Enchantment Learning & Living Blog

Welcome to Enchantment Learning & Living, the inspirational space where I write about the simple pleasures, radical self-care, and everyday magic that make life delicious.

On Dreaming Under the Supermoon

August 11, 2014

You were in my house last night, ephemeral tendrils of light seeping through my window and curling around my body as I slept. I didn't see you, but I could feel you sweeping away debris from my mind and old skins from my body one gentle caress at a time.

You bathed and cleansed old wounds and shed light on the darker corners of my mind, allowing me to release burdens I didn't know I was carrying. You held me in your arms as I dreamed deeply of things long past and those to come, of the here and now, and of the realms that only exist when I close my eyes.

After a week of letting go of old selves, of things, old ways of thinking, I return to my dream realms to finish the task of unburdening myself from people I will and never should be. You, supermoon, help me with this, with your larger than life wisdom casting hope, rebirth, gentle understanding into the shadows of my home, myself.

You, dear moon, reinforce the necessity of gentleness in my life, of the feminine virtues so often undervalued in this world of loud and busy. No, you say, that is not your road. You tell me that I am a daughter of the moon, of the stars and midnight, of the quiet hours of reflection, the mistress of secrets revealed only in the hush of late hours and moonlight.

Today is the day I feel this transformation most, as I shake off sleep and turn those quiet hours of healing into a gentle industry and forward movement. The metamorphosis happens now when last night it was enough to dream my dreams and let your light wash over me.

Enchantment Learning & Living is an inspirational blog celebrating life’s simple pleasures, everyday mysticism, and delectable recipes that are guaranteed to stir the kitchen witch in you. If you enjoyed what you just read and believe that true magic is in the everyday, subscribe to my newsletter below for regular doses of enchantment. Want even more inspiration? Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter. Here’s to a magical life!

On Pulp Fiction Books

August 10, 2014

In these, you give yourself permission to judge a book by its cover. The verdict? Sizzling hot! Full of searing scandal and lusty dames, shameless rogues and sinister villains. Buy them you must, just as you must run your hands over their worn covers and imagine all the sordid deeds seeping through each page--almost soiling you as if you are guilty by association...and rather enjoying it.

These books throw virtue out the window, just as they reject any pretense at literary grandeur in favor of grit and sin and a yarn spun so well you're dizzy after reading it. Their covers are a cold hard promise of people behaving badly--and liking it as much as you love reading about it. It's all about base instincts and tawdry actions.

They are the books no one wants to admit to reading, to wanting; the ones that kindle your imagination the most just by their covers alone. This is why you love them, why you give them a prized place on your bookshelves and writing desk and nightstand. These books, out of all the others, remind you that you are human, made of bone and skin and blood, of heat and heart, of wisdom far deeper than the thin veneer of respectability you are tempted to commit to with a quick purchase of some old classic or other.

So you surround yourself with these pulp pops of humanity, theses thin slivers of juicy life full to bursting with bright flashes of human experience, these over-the-top exaggerations of what it means to bite into life and savor every moment, the good, the bad, the pulp.

On an Unexpected Feast of Books

August 9, 2014

You hadn't planned on visiting a used bookstore (your favorite kind) today, but you should have known better; an OPEN sign and a window full of books are always more than enough to lure you into the waiting embrace of any bookstore, if only for a moment. You should have also remembered that you find exactly the books you are looking for on these unplanned bookstore visits, never on the ones you deliberately pencil in. It's some cosmic rule that when you forget to think too hard about your list of desired books that the ones you've been waiting for--and the ones you didn't know you needed--will fall right in your lap.

So there you were, running your fingers along the spines of worn and well-used books, pouring over each section of this house-turned-store. There in the old kitchen sat philosophy, over there in a would-be pantry, old classics a buck a piece. You spent more time in a closet turned sword and sorcery den, but didn't get swept away until you found a rack of vintage pulp books, the kind with lusty dames and robust fellas on them, each with their own provocative taglines. You're a sucker for those splashy covers and tawdry tales, always have been even before school officially ended your love affair with Serious Reading.

So you find one of those pulp beauties to add to your collection--the history of an audacious young seaman...who dueled and prayed and sinned his way to magnificent adventure! Or so the back of the book tells you. The cover, well, you know the kind of picture it likes to paint.

