Slow-Small Media for the Weekend #6

(Above: the sweet and tiny reading hut at the Red Bach, Turakina, where I recently had the good fortune to spend a weekend.)

I lost most of this week to dental surgery recovery and felt quite sorry for myself…however, it has not prevented me from rambling the internet with my forager’s bag over my arm looking for good things for you to read.

If you love me don’t feed me junk

Those of us of a certain vintage *cough* possibly have a certain nostalgia for the wholefood health shops and cafes of the late 70s through the 80s. I really enjoyed reading this very personal, quirky and interesting research project by artist Faythe Levine about her parents involvement in health food education when she was a child. This research is presented in such an interesting way.

It sparked a lot of nostagia in me of the health food cafes of the 1980s in Taranaki and the Manawatū which I would frequent as a punky teen getting interested in all things countercultural. I would gnaw down the sprouted lentil salads served in gritty pottery bowls, eat the earnest sugar-free carrot cakes with oily carob frosting and feel like I was really living on the edge.

A song

This week’s song is my one of my favourite bands, This is the Kit. I love this band so much. They sing about things familiar to me…like gardens, and cups of tea, staying in to cosy up, friendship heartbreak, and environmental angst.

I thought I’d share this song ‘Empty No Teeth’ because I’ve been laid up with dental horrors this week…but also, because I love that the lyrics for this song mention ‘autumn…compost….leaf mulch’ …

(I used to put compost in poems so often that my poet friend Jo banned me from using ‘the c word’ any more. It’s hard, though, because compost heaps are so full of life! and metaphor!

*By the way, you can listen to the slow-growing playlist of Slow Small Media songs over on Youtube here. (I don’t do Spotify…because #payartists)*

Affordable Art

This week’s affordable art is a beautiful scene of a lakeside path meandering through trees. The artist, Gill Allen, writes that it is a scene from Mistletoe Bay in the Nelson region of NZ. I love the dappled light and it makes me think of my slow foraging walks. It offers such a peaceful feeling, I think.

& you can buy an unframed A4 print for just $39!

(By the way, if you are an artist who has affordable art to share…or you’re an art-appreciator who has some good leads for me, please share in the comments or email me.)

A comforting dinner

I’ve been eating soft foods this week because of dental pain…so here’s a soft and nourishing main dish which uses that handsome vegetable, Italian kale, Kale and Chickpea Ragu, served on polenta.

Polenta is such a comforting rice/pasta alternative for the colder months…and so easy to whip up.

Art to admire …surreal reading women

I spotted these reading women by american artist, Rick Beerhorst on Lithub. I really like the way he captures something of the magic of being lost in a book by the way he paints hovering birds and the like in front of the women. He’s a contemporary artist but they feel like paintings from another age.

Radical Neighbouring

This is a new film by inspirational film production company, Campfire Stories, about a man who was gifted a farm (!) and grows food to give away. It’s a beautiful and inspiring story.

A beautiful photo essay of some urban ‘neopeasants’

If you’re a permaculture person, you might know of Artist As Family, an Australian family who have a poetic, creative approach to urban permaculture and ‘re-common-ing’ the ‘burbs.

They just shared a beautiful photo essay (photos by Max Roux): ‘Max slung his camera over his shoulder as we forested, farmed, gardened, creeked, salvaged, ate, played, loved and listened to one another’… and I find it very earthy, heartening, inspiring.

A tantric, non-dual poem expressing life’s ineffable beauty

The Secret of Contentment

By Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
 

To be the seed and not
wish to be the flower.
Or to be the flower and
not wish to be seed or rain.
To be the rain and be grateful
to be the rain. Which
is to say, to be the self
and delight in being the self.
But when I say self, I mean
to know the self as seed.
As flower. As rain. When I
say to know, I mean to
ever be in wonder.

*

I hope there are good things in your weekend. I hope you still have moments in your life when you can ‘delight in yourself’. I hope someone buys you coffee/cake/wine/chocolate when you least expect it. I hope you have access to a cosy fire, a good book.

See you in a whole new week

x Helen