The winter solstice gathering at Monkey Valley was cancelled due to early snow and overworked snow plowers. I drove out of the valley last Saturday evening, through 7 inches of sparkling, light, fairy-dust snow. I was very proud of the Tracker, in 4WD low and with new winter tires, for driving out of there like a tank, over 12 KM of unplowed roads! It was -15° Celcius, and the snow was still falling. Truly a magical drive, with the roads completely drifted over, and the snow-laden boughs of the pine trees hanging low on either side, giving friendly wishes for my safe journey.

So instead of having a gathering on the land, I will have a small tea party in Vancouver, taking tea with my friends Geoff and Azusa Blake. In honour of the solstice, I am going to bake a pie (instead of the traditional bread). I’ve never baked a pie before, so this is quite momentous! I’ve been inspired by my expert pie-making friend, Devona Snook. And just today my friend Tim Kelly gave me a fantastic book for travelling vegetarians, called Vegan A Go-Go, by Sarah Kramer. I’m going to try her Fudge Pecan Pie. If it works out, I’ll let you know! Though if it doesn’t, I will probably blame it on pie babyhood, not the recipe.

So I invite you to take a moment to notice the deep darkness of the longest night. Feel that brief moment when the earth makes a tiny shift in rotation. Wish her blessings on her journey. And then celebrate with friends, with or without pie. Happy winter solstice.

Basic Flaky Pie Crust

• 1.25 c flour
• .25 t salt
• .5 c vegetable shortening
• 3 T very cold water

Stir together the flour and salt. Cut in the shortening until well mixed, then add the water. Mix until a dough forms. On lightly floured surface, knead for 1-2 minutes, then roll into a ball. Wrap dough in wax paper and chill for 30 minutes. Roll the dough into a pie crust with floured rolling pin.

Fudge Pecan Pie

• .5 c water
• .25 c vegan margarine
• 2 T unsweetened cocoa powder
• .75 c chocolate chips
• .33 c flour
• 1 c sugar
• .175 t salt
• .5 c soy or rice milk
• 1 T vanilla
• 1 c pecan halves
• 1 9″ prepared pie crust (see above)
• 2 t soy or rice milk

Preheat oven to 350° F (175° C). Bring water to a boil in a pot, then remove from heat. Stir in the marg, cocoa, and choc chips and whisk until melted. Add flour, sugar, salt, .5 c milk, and vanilla, and whisk until smooth. Stir in pecan halves and pour into pie crust. Bake for 55-60 minutes, until a toothpick or knife inserted into the middle comes out clean. Brush top with 2 t milk. Let cool to room temperature before serving.

Easy-peasy! (As my old friend Bev Lytton used to say. I hope all’s well with you, Bev.)

At the DA weekend I was mostly resistant to feeling this kind of sensation. My heart was pretty closed, well-protected, and I felt like keeping it that way. As it happened, there were moments working with others where the vulnerability of the exploration we were doing just naturally caused my heart to open. In some case to myself, and in other cases to the other. But at the close of the weekend something happened that irritated me and that I allowed to close and harden my heart again. This is just the nature of the work! At the point in my inner journey that I’ve been occupying this year, I’ve been letting myself be hard, closed, irritated, or whatever is there, with a little bit of clear space around the experience that’s big enough to hold it. There is a gentleness about accepting my experience rather than rejecting it and trying to change it. There might be some self-indulgence too. But no one can force their heart to open.

Perhaps the recent DA weekend was still working in me the other morning when I read a 2006 article in the Globe and Mail, part of a stack of papers my friend Geoff Blake saved for me a few years ago, for use in starting fires in the wood stove. The article was about parents who send their kids to summer camp. It was somewhat sentimental and also humourous, about how parents enjoy having the time to themselves while the kids are gone, but worry about them until they know they’re having a good time. It made me remember that my parents sent me to summer camp one year. And suddenly, for the very first time in my life, I understood and appreciated how much my parents had made the focus of their lives caring for my sister and me (and later for two more sisters and a brother).

I’ve heard the Christian crap about honour thy parents, and due to various childhood events that hurt me I never bought it. I thought my parents did not deserve to be honoured. That they had failed me so utterly I would never forgive them. I’ve done a lot of work to get through this. Therapy, spiritual work, and wilderness work including vision quests and other nature retreats. I’ve made conscious choices to heal, and done a lot of that. But suddenly, this Sunday morning before Thanksgiving, I was able to understand and appreciate my parents in a new way. To open my heart and feel the love and caring they showed in their choices and actions as parents. I cried for a while, and moved by this experience, cried many times throughout the day.

Wow, so this is what it feels like to be a normal person who feels her parents cared for her! I feel moved by so many aspects of the parent-child relationship and bond. With this comes a feeling of fragility, though. A poignancy about knowing these relations all come to an end. My dad died in 2000, long before this understanding blossomed in me. I shared my appreciation with my mom though (on Thanksgiving Day), and, due to a friend’s mother dying recently, feel the tug of fear and loss that will come with my own mother’s death. (Unless I die first, of course.)

We are so fucking vulnerable as humans. I don’t know how we manage to stand it. I think closing down the heart a little is probably a pretty popular defense.

Anyway, in closing this musing about thanksgiving and appreciation, I want to mention a few other things I am thankful for.

• The black ghetto-blaster my sister Kim gave me in my early 20s. It has been working for several decades now! Lately I’ve been using it to listen to DA teacher Karen Johnson’s tapes on relationships while I do crunches. I feel grateful to Karen for the tapes, too.
• Our dear earth mother, for nourishing me from her body with the food and water I enjoy every day. And all the people who raise, transport, and sell the food. And myself for preparing it.
• My sister Katherine, for offering to come to Monkey Valley to spend my birthday with me.
• My cat Donald, for his companionship, purring, and never being fake with me. If he doesn’t want me to pick him up he growls. If he doesn’t want to come home, he stays out!

I could go on… I spent a lot of the day on Monday thinking about things I am grateful for. Probably the warm humanness that keeps us all struggling on, doing our best, is what moves me the most in this moment.

Thanks to you, too, for reading and having your own response to what I’ve written.