Sunday Song Day: "Schism" & "Land of Confusion" Revisited + Homeschooling & New Businesses
There are blips in this life that blow by in a blur, and this whirlwind week whipped past like wind.
On the same day I filed paperwork to announce that Q would no longer be remote-learning and I would instead homeschool him, Crystal and I also received word that we are now officially business owners. :-) Neither of those events were ever imagined for this path, and yet here we are: excited about the future and thrilled as heck for the hard/rewarding work ahead.
Continue for: Sunday Song Day (Tool and Genesis revisited), why we’re switching to homeschooling for the remainder of the year, xeric species and planetary imperatives (again and again) for plant-based feasting, and a family learning and living by plant-based whole-food example. We continue to illuminate in the hope we spark enough of you awake to slow humanity’s sprint toward environmental tipping points. Pushback can be as simple as transitioning (<—not leaping, TRANSITIONING) to a healthier/more-compassionate diet, but the impact is monumental.
Live Kindly, Feast Kindly, Grow Forward.
Plant-Based Whole-Food Breakfast: Crystal’s sweet potato flatbreads with cinnamon and a sprinkle of salt, apple, and the lone remaining blackberry.
Plant-Based Whole-Food Breakfast: peanut butter and jam on homemade whole-grain oat bread with grapes
He’s taken to receiving his food like a shai-hulud. (<—insert Mama Bear eye-rolling but also heart-squeezing.)
Plant-Based Whole-Food Lunch: lentil loaf tacos with mashed potatoes (like a flautas), cashew queso, and swiss chard.
I'd forgotten about how great flautas are, and we'll be adding way more potatoes to our taco lineup now. 😅
Plant-Based Whole-Food Lunch: black rice noodles, sugar-free version of the peanut sauce, steamed broc, ruby kraut, and olives.
This is one of those lunches that Q would eat every day if I let him, and is always pulled out in a pinch when there aren’t other things on hand (<—like this crazy week). That he LOVES olives and kraut continues to amaze me, but I’m happy to oblige. He’s getting a probiotic and antioxidant punch from that kraut; and those olives are packed with Vitamin E, their own fun swirl of antioxidants, and healthy fats like oleic acid which is “linked to several health benefits, including decreased inflammation and a reduced risk of heart disease. It may even help fight cancer.”
Plant-Based Whole-Food Lunch: Black Bean and Roasted Eggplant Soup, roasted brussel sprouts, mizuna greens from our CSA, and Cappello Cornbread.
Plant-Based Whole-Food Dinner: black bean pasta, homemade heirloom tomato marinara, sauteed mushrooms, balsamic dressed greens, and shaved brazil nut.
Plant-Based Whole-Food Similar Dinner: homemade heirloom tomato marinara, balsamic dressed greens, and stuffed pepper casserole (<— made with black rice, poblano peppers, and Crystal’s PBWF cheese sauce.)
Sometimes dessert is as simple as blackberries (Thanks, Opa!)
Plant-Based Whole-Food Dessert: and sometimes it’s more fruit from Opa (Thanks, Opa!) paired with cashew cream and homemade berry sauce (<—this week’s is black raspberry and mango)
Plant-Based Whole-Food Dessert: and sometimes it’s a super decadent SHARED dessert of berry bread, cashew butter, almond butter, and bananas.
Fresh array from Stone’s Throw Farm’s CSA picked up on Saturday. <3
As stated before, eating well alone will not bring you to best health. You need to move. There are so many dang ways for you to do so, there is absolutely no excuse to not.
Is it always easy to fit into a busy day? Nope.
Does everyone love doing it? Nope.
But you can either sit on a couch all day thinking about being healthier, or you can put one foot in front of the other and start small.
For me (<— soul whose only physical joy was hiking), this originally meant that I transitioned my desk to a standing desk so I’d at least limit the length of time it was imperative that I was sitting or stationary. By elevating my butt out of a chair, I was able to pump my feet in place, stretch, and keep blood flowing…it transitioned to dance breaks with Q, then yoga breaks, then free-weight breaks, and now we’re running all over the place.
Try to fit movement and heart-rate increases (that don’t come from stress!) for a short spell each day. You may not like it, but your body does.
Yard laps
Running Rand Tract trails.
Hiking is still my #1 physical activity, and if you live in Central New York you have no end of free parks to visit.
Rand Tract is one of our favorites, because it is close to us and it has it all: many wide trails, streams, mini waterfalls, rocks to climb, trees to scamper over.
