I tried making yogurt at home for the first time this week, and it was a success! While a little more liquidy than perhaps ideal, the yogurt was also less sour than plain store-bought kinds, requiring very little sweetener to taste sweet. And hands-on preparation time was very low. I used a small crock pot,…
Author: Carla Seidl
Practicing Awareness
The past few days I have been thinking back to a radio piece I produced in 2006, a documentary called “Practicing Awareness” that was, on the surface, about the Japanese bamboo flute known as the shakuhachi, but was really about learning how to be in the world. The lesson that has been coming back to…
Visiting a Catholic Mass in Togo
When I first arrived in Togo in September 2009 to begin my Peace Corps service in that country as a Girls’ Education and Empowerment volunteer, the other trainees and I stayed in Tsévié, a town twenty miles north of the capital, Lomé. Unlike the Northern, Lamba town of Kanté that would become my home for…
Foiled by Tea Bags
Ah, a nice cup of tea. Except, now, I’m finding out that with a tea bag, it may not be nice at all. That soothing, even medicinal drink has been loading me all this time with…plastic? In my co-op in college, I remember a few students urging that we should buy only loose tea to…
Dance Collage
I’ve made a collage of dance images combining solo meditative practice and partner dance shots. These were mostly taken in the past few years, but some were from Togo and Benin in 2011, and one from as early as 2006 in Maine. I am thankful to have found dance as an outlet and space for…
Reading Alone, Missing Togetherness
Reading books to my daughter each day, especially before bedtime, was such a cozy, important-feeling ritual through her early childhood. While I am glad that June is reading so well on her own now, her graduation to older-child-oriented chapter books and graphic novels has meant that she now reads most of the time on her…
Sublime Play through Dance
I have not felt as motivated recently to do my personal nightly dance practice as I have in other periods, but I was reminded by some great dances at last night’s monthly blues/fusion event at the BLOCK off biltmore how necessary and important dance has been in my life these past years (I started partner…
Setting a Match to our Own Garbage
While living in Togo, I had to learn what to do with garbage. There was no garbage pickup—of course in a place with no electricity or running water I hadn’t expected that—but somehow I was still surprised to learn that what I needed to to with any garbage I produced was go out into the…
Reveling in Walkability
I have never been drawn to town or city living, preferring nature and space for reflection in my home environment. Our new home is quite close to downtown West Asheville, however, and I have been loving being able to walk to the supermarket and various cafes and restaurants. The walk is a treat in itself,…
In Praise of Cabbage
This winter, I am surprised once again by the understated wonder of the humble green cabbage. Sold in its natural shape (by the head) with no unnecessary plastic for around only a dollar a pound, it keeps for up to two months in the refrigerator and can be used in myriad ways—nearly all of which…