SPICY PLUM CHUTNEY
Days in the kitchen preserving foods for some future day when it's blowing cold outside find me humming, grateful and energetic. Weeks or months later I remember that special canned good that's shining on the garage shelf, ready to be opened, tasted and treasured. Such is the Spicy Plum Chutney I made last week. It looks like tomato chutney, but that's because the yellow turmeric blended with the purple plums (fresh picked from our trees). The recipe started from the book "The Art of Indian Vegetarian Cooking" by Yamuna Devi, a tome of amazing Indian recipes that I've been trying since bringing it home from our New Mexico trip in the spring. Here's how it turned out, given my kitchen supplies, and reluctance to go to town for ingredients!

12 C stewed plums (skins on or off, your choice. No pits!)
6 T fennel seeds
3 T red pepper flakes (or fresh hot chilies, fine cut and sauté)
3 t salt
1 C chopped walnuts
6 T ginger powder (fresh would have been better, about 1-1/2" root, pulverized)
1 big white onion
3 T turmeric
2 T cardamom
1/2 stick butter (organic, don't panic)

Fine cut onion and sauté in olive oil. When slightly soft, add fennel, red pepper, ginger, turmeric, cardamom and butter. Sauté turning frequently to heat the spices until their odor rises from the pan.
Add stewed plums, and mix thoroughly, gently, bringing whole thing to simmer, add salt.

Ladle into 8-oz (Half-pint, a childhood nickname my parents bestowed on me) jars (12), clean top of jars, put sterilized lids and ringers on and process in boiling water bath for 10 minutes. Smile at the little pop that happens when the jars are lifted onto the counter and the cool air sucks the lid in!

Label and give away for the holidays, use on pork, beef, chicken, on chickpeas or white beans, and rice. This chutney will warm you in winter, and the memory will warm your heart!

TIME OUT encourages sensual cooking, delicious meals, long conversations at dinner. Do turn off the television. Try these conversation starters, take turns answering: 

• What was your best memory of high school?
• Do you practice random acts of kindness?
• What three experiences are you grateful for that happened today?

Don't forget to make an appointment: first visit free, after that $30/hour. Looking forward to meeting with you for Rest, Relaxation & Remembrance.  546-5344

TIME OUT (SUMMER) moving to TIME IN (WINTER)

 

       Summer is the joyous bounding of a golden retriever into the cold river, barking, fetching a stick.

Summer is time for being away from your home and then having long cool evenings in the back yard filled with neighborhood sounds: kids laughing, lawn mowers, music. It's being outside much of every day. It's the reluctance to bake anything inside the house, and the willingness to break routines, go camping, hike a new trail....but wait! I just saw a leaf fall outside my window. What? Really? It's coming to a close?

 

Fall and Winter bring the opportunity for inward gazes, untangling stories, quiet meditation techniques, reading books. It's a time to de-stress, and that's where "TIME OUT" becomes Time In. Let me help you unravel the knots of emotional holding, let crystals cleanse your field. Let your heart unfold with a compassionate listener who witnesses to the power of Being, the power of Healing and Oneness. Call today. In Hamilton.

 

TIME OUT: Rest. Relax. Remember.   546-5344   $30/hour or Trades Welcome.   Tues-Fridays

 

 

UPLIFTING WITH CRYSTALS

Treat yourself to an evening of pure energetics on JULY 28, SUNDAY, at 7:00.  I have asked my friend Karuna to share her magnificent crystals with us. As you can see they are placed on a copper grid, and we will have the opportunity to clean our auric fields and re-energize our etheric bodies together. Do call me if you have questions. It is $20 for the evening, and well worth it.

VIBATIONAL HEALING

 

How many of us have crystals on our dressers, or hanging around our necks or in our pockets? I confess to all of the above.

 

I became entranced with crystals through O'Shinnah Fastwolf, an Apache Theosophist in the early seventies. She was my mentor, and the first speaker for the crystal kingdom in this country. She taught other crystal healers who then wrote books and popularized crystal healing. I've been hooked on crystals, and other gemstones, a long time.

 

In the early eighties, my life led me to drive to Arizona once or twice a year. I stopped in all the rock shops on the way, as much for the lift in my etheric energy, as to take a break from driving. One shop caught my eye in southern Utah, and I pulled in. It was extremely dusty inside, crowded with numerous rocks and minerals, and a few quartz crystals. I asked the man if he had any "Herkimer Diamonds." Herkimers are from an area in New York (my birth state) and are noted for their clarity. Once you spot one, you'll remember their traits forever.

