.

This in some very small way must be what it is like for an impoverished person. The knowledge that there is nothing else to be eaten and no way to get more. I've spent a good bit of time lately trying to train my mind not to think about food. I'm doing this, though, knowing that I'll get a decent portion of food each day. I can't really imagine what it must be like to know that there will be no food and to try to overcome that devastating knowledge.

Daily Meals ~

Breakfast ~ steel cuts oats with banana and green tea (Kelly) and coffee (Ryan)

Lunch ~ lentils with rice

Dinner ~ rice

Daily Total ~ $1.80

Just a little bit of food for thought...

Kelly