I grew some things and chopped them up. I steamed them enough to call them blanched, and steeped them in rice vinegar and honey.
It's not like I can't or don't buy groceries, but occasional water-bath canning gives one the cheery sound of lids popping, and a sense of life going ahead.
Pop. Pop. Six or seven times, then go look at the moon.
This is preparation for a winter in the hermitary.
Pickled veg is famously what Asian hermits have with their rice (when they have rice), especially in winter. Stonehouse recalled having gone through a hundred crocks of pickles, more or less, at his hermitage.
Stonehouse had a hermitage, whereas I merely have a hermitary, that is, in my case, a she-cave attached to a comfortable home. Sincerity comes in bursts of a few seconds; I feel I would make a terrible Zen leader.
That's all right. We are bubbles on the stream. When I see three seconds of sincerity, I jump on -- free ride!
In the morning, rice and veg.
Forty-some years I've
Lived in the mountains,
Ignorant of the
world's
Rise and fall.
Warmed at night by a stove
Full of pine
needles;
Satisfied at noon by a bowl
Of wild plants;
Sitting on
rocks
Watching clouds and empty thoughts;
Patching my robe in
sunlight;
Practicing silence
Till someone asks
Why Bodhidharma came
east,
And I hang out my wash
-- Shiwu (Stonehouse) tr. Red Pine
