Category Archives: Wild Woman

Quinoa Vegetarian Meatballs

I found this recipe and decided to try it because I’m looking to eliminate or at the very least reduce the flesh I consume. I know many who do quite well without even any animal products, but I’m cool with vegetarian for now.

I’ve decided that I’d rather cook for myself. If the other people in my house don’t like it, they can be the ones to make their own dinner. I’m cooking one meal, the healthy alternative one.

The following is not my original recipe. I found it, tried it, liked it, shared it.

Quinoa Vegetarian Meatballs {Gluten Free Option}

By: Lindsey

Prep Time: 30 minutes Cook Time: 25 minutes Yield: 18 Meatballs

Ingredients

  • 2 cups cooked quinoa [instruction below] (Mare’s Note: I used Success Quinoa in a bag (use two bags)
  • ¼ cup parmesan cheese, grated (Mare’s Note: I used shaved to great result)
  • ¼ cup asiago cheese, grated
  • ¼ cup fresh basil, minced
  • 2 tablespoons fresh cilantro, minced (Mare’s Note: I do not like cilantro so I left it out; recipe still delicious)
  • 1 teaspoon fresh oregano, minced
  • ½ teaspoon fresh thyme
  • 3 small garlic gloves, minced fine (Mare’s Note: I used three large cloves but I don’t plan on breathing on anyone anytime soon.)
  • 1 large egg (Mare’s Note: I used two to hold it together better)
  • 2 large pinches kosher salt
  • ½ teaspoon black pepper
  • ¼ cup Italian seasoned bread crumbs
  • 1 pinch to ¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

Instructions

  1. In a fine sieve strainer, pour 1 cup quinoa, pick over for stones, and rinse with cold water. In a medium saucepan mix the quinoa with 2 cups cold water (or broth). Add about 1 tablespoon olive oil and a large pinch of kosher salt, and stir to mix. Bring to a boil over medium high heat, stir, reduce heat to a simmer and cover. Cook covered for approximately 30-40 minutes or until all the liquid has been absorbed and the quinoa is soft.
  2. Preheat your oven to 350°. Heat a large cast iron skillet or pan over medium heat until searing hot.
  3. Mix together all ingredients in a large bowl. Pour a little olive oil into the preheated skillet. Form a meatball a little smaller than a golf ball and place the meatball in the skillet starting in the center. Working as quickly as possible, repeat with the remaining meatballs, radiating them out from the center in a spiral pattern. [You could certainly pre-form all the meat balls and have them ready for this step, but I am all about cutting out wasted time, and that, is wasted time.]
  4. Once you have finished placing all the meatballs in the skillet, it is time to start turning them! Gently turn each meatball once it has browned on the opposite side. My burner causes my large cast iron skillet to be unevenly hot, so I swap some of the middle meatballs for the outer meatballs to ensure an even sear.
  5. Bake in skillet or transfer to a rimmed baking sheet and bake in preheated oven for 25 minutes.

Notes:

To make these meatballs gluten free, simply use gluten free breadcrumbs. You could also try substituting gluten free flour for the breadcrumbs but I cannot vouch for how that will work.

I like to make a large pot of quinoa at the beginning of the week, so that I can make these or anything else quickly without having to wait for the quinoa to cook.

(MARE’S NOTE: I whipped up a jar of spaghetti sauce instead of fussing with it, making an easy meal. The meatballs are really worth the wait. My uber-carnivorous roommate and husband devoured it.)

Liberty Stolen

My body, this I be (My country tis of thee)

Peace, Joy, Affinity, (Sweet land of liberty)

Youth’s fountain springs (Of thee I sing)

Blood on my mother’s thighs (Land where my father’s died)

Gifts of our sister’s sighs (Land of the Pilgrim’s pride)

At every hearth reside (From every mountainside)

“Hestia, we sing!” (Let freedom ring!)

Quilted Southern Winds

Quilted Southern Winds

Everyone thinks death cold, but It’s really

Warm, intimate, successful release

Wrapped up in the comfort specifically.

Designed with the greatest love; Precisely laid

Met with the request for entry

with two silver coins for Charon

but lacking in the courage to step onto the ferry

Hindered by worry that is specifically laden with

Lofty descent permeated with terror

Yet thrown back into the tepid waters

as rebirth is painfully conjured from within

the womb of life pattern stitched

in quilted southern winds

17 Days

The sanctuary of grief is a holy place that is not for the weak of spirit. The walls are painted with every moment spent, no matter the color; a wild tapestry.

The hymns are long conversations into the night, short hand stories, inside jokes, and deep understanding that acceptance walked with ever present love.

The baptismal waters are of “Late-night-songwriting-in-the-bathtub” and “He broke up with me” tears filling the cistern.  It is a place where the words can become taunts or they can be such deep comfort.

They begin with the hallowed halls of disbelief and denial which is carpeted with woe fully outfitted with despair. It is not a place of blame but a place of detachment. A place where the eyes see, the ears do not hear, and hands begin the work of attempted redemption.

The sheered walls rise up like oceans of waves, but they do not crash down. They don’t encompass these halls, they merely rise up out of desperation to guard against the white-hot destruction that will soon birth a new reality.