Climbing rocks and trees.
More yard laps. <3
If a good song comes on our mix now, it’s about 50/50 him requesting to dance or him grabbing me by the hand and dragging me outside to run with him while it plays. This time it was The New Pornographers’ “Mass Romantic” and then for the duration of the follow-up song: LCD Soundsystem’s “All My Friends”
Sometimes kiddo exercise is as simple as swinging (and attempting pull-ups) on a tree.
Or danging from a rope your father added. :-)
Or playing catch. <3
All things being equal, another pillar of Lifestyle Medicine is managing stress. I knew stress wasn’t great for any of us, but I wasn’t aware of the capacity of harm until I was deep into the weeds of Dr Dean Ornish’s book "Undo It" .
2020 is rife with stress and navigating the most harmonic way around it has been a constant chess game. We opted for remote-learning through our district because we weren’t comfortable sending Q to in-person kindergarten, and he was adamant that he had no desire to go.
Remote Learning, however, turned out to be a terrible fit for him and it was by no fault of his hard-working, incredibly sweet teacher.
Why didn’t it work?
First, zoom sessions with a group of kindergartners is as herd-of-cats chaotic as you can imagine, and it wasn’t from lack-of-control from the teacher. She knew to mute the lot for the majority of the time, but any answer-question session understandably needs to be open for kids to respond. Getting 12+ kindergartners to do that in a classroom is enough of a hurdle, but we’ve now added the sound floodgates to whatever is naturally occurring within those 12+ homes. Q has had sensory issues with din/cacophony since infancy and it sets him right on the edge or pushes him to full-blown tears. There were at least 3 sessions a day with the whole class (some days had additional ones with the school social worker), and each one brought tears or angst. (<— In the background, you could always hear voice-din, but there was was also the occasional crying or fighting, and that set his empath heart to shatter.)
Second, (and most important), we swiftly learned that Q is ahead of the kindergarten curriculum, which meant that we were spending hours each day filling in, documenting, submitting assignments that he knew how to do well over a year ago; and doing this work was getting him riled. We’d end up pushing through the requirements, and then I’d spend the latter half of the day giving him the more challenging stuff that he was used to.
So we researched homeschooling, got a 3 hour helpful earful from a friend doing the same with her kids, and gave our district notice that I’d be homeschooling him for the rest of the year. To our surprise, his teacher, his principal, and superintendent agreed that homeschooling would be the absolute best decision for Q and they weren’t surprised by the request.
If you hear “homechooling” and think it sounds like too much work, I was already homeschooling him through the spring/summer (<—we’ve already seen that he learns well with me), and I had no idea that homeschooling requires quarterly updates (<—not multiple times a day assignments). One of his bestfriends is also opting for homeschooling this year, and we plan to pair them up for their own distanced socializing. (<—He even sent her a letter Friday asking if they could become pen-pals to “work on writing, but to also brighten her day.”)
We knew the kid was bright, but we were shocked to learn (from at this point 4 different teachers) that he’s already testing at the 1st grade level, so he could be to 2nd by the end of this year if we keep up the hardwork.
Best part? The whole family is excited about this path and bursting with activities to do, subjects to go over, and more ways to challenge his smart/sweet soul. Stay tuned for fun projects coming out of House Cappello. :-)
A good kismet example: Thursday was the day we gave notice and it was also the day he filled in the last pages of this alphabet book his class has been working on.
The goal of this sheet is for them to learn the letter X and to practice writing it. Both of those are things Q has known for awhile, so to challenge himself he always writes a sentence with the “letter of the day” and then spices it up with Q art.
We were at loss for a good X word and I pulled out the dictionary to find one that would pique his interest. As I read “xeric” he piped up with a, “DING! We have a winner, Mama!” I got an earful about how all the sandworms are xeric, and then a description of how the Fremen (<—also xeric) are re-seeding the deserts of Arakis with plants via special containers that help them capture water (as seen in his drawing of a shai-hulud, fremen, and dessert-aided plants.)
I think we’re going to do a-ok with homeschooling. :-)
His description on this one blew my mind with Dune detail.
Q - "This is Uncle Jim and me and we're drinking beet juice on a shai-hulud and there's lightning in the background from a sandstorm, and the shai-hulud is gobbling up some sand plankton; and you can tell I live on Arakis now because my eyes are spice-blue; but Uncle Jim's eyes are normal, so he's just visiting because he needs to get home to his dogs."