But it isn't until you are almost out the door with this find that you stumble upon a shelf in the cookbook section and find yourself face to face with a row of books you have been searching for some time and a few you didn't know existed. There, stacked together like old cronies were a long-searched-for Nero Wolf Cookbook, a must have for any fan of food or this classic mystery series, and a collection of M.F.K. Fisher and Julia Child books you simply must own. These women of food and words (much like yourself) feed your soul and your mind as they titillate your palate.

Yes, you must have these. And the Gone with the Wild Cookbook too, for much the same reasons as you need your swashbuckling pirate pulp adventure, for the cover and the idea more that the story or a recipe for classic Southern grits. And then there is the novel about cheese and something whimsical; you don't know much more about it but that you must read it. It has all the makings of a perfect bubble bath read. These you sweep into your arms, unable to curb your hunger for such tasty reads.

You can already picture your afternoon with your new books spread out on your bed, a tea tray sitting next to you as you flip through one and then another book, lost in a myriad of worlds, feasting on new ideas and images and experiences. These books, this feast of pulp and culinary musings and tributes to perfectly imaged worlds are a reflection of you. You are a creature made up of good books and good meals, food experiments and word experiments, usually with a side of wine and cheese.

My Home, Myself After Cleaning Out My Closets

August 8, 2014

There is nothing but space and light where once old lives and whispers of the past used to live. It is a delicious feeling of wholeness in the empty spaces carved out of your closets and cabinets, a sweet fullness in yourself as you acknowledge that to move forward you must let go of the remnants of other selves haunting your home.

Your bedroom closet now resembles those spacious, clutter-free works of art you see in home magazines: everything in its place, easy to see and flip through as you prepare for your day one piece of your ensemble at a time. It is now your collection of things that make you who you are, plates of armor that protect you as you make your way in the world, bits of art that you proudly display on your body, visual expressions of your inner essence. Gone are the things that you once tried to fit into. You said farewell to the too tame traditional wardrobe staples that will never be your style. And another to the outlier impulse purchases that gave only a brief flash of confidence as you swiped your credit card to purchase them, only to get home and realize you are not, in fact, a woman who will ever wear this or that.

Your hallway closet--your storage closet--too is blissfully organized with seldom used but necessary things: the bin of winter holiday decorations, the file box of important papers (whittled down after shredding several years' worth of unnecessary ephemera), the stack of boxes, reserved for future moves. And yet it breathes free and easy from the one hundred other things you stuffed in there--Very Important Documents that, you realize, you have not touched for over a year and, in fact, had forgotten about, and so must not be so Very Important after all.

Your home feels this lightening up as if each piece of clothing or old household item you donated has liberated it in the same way it has liberated you. It can breathe again, no longer weighed down by things that don't belong there. You love this lightness and want to nourish it as it nourishes you. You don't want to weigh it down with anything else or fill up those spaces with something new. You simply want to enjoy the new space you've created, both in your home and in you, new space, new life that you can grow into. For now, it is enough to know it is there, a bubble of potential.

Orange You Glad You Can Have Earrings Like This?

August 7, 2014

I know what you are thinking: what ARE these things? Are they oranges? Or are they leather? Are they earrings? Are they magical? The answer to all these questions is YES!

These earrings are one of a kind wonders made by my sister, Victoria, a Fulbright Scholar and artists living in Florence, Italy with her writer husband (talk about livin' the good life!). Her earrings are inspired by her orange peel art in which she cures and sews orange peels into tapestries, installations, and other living pieces of art. Her Fulbright work in Florence took her to the world-famous tanneries in Italy where she learned how to turn orange peels into fruit leather using the ancient methods of leather tanning there.

Some of her original orange peel art includes this house she built from wood and oranges peels she stitched together called Accumulated Matter. Here's the exterior of that project...

...and the interior. It smelled heavenly in there, like sweet oranges! And the thin, cured strips of orange peels shine like stained glass along this small building, making it feel like a sacred citrus sanctuary.

Her more recent work included a solo exhibition in Florence where she got to showcase her orange peel work with her new tanning methods which made her peels more flexible than her previous curing procedures. This image below features her orange peel scroll, called Cascade, which was a prominent piece in her Alchemical Orange Project:

So how did that larger than life art become epic teeny tiny orange peel earrings? Victoria explains it perfectly when she says, "I wanted to play with the notion of how art can be displayed, as there are many critical dialogues that challenge exhibiting art in the normal context of a gallery."