It is a place where the spark of Divinity explodes into a supernova of absence; a star collapsing in on itself. A sun that no longer warms the darkness after the implosion. And yet, there is, where there is not, a silence so reverent that the living avoid looking directly where that sun used to shine. They all know where the lover must tread, no one wishes to accompany them.

As the shroud slowly unravels, allowing realization to usher the lover into the sanctuary, the air becomes acrid with understanding. Knowledge pours in, at first, as if a light rain begins on a warm summers afternoon. But that doesn’t last long before the heavens open the floodgates of comprehension.

And there, in that holy moment of mortality, there is resolution to fight the inevitable. The wails of anguish stripping layers of supplication. Promises made with any bargaining chip the lover can grasp feebly at in an attempt to resurrect the beloved. The crossroad between anger and mourning is littered with massive piles of these hastily created pleas, empty with rare exception.

But there sits the lover in the darkness, thick-thighed, back straight in meditation. Balancing in anticipation on the edge of the eternal womb of rebirth. This is not intentional, but necessary. This is the place that is reached once the silence of the sanctuary has been blessed, the baptism of lusty life has been committed to in honor of truth; to honor the truth of spirit.

The spiral walked is ever motivating. Once the feet have begun the path of acceptance, the narrative becomes deafening. But this, this is the distillation of everything the lover and beloved were together. This is the creation anew. There is no end, it is but adaptation. It is a chameleon of blended characteristics that creates a hybrid of their Divinity and your own.

Nobody will recognize you any more because you will look like you, but your words and actions will reflect stark and sometimes confusing messages to those who only knew you to be broken and lost. They will poke, prod, coax, bait, and attempt to see the pieces, but you’ve already swept them up to the last grain of shatter, carefully gluing them together into a stronger version of your destiny.

The most difficult of the learning spiral is that of silence. What once was filled with them is now quiet. But to allow things to just be, the constant distraction allows them to be as they always were. It allows them to exist in a different way of being, just as you are.

Every breath taken is a chance to fulfill your covenant with your new personal spark of Divinity. An opportunity to connect with your own authenticity which can happen with the simple act of breathing. The gift of grieving, not on a schedule, but as it occurs.

Consider this: When a grain of sand starts rolling around, it doesn’t understand that it’s from the mountain tops. It doesn’t realize it’s about to become a pearl. It just keeps doing what pieces of sand do. It is.

When a massive boulder wears down with age and becomes a pebble in a river bed, it doesn’t think, “Man, am I old and worn out.” It doesn’t know that it’s going to fit into a child’s pocket as a happy memory. It just keeps doing what rocks do. It is.

When a tornado rips through a house with high winds howling, scattering debris, it doesn’t pause to ruminate on the lessons it’s teaching from the destruction of its path. It doesn’t understand that it came to be out of a kismet of circumstances. It just keeps blowing chaos as tornadoes are want to do. It is.

When you open your heart to hear the language of the Universe/God/dess, you don’t always know what will happen, how the resources will appear, or how you’ll perceive the outcome. You don’t get to know the grand scheme of things because of our limited view of the rippling waves.

But like the grain of sand, you will become more polished until you rival a pearl with luminescence. Like a boulder, you will show up as a pocket of pebbles of happiness for any child at heart. Like a tornado, you will blow away the old and outdated to bring change and renewal in my wake. You are.

The Traveling Heart

My soul was lost, floundering without purpose

Gypsy feet wandered human nature

The Sedona Red Rocks of Arizona

Showed me the intense beauty of desert isolation

Reflecting my sun glared eyes

Sunburned skin – husk of an old life shed

Revelation of the raw and openly scored spirit

My feet turned towards the forest loam

I walk deeply, mindfully, into the Ponderosa stand,

Dripping regrets onto needles that violate

My feet and legs, creating a tenderness

That feels like Christmas morning

I climbed mountains to witness the freedom

Of flight

But found the rocks resistant to my wings

Forbidding me entrance;

With courage forged in the fires of trauma

I ascended.

Flinging myself into the swirl of eddies

That couldn’t hold me

I plummeted into the icy, unforgiving river

Where I forded from embankment to water’s edge

Directionally challenged as I

I fight against the rushing waters

Until I’m exhausted and finally relent

To the inevitable flash flood of grief

It washes me onto the shores

Of the roiling ocean waves

Under a full moon gleaming

In sacred silence

I left immediate footprints of ideas,

Beliefs, and yet more solitude of a different depth

The winds of change hurricaned me east

Lessons abandoned, like me,

At the foot of the Great Smokey Mountains

Phoenix-like, I refused my ashes

Reconstituting in my power

Hear me, my friends, those who feel outside

Those who feel forgotten or invisible,

Those who feel created to endure tribulations

Those who arrive precisely on time

Into my company: exhausted, panting, sweating

Sopping in voracious victory

With reciprocal love we bond

Dancing with wild abandon

Intermingling

Pressing our heartbeats together

In loving embraces

With you I’ve found my way home.