As he gets better with the art-apps on his school-tablet, we’re moving toward working on animations (and will also be using that application for lessons too.)
Posting the above drawing again, because it kicked off a week of a LOT of Tool’s “Schism” which became the song of the week in spirit and thought, and inspired another by memory of a similar path.
Our background mix is so long (<—long enough that Q and I drove from NY to FL, all around St Augustine for 4 days, and back up to Georgia before it stopped!) that it can be awhile before a favorite comes back up, and it is always an interesting delight to hear which songs Q’s been thinking about and requests.
Tuesday, he was preparing for some post-school tablet drawing, when he bellowed out with a little urgency, “Can we listen to that song that says, ‘I know the pieces fit, because I saw them fall away mildewed and smoldering’ please?”
It’s been a few weeks since “Schism” has played, so I laughed in wonder for a breath, happily complied, and put my phone up on the counter so he’d hear it in the next room… but he crept in a few moments later to say, “Can I just bring this in a little closer so I can hear it better?” and sat in there listening to it (and singing along in the sweetest little soprano) on repeat for almost an hour while drawing. (<—There’d be a video if the phone hadn’t been in play.)
When he emerged from that haze, he had the above Dune ode: the most detailed thing he’s ever done on that tablet or on paper: “two fremen on a shai-hulud and a group of fremen ready to hop on.”
I remember burning out tapes with the need to rewind, remember keenly (and still know!) the deep well of peace/joy/venting that can come from music, and it’s a heart-lift to see which songs resonate with him and why.
View of South Onondaga on Friday
There’s a thrumming connection to Q’s current focus on sandworms, zeroing in on xeric, “Schism”, and the last song Q requested after such a long spell: the imperative need to wake up to our environmental future and start making steps toward sustainability.
Seem far-fetched?
Those Dune sandworms exist in an ecological-environmental sci-fi book focused on the preciousness of water on a desert planet.
That lyric Q used to request “Schism” was perfectly repeated, but the full lyric is one of my most favorite, and I think of it often with all the loved ones we know who can see imperative-scientific-fact urging them toward plant-based foods, yet still second-guess the data.
There was a time that the pieces fit, but I watched them fall away
Mildewed and smoldering, strangled by our coveting
I've done the math enough to know the dangers of our second guessing
Doomed to crumble unless we grow and strengthen our communication
The last song that was in Q’s brain before it was vocalized as a frequency he wanted to ride on repeat, was “Land of Confusion” and it was requested like so, “Can we play that song about working on making the Earth better but people are too confused to help?” After listening to it for days on repeat, he had hollered to me with such frustration, “Do people KNOW about this song?! It’s saying EVERYTHING we’re saying! They should definitely hear this and then there’d be more helping and less destruction.”
There's too many men, too many people
Making too many problems
And there's not much love to go around
Can't you see this is the land of confusion?
This is the world we live in
And these are the hands we're given
Use them and let's start trying
To make it a place worth living in
The United Nations is both warning of future water shortages (<—humans are not xeric) and also urging you toward a plant-based diet because it is the only environmentally sustainable diet (<—and it happens to be doctor recommended for ideal health!)
How are you using your life, your hands, your whatever-you-have-to-give to make the earth a place worth living in?
If you’ve been reading me at all over the last few months, you can no longer claim to be ignorant to humantiy’s impact via animal-dense diets.
Are you just rolling your eyes (or bristling) at my truthful-howl, digging your face into yet another plate of animal products, and dooming us all (including your kin) and yourself in the process?
Or are you making small steps forward?
Maybe big steps and feeling better?
Take note that I always use wording around “steps forward” because I’m not (nor have I ever) told you to go 0-60 in one leap. I’ve noted that our own path was imperfectly stepped, and we stumbled toward this place with a thought of never going back because we feel better than we ever have before. (<— Which makes since given all the health benefits of plant-based diets). If the personal health benefits weren’t enough: it’s environmentally imperative.
It’s a win-win relief, we just need more people waking up to the reality that we can solve this crisis before it is beyond fixing.
My son sees his future is blowing away in wisps, and it makes him so impassioned he wants to the world to hear “Land of Confusion” in the sweet hope that it snaps folks to action. It’s my dearest hope too.
We’ll keep howling our klaxons, and showing how we can be strong, energetic, mentally-keen, and thrive without those animal products that are dooming us all.