She goes on to explain, "I think of my earrings as wearable sculptures...In this way, the relationship between art and daily life is fluid and effortless."

Wearable art? Heck yes!

Victoria also likes to play with the idea of refuse and discarded material--here the orange peel and arguably the least desirable part of the orange (we all typically go for the sweet fruit in the middle, rather than the bitter skin).

She says, "I want to encourage people to question the way that we use materials and what we consider valuable or useless in order to encourage new perspectives about seeing the beauty and potential in something that is normally overlooked."

So if you want some one-of-a-kind wildly inventive citrusy wearable art made from a top secret tanning process known only to Victoria, you really should check out her earrings on Etsy. Each pair is unique and handmade, so you won't ever find someone with a pair quite like yours. I already have a pair and can't wait to get more! Which brings me to my last question: Orange you glad there are artists out there who see the world through orange-peel-shaped lenses? I sure am, for it reminds us to enjoy the whimsy and playfulness of life and to look for enchantment in the often overlooked thing, like peels, in our day-to-day living.

On the Woman I Will Always Be, the Clothes I Will Always Wear

August 6, 2014

To the older than sin peasant skirt, twice altered and infinitely-mended: I love you. You are my Laura Ingalls Wilder skirt, always worn while making tortillas on cozy fall afternoons or during early mornings weeding the garden. Lace fringed and speckled with brown and pink flowers like freckles of a farm fresh egg: you remind me that peace is always found by getting lost in a good book or a corner of my plot of land. You are the Pioneer Woman in me that feeds my trailblazing soul, allergic to being fenced in, lover of horizon-to-horizon space, mountains and sky my ever present companions.

To my mother's brown cashmere coat: I love you. I suppose people would call you vintage now, with your A-line silhouette and the elegance that speaks of a night at the theater. Worn only for special occasions, you bring me the grace and the poise of my mother, a valuable asset in this rough and tumble world. You remind me that every outing is a special occasion, every event worthy of a stylish ensemble. You are the Sophisticated Lady to which I aspire, the timeless icon of the self-assured womanhood.

To my polka dot dresses, all of them: I especially love you. You bring a bounce to my step and remind me that it is always a good idea to flirt with life--because life always flirts back. You lift heaviness from my heart and fill it with song. You make me want to twirl and giggle and go off adventuring. You bring out the Hedonist in me.

To all the scarves I've knitted: love, love, love. You are stitched from the Nourisher in me. Life, you say, is a symphony for the senses--color, texture, memory, all woven into your warming embrace. As are the scarves gifted to me--you are hugs from my loved ones, each stitch a token of the history and love between us.

And to my leggings and tunics: come Saturday, I love you most of all because you make me feel like I am not wearing any clothes at all. Yes, you reflect the Happy Nudist in me who gladly gives up my weekday costumes for comfort and stretch, just as I tuck away my vibrant weekday persona for the quiet creature in love with large mugs of tea and naps and homey tasks.

Yes. That is the woman I will always be: the Hedonistic-Happy-Nudist-Sophisticated-Lady-Pioneer.

Tomato & Mozzarella Salad

August 5, 2014

Earlier in the week, I posted my Cherry Tomato Summer Salad, an easy, refreshing dish that highlights that flavors of this perfect summer fruit. Since you know my love for a good tomato borders on the pornographic (remember my effusions on the first tomatoes from my own garden?), I thought I'd offer you another tomato salad recipe, this one just as simple and delicious as the last.

It makes a perfect light meal or a great side dish for an Italian dinner. I love making this salad for Sunday pasta night with my family! It has a big wow factor, both in taste and presentation, but takes only five minutes to prepare. Unlike traditional tomato and mozzarella salads, I go easy on the cheese, using it more as an accent to the tomatoes rather than as a competing flavor. Feel free to play with the types of tomatoes you use too. I used more yellow pear, chocolate rose, and sun gold cherry tomatoes here, but the recipe can easily be tweaked to accommodate what you have on hand.