 

He was amused. "Only folks that ever ask me about crystals around here are Indians!" He said, shaking his head at my blond pony tail and blue eyes.  He rummaged around and eventually came up with a cottage cheese container. Out spilled hundreds of the beautiful small "diamonds," most with sharp terminations at both ends. This was beyond my wildest expectation. "How much?" I asked, certain I wouldn't be able to afford more than one or two. "Well, how would $5 for the whole lot be? I need to clean some of this stuff out." It was my cosmic lucky day apparently, because he could have asked $5 apiece for them. Now they sell for $50 each in Santa Fe.

 

I still have some of those brilliant babies, and have liberally spread them around to friends, in baby-bundles, and some are even buried in special places on the planet I want to return to. I feel protected and nurtured when I wear crystals. I have one specifically for traveling tucked in my "bathroom" bag.

 

I use them for healing as well, holding them in my hands in meditation, passing them through my energetic field when I'm in distress. I recently read the following: "Wearing crystals and using them in healing can shorten your visits to painful places and work through situations so that you can release the toxic vibrations and grow and evolve . Crystal healing reveals to you your greatness, that you are a divine multidimensional being." 

 

The only way to prove this is to experience it, although there is plenty of research about crystals' effects in the human energy field. They literally attract disturbing ions and therefore leave the field charged in a way that is most beneficial to our well being, somewhat like sitting next to a waterfall, or doing tai chi in a pine forest.

 

But don't take my word for it. Experiment with crystals yourself, or come in to see me. If you've been hauling around a lot of gunk, emotionally or physically, crystals might be your new best friend!   

  

                                         TIME OUT

             Always confidential. First session free.  546-5344.

                                Rest. Relax. Remember.

 

 

 

FINDING FORM WITHIN CHAOS

This lovely sculpture rests inside the mausaleum at Forest Lawn Cemetary in Glendale, CA. When I saw it my breath escaped me momentarily; we don't have access to lovely sculpture in my neightborhood. I thought she might move; I had to touch her, and felt as if I was trespassing on an intimate space.

Someone saw her within a block of marble. She was seen relaxing on a rock, her hands at rest, gazing off, perhaps drying out after a quick swim. And then the sculptor began the painstaking process of revealing her.

May your soul be seen. May you be blessed during the lifetime process of revealing her.

TIME OUT: Rest, Relax, Remember   First session, no charge   546-5344

INTENTION & DESIRE

"Inherent in every intention and desire is the mechanics for its fulfillment...intention and desire in the field of pure potentiality have infinite organizing power. And when we introduce an intention in the fertile ground of pure potentiality, we put this infinite organizing power to work for us."
     This statement, along with 7 other Laws stapled together, fell out of my bookcase this morning! We forget there is a place of pure potentiality in our bodies, and in our minds, that it is the Stuff of the Universe, and that old habit patterns don't live there. Out with the old, in with the new....the song of Spring. ( If you know who wrote these Laws, let me know. I do not like quoting without a source! )

SHE RAINS

As I write, rain is pouring down with peals of thunder rolling across the mountains. These are the
he-rains: rains that drench, carry a little hail this time of year, make my skylight leak, and test the nooks and crannies of inadequate shelters. They are an onslaught. What will follow are the
she-rains that barely move the leaves, that gather slowly along the little trenches in the garden, and moisturize gently and quietly, until even they have ceased, and the world is fresh and revitalized.

When folks come to TIME OUT, my approach is akin to she-rains: deep breathing, soft touch (if any), delicate scents, only the sweetest of sounds in an atmosphere of acceptance, and encouragement to let go of the confusion, indecision, and general noise of the daily world.

Some of you may not be familiar with Reiki which is a healing framework developed by a Japanese master healer for channeling Universal Life Energy, or Chi. The practitioner lays aside her own personality and thoughts, to allow chi to circulate through and around her, especially through her hands, either laying softly on the body, or slightly above. The result is the "relaxation response", a lessening of pain, and a realignment of one's energy and viewpoint.

Also helpful in TIME OUT are quartz crystals to magnify intention, and sound/vibrational work which help to loosen the rigid structures our thoughts can create. Compassionate listening in a non-judgemental and completely confidential environment also allows for deep sharing to access matters of the heart.

 

Rest, Relax, Remember



546-5344

First session without charge

Subsequent sessions $30 or Trade

Star Jameson, BSW

Hamilton, MT

Invitation

 You are cordially invited to experience TIME OUT:

 

A place of quiet tranquility

in Hamilton, Montana

 

where you can relax, experience loving and gentle touch and a variety of other approaches including

 

Reiki Level II

Sound & Vibrational Healing

Compassionate Listening.

 

TIME OUT is a valuable compliment to traditional therapies.

Please call with questions:  406-546-5344.

 

Trades Welcome

$30/hr.

 

In the future there will be postings from time to time about the transformational process as we continue our journeys

in this time and place, together and apart.