Q stopping mid-run to check out a crab spider on a butterfly bush.
This contemplative soul’s future is on the line, as is every species on this planet, and he’s of the generation that is already worrying what sort of environment is awaiting the family he dreams of having.
What are you doing about it? Are your own kids/grandkids talking to you about the environmental future that awaits them? Are you just kicking the can down the road?
We have the ability to fight back on these horrible possibilities if we start growing forward, but it gets worse and worse with inaction and denial.
Friday in the Forest
Q has a way with animals just like his father (<—who attracts animals to himself like Snow White in a forest), and this toad hung out on Q’s hand for several minutes while they just stared at eachother and Q spoke sweetness to it.
If you find yourself feeling the flutter of, “That’s sweet!”, please consider doing as I once did and probe those feelings deeper to ponder why there are sometimes sentiments for animals; yet most of the time pure, needless cruelty for the lot that come with a culturally acceptable taste-sensation.
It’s been proven that animal flesh/breastmilk/ovulation is not needed for you to thrive, they are actually detrimental to your health, and a plant-based diet is tied to robust health BENEFITS; and we know that animal agriculture is terrible for the environment and unsustainable for humanity’s future… so why continue?
Why not start taking those steps?
Whose future needs to be on the line for you to care?
What’s the most impactful thing you can do as an individual to help your kin, community, millions of species, and planet? Transition as plant-based as possible.🌎♥️
Why? Plant-Based foods are environmentally imperative 🌎. They also promote ideal health💪 (which takes stress off our overburdened health care system), are inexpensive🙌, delicious🤤, & compassionate. 💕
Why imperative, though? 🤔We’re approaching (& have crossed) climate tipping points that will doom our kin & millions of other species. 😱📣Reducing/eliminating animal products is the *most impactful thing an individual can do* to prevent worse. 🌎🔥
Why? Animal Agriculture creates more emissions than the entire transportation sector combined, it’s tied to water waste/loss/pollution (<-- freshwater is our most precious resource💧), land loss/deforestation (<-- exacerbates climate change by reducing our ability to sequester carbon🔥🌎), ocean acidification (<-- FYI 50-85% of earth’s oxygen originates from oceanic plankton🌊) & vast species loss/extinction/suffering💔📣🌎
Plus, consuming animal products is tied to increased risk of cardiovascular disease❤️🩹, diabetes👎, cancer👎, and chronic disease👎; whereas Plant-Based feasting is linked to preventing/reversing some of our most common diseases (<— like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer); plus it promotes ideal health & robust strength (ie Olympians, Weightlifters, Endurance Athletes are thriving via PBWFs too). 🎉🙌♥️
What organizations are promoting plant-based diets for best health and environmental stability? National Institutes of Health, Mayo Clinic, Yale, the United Nations, Harvard School of Health, American Heart Association, American College of Cardiology, American Cancer Society, American Diabetes Association, The American Academy of Pediatrics, National Kidney Foundation, even the Parkinson’s Foundation.
We’re all overwhelmed in one way or another, but for the sake of our kin (and the millions of species we share this planet with) we need to start pivoting forward. As someone who once rarely ate green things & used to eat animal products at every meal, I can assure you that is possible, affordable, enjoyable, & purposeful to pivot Plant-Based. In fact, our whole family is now healthier/stronger than ever. 🙌♥️
Anecdotally, our son had failure-to-thrive, was also plagued with perpetual ear-infections/sinus-infections, and had an omnipresent runny nose. What was he eating? Grass-fed milk, organic/antibiotic-free/grass-fed/local meats, eggs from organic-fed/well-loved chickens from a neighbor, every meal came with vegetables, and we limited junkfood. He was healed via a plant-based diet: he’s launched out of that diagnosis and the last time he had a sinus-infection (or was sick at all) was in 2019 when he had some cheese at a school Christmas party. Before shifting to PBWF’s he was sick every month, and how he’s a robust, vital, thriving kiddo. 🙌🎉♥️
If you think any of the above sounds over-reached/absurd/impossible, please go read the links above. I understand the inclination to hackle-raise (<—because I was once totally there) but the science is clear: any step we make forward is imperative (<—and again “STEPS” is the focus. Don’t leap, just start making steps!). It’s as simple as starting with one meal a week and growing from there.💕
We have the ability (deliciously, healthfully, kindly, inexpensively) to *preserve/protect* the planet we share with millions of species & our kin. How are we going to use that power today?✌️🤟🖖