Ingredients:

4 cups cherry tomatoes

8oz small mozzarella balls (one container)

1/2 cup basil

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

3 tablespoons white wine vinegar

salt & pepper to taste

Place washed cherry tomatoes in salad bowl. Slice mozzarella balls (roughly the size of your cherry tomatoes) in half and add to your bowl. Shred basil and add to salad, then stir until ingredients are combined. Drizzle olive oil and vinegar over ingredients and stir until thoroughly mixed. Add salt and pepper to taste and stir. Serves 4 as a light meal or 6 as a side dish. Enjoy!

On Women I Will Never Be, Clothes I Will Never Wear

August 4, 2014

To the awkward Barbie high heels, I've only ever worn once: goodbye. You never fit quite right. You were the bright spectacles on my feet that I wore to give myself wings the day I defended my dissertation. I hobbled to my defense, your heels clack-clack-clacking in an undignified manner, reminding me that my former career path--a nun given herself over to scholarship, a Hardcore Intellectual--like you, did not fit me right. So goodbye. I will never be that woman, tired and driven and ready to sacrifice everything, including her feet firmly planted on the ground, for a few scraps of old paper and old lives that no one cares to remember. I am an intellectual, yes, but made of heart and blood as well.

To the white dress: goodbye. I don't like white clothes. And I am forced to press all the air out of my lungs to hoist your zipper over my ribcage and even then not without help. All white doesn't suit me. I am a woman of colors, of rich desert browns and turquoises and yellows and greens. So goodbye at my vague attempt to be a Demure Girl. I will not be silenced.

To the shoes I've never worn: goodbye. You were bought on impulse as if to prove I could be anyone I wanted to be now that I was done with school. You were tall, coated in thick black and purple stripes, looking like nothing if not bulbous spiders on my feet. There was a faint dream that you would be worn for Girls Night Out or to clubs or to wherever women my age seemed to go on weekend nights. But the only thing you ever did for me was take up space in my closet for this one simple reason: I will never be the Girls Night Out woman; there will be no loud bars or silly drunkenness, because I am not a girl or fond of crowds or having to miss the early morning hush because I've been out too late. I am of the earth and the sky and the quiet of simple living.

To the fancy jacket lined with sequence and the purple polka dot dress: goodbye too. I cannot wear you without feeling sad. You are the Dashed Hope, the outfit worn to give me grace as I transitioned out of my old life, the outfit I wore in a desperate attempt to distance myself from the gray surrounding me. It only partially worked. You too must go, though it hurts a little. I am always Sad Birthday Girl when I attempt to wear you as if the gray has stuck to your shine and began to absorb into my skin. I cannot hold onto that sadness. So I will give you away with the hopes that it will cleanse you of the burden of my past and you can be reborn into healing garments for someone else.

To the too-tight work pants I stuff myself into: most definitely goodbye. I am not a Straight-laced Anything. I am a teacher, plain and simple. And one who likes bold dresses and A-line skirts. I have learned to breathe in my profession, to honor my nature even as I make my way in the world, so you must go. And to those stiff jeans--yes, goodbye to you too, for much the same reasons. I have no room in my life for conventional restrictions. My limbs are carved from yoga; my body caught up in a fluid daily dance of self-expression. It will not take to the constraints of stiff fabric or conventional thoughts. I am a woman of nature and breath, air, and light.

Goodbye to you all and many others. I unburden my closet from your presence as I unburden myself from these women I never was and never will be. I will think twice about taking on robes and roles that are not my own, of cluttering my life with things I am not meant to have or be.

It is a sweet relief to create more room for the woman that I am.

Cherry Tomato Summer Salad

August 3, 2014

What is summer without the delight of tomatoes fresh from the vine? They taste like distilled sunshine and sweet, sweet earth...I could go on forever about these perfect summer jewels which is probably why I end up with piles of these delicious fruits in forms and varieties sitting on my kitchen counter ready to be devoured. This especially true for cherry tomatoes that are like individually wrapped treats I can pop in my mouth like candy (only better because I don't really like candy, just clean, healthy food).

One of my favorite ways to enjoy cherry tomatoes is to use them in this easy salad. It celebrates the perfection of the heirloom cherry tomato with minimal ingredients to weight them down. Think of it as a bread-less bruschetta. The only real difference between my salad and a tomato bruschetta topping is the bitter dandelion greens I add to balance out the sweetness of the tomatoes. Or you can almost think of it as a variation of my spicy cherry salad, minus the spice.

