Slow-Small Media for the Weekend #4

Somehow it’s the weekend again, friends. What even IS time lately?

 

(Above: Black peach cake. We’ve been exploring butter-free baking due to butter now being mostly unaffordable in NZ. More about that below.)

What does it mean to get older consciously? 

At the start of this year, I started a Pinterest* board: ‘Conscious Ageing’. I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted to fill it with. So far I have been stowing in there memes about integrating the past, looking after yourself well and any images of older women that I find inspiring. 

I wrote a little in ‘A Forager’s Life’ about being on the threshold of ‘baby eldership’. I don’t want to get older before my time (I know 52 is not that old) but I do want to walk into my elderhood with open eyes and conscious integration along the way. 

With these sorts of things in mind, I enjoy reading material written by people a little further along the path than me and I really enjoyed this article by Laurie Wagner about her observations of her changing self as she gets a little older. Honest and compelling writing. 

(Beautiful artwork by Dee Nickerson.)

Heartening writing on finding joy in spite of/amongst a heavy care load: 

I really appreciated this article about the tensions of caregiving but/and joy in spite of it all. By Elizabeth Kleinfield.  

This line from Elizabeth’s article:

‘The worry is constant, a background hum beneath everyday life’

really captures how life has felt for me as the parent of a kid with a disability. Even when I get an opportunity to ‘relax’ …I can never entirely relax. The hyper-vigilance of care is as deep in me as my bone marrow. 

How to easily increase the yields from your garden harvests by reframing how you see vegetables: 

Are you a vegetable gardener? Here’s a helpful and interesting video (11 mins)  from garden writer Huw Richards on how to get more from your harvests in the garden by considering all of the parts of a plant…it’s kind of like ‘nose to tail’ eating except for vegetables. Eat those flowers! & in some cases, eat those roots!

A beautifully-written origin story: 

I really enjoyed this article by New Zealand writer and reviewer Lucy Black about the origins of her ravenous reading habit (I know Lucy IRL and no one reads more books than Lucy!) I always appreciate articles which explore working class experience and Lucy’s article is buoying and beautiful. 

Affordable art: Iko Iko’s Cavallini Posters

I promised to find you affordable art under $50 NZD. This week’s is under $20! Iko Iko’s Cavallini Poster range of vintage-inspired posters are just $17 each.

Predictably, I have this foraging one on the back of my front door. I also have this dandelion which I bought a few years ago. Most of them are so gorgeous…I’d love more but I don’t have much wall space left. Luckily my big dandelion still brings me joy every day. 

A no-butter-needed tea loaf 

In New Zealand, butter prices are rocketing. We can no longer afford to buy butter each time we grocery shop as we used to. 

But my sons like to bake so I’ve been encouraging them to find recipes with little to no butter…which has cause a tea loaf revival in our house. Old-fashioned tea loaves are often dairy and egg free, yet still turn out moist and light. There are endless variations, date loaf, ginger loaf, here’s a nice dried fruit version we made this week. 

Inspiring Creative Process videos

Country Living UK has a Youtube channel and within it, they have a series of beautiful short films (around ten mins) about the creative process of artists who make work (from lots of different mediums)  inspired by nature.

I’m slowly working my way through the playlist…but none so far have disappointed. 

Calm, cosy and soothing viewing. 

A beautiful song

I love this sweet and poignant song by New Zealand artist Maisy Rika, called Reconnect. If you are not from NZ, the ‘Tui’ and ‘Huia’ mentioned in the opening are new zealand native birds. I love this repeated lament towards the song’s end…

‘Change is inevitable, things don’t last forever…

things don’t last forever, things don’t last forever‘

(By the way, I have started gathering all the songs I’m sharing here into a slow-evolving playlist. You can find it here on Youtube. )

Tell me in the comments what you’d like more of or less of for these Friday digests. 

This weekend I am going to a wild west coast beach for a gathering of witches. *cackles manically* What are you up to? 

(*Pinterest is the social media account I have the biggest following on. I have 16, 000 followers over there! I’m not quite sure how that happened…perhaps 15, 990 of them are bots?)