What are you Grateful for? Imagine being asked that by your server, as you sit down for a celebratory meal in a carefully chosen eatery!  We are celebrating Simone’s graduation from Berkeley University. We dine early to  allow time to walk to the ceremony.  At  4.30 in the afternoon,the place is well filled with a mother and toddler, several  groups of students, and our rather over-dressed party of four.  All the food is live, organic and vegan.  All that can possibly be locally grown is. I love all of that.
Oh what to chose, I want it all!  Raw or cooked? The menu reflects this primary decision by its lay-out, cooked on one side, and raw on the other.  Dishes have surprising names:

• I am Cheerful, burgers made with sunflower seeds,
• I am Sensational, a pesto pizza
• I am Whole, a bowl of shredded kale and quinoa.

I settle for the I am Hopeful, a raw version of Pad Thai. It is truly heavenly!  Glancing around at the open kitchen, I watch the staff  mindfully pile up the plates, everyone  calm and focused. They have been hired for their willingness to prepare all the food with love and consciousness.     A thousand things spring to mind to be grateful for.  Just being here first of all, with dear ones, and, now, about to select from the most seductive  dessert menu a yogini could imagine.  No sugar or flour or dairy is used at all!  I am grateful for that. We share the I am Rapture, the strawberry shortcake and the I am Magnificent, the raw chocolate mouse.  Both dishes live up to their naming and are a most fitting crescendo to a symphonic meal of sheer delight.

As I check my make-up in the tiny bathroom, I look straight into the provocative question posted just above the mirror: “Do you know how beautiful you are?”  I take a deep breath and a moment of stillness, to allow that one in.  Yes, I am, and I am very grateful.

PS: Great news! Cafe Gratitude is now also in L.A.  Check it out!

Oh the joys of spring, renewal, and another chance.  I am repotting the bamboo.  Having been advised by many gardening friends that bamboo should not go into my backyard, as it will take over, I have kept it in pots, which together, form a nice, moveable hedge.  Dividing it every year into new pots, means my hedge is growing.  Plant abundance, a joy that every gardener knows.

I ponder the qualities of bamboo – fast-growing, flexible, and very resilient  to the force of wind.  Bending wildly in gale force winds,  bamboo resumes its tall stately shape when the storm has passed.  Bamboo is hollow on the inside of its thick stem.  The small leaves are lovely in their drooping angles and cross overs.   Bamboo has endless uses: the shoots are delicious food for people and panda bears, the stems form excellent building materials for homes, furniture and tools. Bamboo flutes transform  the human breathe into the sweetest sounds.  Nowadays we even wear clothing soft and comfortable, made from bamboo.  What’s more, throughout China bamboo is considered Lucky.

Dividing the roots is not always easy.  There has to be some surgery, sharp tools to separate the deeply entangled roots tucked into the now too-small pot.  Where exactly to tear and cut for minimal damage?   I recall The Secret Life of Plants, a book read some 30 years ago, of how plants are in  relationship with the environment.  I speak sweetly the bamboo, reassuring it that all is well, the pain of separating and relocating  is brief, compared with the ease and space of the new container.  Is the plant really screaming, I wonder?  I tuck it in with new soil and a dose of Vitamin B1, rescue remedy for plant trauma!

I want to be like bamboo:  growing fast, (in consciousness, thank you, not in my body!) flexible, able to constantly adjust and adapt to the strong forces around me,  to sing my note and, oh, yes,  I’d like to be really useful too.