I like to use a variety of cherry tomatoes, here being yellow pear, chocolate rose, and sun gold (pictured below). It doesn't matter what type of tomatoes--including larger varieties--you use as long as they are super fresh, either from your garden or the farmers market. Store bought just won't give you the same taste. Lastly, I keep the dressing light, just enough to coat the ingredients without overshadowing the tomatoes, and rarely use salt in my recipe since these fresh ingredients hardly need to coax out their flavor. This dish makes a light summer dinner or a perfect side salad.

Ingredients:

2 cups heirloom cherry tomatoes

1/2 cup dandelion greens

1/4 cup basil

1 garlic clove

1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

salt to taste (optional)

Slice the heirloom tomatoes in half and place in a salad bowl. Shred dandelion greens and basil and add to bowl, stirring until combined. Mince garlic and add to bowl, stirring until combined. Drizzle olive oil and vinegar to bowl and mix again. Add salt of desired. Serves 2. Enjoy!

On Farmers' Markets

August 2, 2014

You are a sucker for a good farmers' market, just as you can't resist the temptations of any grocery store. You go there wanting to be seduced--by ripe heirloom tomatoes, heaps of ruby radishes, and, if you're really luck, tangled nests of garlic scapes in the spring or juicy peaches near summer's end.

It is best to go early, before the heat and the crowds bear down on you, before the tender greens and over-ripe fruits begin to wilt and soften under the sun's gaze. For now, you enjoy the early morning coolness, made all the cooler today from the previous evening's monsoons that raged through the city; the sky is still coated in a blanket of clouds promising more rain. The city is quiet, subdued.

It is good coffee you must have first in order to browse through the produce stands; it will hold you over until you decide what goods you truly want to commit to. Its taste is dark and bitter on your tongue--tempting you to balance it out with one of the pastries piled high in several booths like edible artwork topped off with powdered sugar. But no, you aren't ready to commit yet, not ready to give up the little thrill that blossoms in your belly with each temptation, each possibility.

As you wind your way through the stalls, you marvel at the jewel-like produce: amber carrots, emerald greens, butter yellow corn heads poking through pale green wisps of silk and husk. You keep your eye out for pickling cucumbers (what is summer without homemade pickles?) and another for those culinary miracles of homegrown tomatoes--gone too soon from the stands--that needs only your teeth sinking into their flesh to make a perfect meal.

When your coffee has dwindled in its cup and you have made a full circuit around the market, it is time to let yourself be fully seduced by the few items you can't stop thinking about, time to give into the temptation of peppery radishes, red and green okra spears, and tiny heirloom cherry tomatoes. You return for your treats, already planning the week's meals which all somehow revolve around just washing and eat these earthly treasures raw. At the last minute, you throw in a bouquet of wildflowers because farmers market flowers always make your nightstand look so lovely, make your mornings so much more delicious when you roll out of bed.

With a full heart and an even fuller canvas bag, you head home, content in your treats, excited to spread them out on your counter in a cornucopia of summer pleasure.

A Love Letter to Summer Monsoons

August 1, 2014

You quiet my mind as you feed the earth. The strength of your thunder, the flash of your lightening all serving to soothe the storm inside me. Your wet rain kisses my skin, filling the cracks and crinkles of my parched mind as it soaks into the dark soil grounding my plants, burrowing deep into their roots even as it brushes their upturned faces.

You send a hush over the city, making the land, the traffic, the day-to-day bustle slow down whether it wants to or not. You wind your way to your fullest expression, clouds gathering in force behind you, a welcome promise of a calm, settled evening. I watch those dark clouds race across the horizon punctuated by your low grumble that warns the city of your strength, inviting the day to bow before your might. There will be no late night frolicking or even an afternoon reading on the porch; windows are securely fastened shut, door tightly closed. Inward I must go.

Your crackle and light sooth me to sleep late at night, the downpour of rain finding me in my dreams. I would run out and dance in you, if I could, if it weren't for the thunder and lightning. I content myself with listening to your wild symphony--the only noise that can draw me away from my book and my place on the couch to simply stare out my window and listen and drift on the song that is my summer monsoons, my healing balm that washes over my soul.