Summer, summer, summertime... time to sit back and unwind.

It's been a while.

I took off by the end of February, took the train to Moscow and another train to Ulaan-Bataar and yet another one to Beijing. After China, it was time for Nepal and my beloved India. Now I'm back and it's Summer!

I like the color black - it is my favorite. It is the color of Kali, the infinite potential, warm and comforting, the beginning and the end. But... I like other colors too and now that it's Summer I feel like dressing up in yellow, white, green.... you name it. I also like "making" clothes. Today I "made" a skirt from a table cloth I got from the flea market.

I also made a hat. :)

The jewelry is old. I recycled some flower hanging planters six or seven year ago.

"Every man dies. Not every man really lives."

Winter has arrived: everything is covered in snow, people find it difficult to leave their homes

and I've started drinking glögi (according to my own sacred rule, glögi is only allowed in the Winter, just like rutabaga casserole is only allowed at christmas.) The transformation was actually quite sudden... or it could be that I've just been too busy to notice it. What a strange year it has been! I've been so hungry for change and so ready to leave things behind, I've spend hours, days, weeks, months trying to figure out what I should let go of. So many feelings! Pain has always been my friend somehow. I'm the kind of person who needs to suffer a little in order to grow. Yes, I'm that stubborn.

Anyway, here are the last of my Fall pictures and I would like to dedicate them to people who are going through difficult times and are having trouble seeing the forest for the trees. I would especially like to dedicate them to those people who feel so lost and desperate that they are willing to give up altogether. I wish I knew what to say to them and I wish I could comfort them and love them and let them know that they are not alone.

So fades a summer cloud away;

So sinks the gale when storms are o'er;

So gently shuts the eye of day;

So dies a wave along the shore.

- Anna Laetitia Barbauld

Every blade in the field,

Every leaf in the forest,

Lays down its life in its season,

As beautifully as it was taken up.

- Henry David Thoreau

Death smiles at us all. All a man can do is smile back.

- Maximus, Gladiator

Fall! Fall! Fall!

My friend Alex calls me "moun boi" which is Antillean creole for "savage from the woods". I think it's quite fitting. Around this time every year I fall madly in love with the woods...

"Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns."

My favorite season is here. Granted, it is still quite warm and sunny, but I can smell it. The winds are different too. And the lake, she's going crazy, because she knows what to expect - she knows she'll have to be still for a very long time and now she's dancing like a ferocious dakini. I feel like dancing too!

"If winter is slumber and spring is birth, and summer is life, then autumn rounds out to be reflection. It's a time of year when the leaves are down and the harvest is in and the perennials are gone. Mother Earth just closed up the drapes on another year and it's time to reflect on what's come before." (from Northern Exposure)

"O Autumn, laden with fruit, and stained With the blood of the grape, pass not, but sit Beneath my shady roof; there thou mayest rest And tune thy jolly voice to my fresh pipe, And all the daughters of the year shall dance! Sing now the lusty song of fruits and flowers." - William Blake

Today I've been making jam and baking cakes. There are a lot of apples growing in my garden, you see.

I made this carrot apple cake, because some friends are coming over tomorrow and one of them just had his birthday. I'm not a big fan of cakes (with the exception of the "squidy chocolate mousse cake" you used to get at "Jimmy's Italian Kitchen" in Dharamsala), but sometimes I just like to bake. The samosas I made, because I was missing India a little bit (although I don't know if you can call them "samosas" when they're not deep-fried, can you?).

I also made this spicy vegan apple cake in which I used some of last year's apple jam as well as freshly squeezed apple juice, and loads of ginger, because ginger goes well with apples (goes well with most things, if you ask me). I'm kind of used to baking/cooking vegan alternatives, because not long ago I still had many strict vegans around me. Lately many of them have begun using dairy (why? I don't know really... some of them have families now and I guess it's easier to keep your kids on a standard vegetarian diet than on a vegan one), but I continue to cook most of my food without dairy and eggs.

I don't want to brag, but I've got four types of berries growing in my garden too. In the past couple of weeks, I've had berry smoothie for breakfast every single morning. I make it from oatmilk, banana and fresh berries (no added sugar!) and it is yummy.

That's the most beautiful non-ceremony I ever saw.

I broke my fast yesterday (the fast lasted for 7 days this time). Today I've been eating salad and just now had a taste of this lovely coconut lentil soup (naturally I left out the chicken stock + added some carrot, herbs and extra ginger).

"I am a vegetarian for health reasons - the health of the chicken."

- Isaac Bashevis Singer

"A dead cow or sheep lying in a pasture is recognized as carrion. The same sort of carcass dressed and hung up in a butchers stall passes as food."

- John harvey Kellogg

"The meat industry is one of the most destructive ecological industries on the planet. The raising and slaughtering of pigs, cows, sheep, turkeys and chickens not only utilizes vast areas of land and vast quantities of water, but it is a greater contributor to greenhouse gas emissions than the automobile industry."

- Paul Watson: A Very Inconvenient Truth

"You never hear anybody talk about mad tofu disease."

- John Robbins

" [When asked what he would eat if he was in a desert with no food in sight except a cow ] I'd find out what the cow was eating and join it."

- Benjamin Zephaniah

"I have never seen a river that I could not love. Moving water…has a fascinating vitality. It has power and grace and associations. It has a thousand colors and a thousand shapes, yet it follows laws so definite that the tiniest stream is an exact replica of a great river." - Roderick Haig-Brown

This is a lake actually and not a river, but very lovable nevertheless.

"I believe imagination is our greatest asset, as human beings, and I believe it is our best, perhaps our only weapon against despair. I believe imagination is our best, our ultimate means of survival, all of us together -- each of us apart."

- Timothy Findley

I've been eating a lot of imaginary food this summer, answered many imaginary phone calls and metamorphosed into a car, a swing set, a mountain and a pillow. I live in a phantasy world most of the time anyway, but with my little godson I get to do it in a socially acceptable way!

"If you do not understand my Silence, how will you understand my Words."

(I get such a kick out of this quote.)

Randomness.

Ed, are you hallucinating? - Yes, but not right now.

there either is balance or there isn't - don't take it personally.

Nothing to say today. Nada.

"Adults are, like, this mess of sadness and phobias." (Mary Svevo, Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind).

"Everyone just pretend to be normal" (a tagline from Little Miss Sunshine).