Ahhhhhhh! Cold cucumber slices for my eyes every ten minutes. The water is black.

The volcanic ash made the most magnificent bubbles....  like the consistency of whipped egg whites. 

The Daily Reading for August 10, 2010

THIS IS WINE COUNTRY. Other wine regions around the world work just as hard, but this one has all of the fun. Consider permission granted to roll in the mud, drink inside a Zoroastrian temple, walk through 1000 year old redwoods and feast on nine-course organic meals, just because you can.

From Lonely Planet: Napa & Sonoma Encounter by Alison Bing

Is it a bouquet or a gyro? Both! Big chunks of grilled lamb and grilled zucchini, tomatoes, onions and the most wonderful tzatziki sauce ever! Only one of the many tasty offerings at the Sonoma Farmers Market on Tuesday. August 10 2010.

Meet Roseanne...all jazzed up for market night on the plaza.

The Tuesday evening farmers market on the historic Sonoma plaza.

  A Sonoma Valley landscape on the road to Santa Rosa.

The Daily Reading for August 9, 2010

Contentment

Contentment has learned how to find out what she needs to know. Last year
she went on a major housecleaning
spree. First, she stood on her
head until all of the extra facts fell
out. Then she discarded about half of her house. Now she knows
where everything comes from--
who dyed the yarn dark green and who
wove the rug and who built the loom, who
made the willow chair, who planted the
apricot trees. She made the turquoise
mugs herself with clay she found
in the hills above her house.

When contentment is sad, she
takes a mud bath or goes to
the mountains until her
lungs are clear. When
she walks through
an unfamiliar neighborhood
she always makes
friends
with the
local cats.

From The Book of Qualities by J. Ruth Gendler

The Sonoma plaza this Monday afternoon....serene.

The historic plaza in Somona on August 9, 2010. Sunny and 80 degrees, as usual!

The Sunflower Cafe....with a full house on Monday afternoon about 3 p.m. Folks in Sonona just "passing the time".

Second Sunday in Sonoma with Guerrillas of Grace

The poem that I have chosen for today's reading will be familiar to many of my dear friends. I first found Guerrillas of Grace at The Village Dove bookstore in the early '80's, and have spent so many evenings reading from this spiritual treasure after dinner, while enjoying coffee and dessert. Loder's poems often evoke deep sharing by those around the table.
I cannot tell you how many copies of this book I have given to friends and to family over the last nearly thirty years, but I bet that it is well over a hundred copies. So, if you have a copy, take a minute to dust it off, and join with Loder's as his prose touchingly expresses his compassion, his faith and his quest for peace--inner peace, peace in relationships, peace in families and peace for the war torn and and oppressed on our planet. He aptly has named this collection "Guerrillas of Grace---Prayers for the Battle".

The Daily Reading for August 8, 2010

Pry Me off Dead Center

O persistent God,
deliver me from assuming that your mercy is gentle.
Pressure me that I may grow more human,
     not through the lessening of my struggles,
     but through an expansion of them
     that will undamn me
     and unbury my gifts.
Deepen my hurt
     until I learn to share it
     and myself
     openly,
     and my needs honestly.
Sharpen my fears
     until I name them
     and release the power I have locked in them
     and they in me.
Accentuate my confusion
     until I shed those grandiose expectations
     that divert me from the small, glad gifts
     of the now and the here and the me.
Expose my shame where it shivers,
     crouched behind the curtains of propriety,
     until I can laugh at last
     through my common frailties and failures,
     laughing my way toward becoming whole.
Deliver me
     from not just going through the motions
     and wasting everything I have
     which is today,
           a chance,
                 a choice,
                        my creativity,
                              your call.
O persistent God,
let how much it all matters
pry me off dead center
so if I am moved inside
      to tears
           or sighs
                   or screams
                          or smiles
                                 or dreams,
they will be real
and I will be in touch with who I am
and who you are
and who my brothers and sisters are.

A poem from:                Guerrillas of Grace
                                     Prayers for the Battle
                                          by Ted Loder

A Saturday in Sonoma, August 7, 2010

My wine aficionado friends may find it sacrilegious that I have been in Sonoma for one week now and today was my first venture in wine tasting. But, I made up for lost time this afternoon with a vengeance! A group of ten small estate wineries, called the Eighth Street wineries, held a tasting and gourmet pairings this afternoon. The wines were incredible and many were award winning. I especially enjoyed the Wildcat reds, my first time to taste them. They are hearty and bold and beyond yummy. The food was crazy delicious...lots of raw cows milk cheeses, olives, strawberries, tarts, pizza from heaven, beef tenderloin marinated in fresh bing cherry juice and grilled lamb that is pictures below. All of this for $30. My favorite wineries were MacROSTIE, Parmalee-Hill and Tin Barn.
I met a fellow taster and wine blogger Katherine Parker. She lives just a few blocks away and we decided to meet for breakfast or lunch next week. It will be fun to pick her brain about what she enjoys in this marvelous valley.

My wineglass from today's tasting. How will I get it back to Indianapolis? And, how about me, too!

All ten wineries served lunch. This feast was grilled lamb with fennel cous cous and grape tomatoes.

The tasting room at Talisman, part of the Eighth Street Wineries tasting on August 7, 2010

Beautiful sunflowers atop a French oak wine barrel.

The Daily Reading for August 7, 2010

"Life has always seemed to me like a plant that lives on it's rhizome. Its true life is invisible, hidden in the rhizome. The part that appears above the ground lasts only a single summer. Then it withers away--an ephemeral apparition. When we think of the unending growth and decay of life and civilizations, we cannot escape the impression of absolute nullity. Yet I have never lost a sense of something that lives and endures underneath the eternal flux. What we see is the blossom, which passes. The rhizome remains."

                Memories, Dreams, Reflections by Carl Jung
                          

Once again, a beautiful meditation.