Shel Graves' Sensorium

Taste: crisp, watery Cameo apple; sweet, soft raw cashew Sight: a red pepper, a yellow pepper, salad dressing on sale, rye crackers, a fancy jar of apricot jam, 12-grain bread, two bottles of Columbia Crest red wine and daffodils — grocery envy; the Parisian eye Touch: vibration; C string shudders; the heart center of the cellist Sound: Jacqueline Du Pre cello solo Smell: wet dog; madras curry; korma curry Extra: The American Heart Association recommends eating eight or more fruit and vegetable servings every day. An average adult consuming 2,000 calories daily should aim for 4.5 cups of fruits and vegetables a day.

Taste: basil, cashew ricotta Sight: teenboys, lanky hair, crocheted caps playing "Pot Farm" on the library computer; sparks, blackened sepia smoke on the freeway at night Touch: wind moving the car, an invisible hand; hand cramp Sound: whipping, whistling wind Smell: exhaust, burning oil; basil, tomato: Pizza Pi Extra: The Eastside Island Utopia Project , a collaborative utopia

"World peace must develop from inner peace. Peace is not the absence of violence. Peace is the manifestation of compassion." — H.H. Dalai Lama "We have life in our hands. We don't need anything else but our hands and our compassion." — Cathleen Fanslow-Brunjes "Jesus taught and healed with compassion for all." — Mathew 4:24  "I cannot but have reverence for all that is called life. I cannot avoid compassion for everything that is called life. That is the beginning and foundation of morality." — Albert Schweitzer   Reading: Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life by Karen Armstrong Taking note of: the activites of the Charter for Compassion Last year's focus word: spirituality

This was a big year for books in that I tackled some large page counts in Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace and George Eliot's Middlemarch . They were worth it! I now have a favorite protagonist in Dorothea Brooke of Middlemarch: "But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs." This year, these are the books that caught my attention: • War and Peace and Anna Karenina , and Tolstoy's description of burdock root, "black from dust but still alive and red in the center … It makes me want to write. It asserts life to the end, and alone in the midst of the whole field, somehow or other had asserted it." • Middlemarch , George Elliot • The Faber Book of Utopias , Ed. John Carey (Excellent!) • The ...

Dreams this year featured celebrities Brittney Spears (not being helpful as a leopard attacked) and Barack Obama (getting my picture taken with him at a Peace Corps ceremony, excellent!), a snood of jewels, hair braided with gold chains, a collie, and a cello (inspiring more cello in 2011). My Shetland Sheepdog died at home — a beautiful death — her soul departs from her hind end first in shuddering waves of detachment from her legs and chest and neck. My word for 2010 was spirituality, and I read Karen Armstrong's The Case for God : • the Greek word for body: soma — the home of the spirit; and • ekstasis — stepping out of the norm (and the human need to do so on occasion).

By far the stand out smells of the year came from my discovery of Sweet Anthem handmade perfumes via Twitter no less. I became addicted to their samples and have yet to determine a favorite. I did mention Molly (Absinthe, Chocolate, Cognac, Gardenia, Musk, Patchouli, Pear, Vetiver) and Anastasia (Champa absolute, Civet, Dogwood, Fresh Snow, Green Tea, Honeysuckle, White Patchouli) more than once. I also love the names and descriptions. Peruse the website. Also: In drink , anise, I tried Pacificique Absinthe of Woodinville. From yoga , the yoga man smells like coconut oil. From summer afternoon bike rides : cut pine needles; laundry detergent wafting from the houses; phlox; and warm blackberry bushes.

"We have life in our hands. We don't need anything else but our hands and our compassion." — Cathleen Fanslow-Brunjes at a Therapeutic Touch Workshop "Is there anything more you could do to distinguish yourselves?" — a man asked us on our way to Burning Man (we weren't even decked out yet) "I turn around and there's this guy in a tutu with his dick hanging out...served with him in Desert Storm." — at Burning Man "There's not enough wind power, mon." — At first, I thought this guy standing in the middle of the road waving his arms around was crazy, possibly dangerous, but he was just flying a kite. "There are more cells in your body than there are stars in the universe." — Yoga Circle Studio instructor, Karen Guzak "Now, let go!" — a trapeze instructor (Yeah, right! Not as easy as it sounds.) "It's not just a bee in my own bonnet. I've been studying this for 20 years." — An NPR interview...