Where Women Gather

Where women gather, magic is born,

Stir the cauldron, call the storm.

The power comes to those who need

cultivate the planted seed

self-nurture with Mother Mary’s prayer

Wander round the Otherwhere

Return to home; dig down your roots

Opened womb of swollen fruits

He Don’t Need Me

I stepped into the heat

of that Arizona sun

looking towards the future

that I’d thought had begun

I wrapped into his arms

on the day that I arrived

warmth and love and laughter

I finally felt alive

But when he sleeps

his dreams are not of me

When he smiles

he shines, but not for me

Through his eyes

my heart, he doesn’t see

I tried to give

But he dont’ need me

Giving up a lifetime

he promised he held the key

Leaving Arizona

a bus to Tennessee

Miles spread out behind me

He’s the best I’d ever known

Making painful choices

Hating loving alone

Cause when he sleeps

his dreams are not of me

When he smiles

he shines, but not for me

Through his eyes

my heart, he doesn’t see

I tried to give

but he don’t need me

No he don’t need me

He don’t need me

Wrong door, Right Place

The following is a possible trigger for C-PTSD, major depressive disorder with recurrent severe w/o psychotic features, generalized anxiety with panic attacks, which also happens to be my diagnosis.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline Call 1-800-273-8255 Available 24 hours everyday

Due to a lack of a psychiatrist, I was switched off one anti-depressant which kept me stable to another one at the lowest dose. Within a week of the switch, a couple months ago, my world came to a crashing halt.

I noticed that I wasn’t calling my friends as frequently but didn’t realize that isolation is one of my first go to’s. Then I stopped painting or writing and what I did write was short, tidy, and not up to my particular liking, but oh well, publish it anyway. I started wondering why I felt so sad all the time, but still, my alarm bells never rang.

By the time I was sleeping 16-18 hours a day, I realized I was in over my head. I felt like a complete failure to not have understood how far down I was going. It wasn’t very long when I started thinking, “What is the purpose of being alive? We’re going to die and within a couple years, nobody will remember me like they don’t my best friend Bean after she died a couple years back (in my house an hour after she told me she loved me and asked to sleep for one more hour that cost her life.)

I’d chat on the phone with whomever I needed to, but I couldn’t form the words asking for help. Strong women don’t do that, only weak women and I’m definitely NOT that. I had tears pouring out of my face washing oceans across my lap. And yet, as my vision faded to black, my therapist suggested I go to an outpatient program at a hospital because it would be more intensive than she could help me with. She saved my life.

I showed up first thing in the morning and parked in front of the main doors to the hospital. I started to cry. I was so raw, the gaze of the lady at the counter seared my muscle, sinew, and bones. I wanted to throw myself on the floor and beg for help, but instead, I choked back the sobbing wail and asked the receptionist to register for the day program. She asked me to have a seat.

A pleasant looking woman offered me a chair in the assessment room. I thought, “Oh great, quizzes about where I am on a scale of 1-10.” She asked why I was there to which I became suspicious of her question.

“I came to register for the day program because my therapist said it was a good idea.” I offered.

She asked me questions about my state of mind. This is going to sound obvious, but do not tell the lady in the assessment room: “Why are we even here? What’s the point in living? I wish I was dead.” You get the picture. It was gruesome in my head, but once I started I kept going.

She said something about thanks for being honest. She left the room for a bit. I started crying again, or maybe I hadn’t stopped. I don’t remember. I already had a two tissue deep finger cast I kept dabbing my eyes with as needed (frequently).

When she returned she sat down across from me and leaned over the desk. “I don’t think you’re safe right now. You have threatened your own life. We’re going to keep you for a few days so you can get back on your feet again.” I sobbed heavily.

I wanted to hate her. I wanted to blame her for my darkness because knowing my brain was attacking me, realizing that she was right and hating myself for my weakness, I signed a ream of paperwork. She allowed me to make a couple calls while she processed the paperwork.

I called my mom and my husband and told them what was happening. I arranged for my mom to get the car to Ben. I continued sobbing. I couldn’t breathe. I felt like a crumpled piece of fish soaked newspaper. She asked me to remove my jewelry. I begged to keep the necklace with Bean’s ashes in it to which they relented.

With just the clothes on my back, I started following the first person who said “Follow me.”

Locked door, hallway, locked door, hallway, etc.

The path unclear, I dragged behind as the realization of anxiety dripped through my body, causing me to flush sweat. I started sensory soothing by rubbing my fingertips together and lengthening my breath to settle my shoulders.

Locked door, hallway, locked door, hallway, etc.

There were people there dressed in shorts, bathrobes, jeans and t-shirts, while the staff seemed human, I was screaming weakly in my over-crowded brain. There were men and women sitting randomly on the floor having various volumes of phone conversations that I couldn’t understand as I tried to keep up with the quick walking leader.

Locked door, hallway, locked door, hallway, locked door.

As she opened the door she started explaining stuff about rules of my new temporary home. I couldn’t pay attention long enough to get half of what she said. My panic level kept rising as we approached the nurses station.

Over the course of the next few hours, I was poked, prodded, gauged, tagged, and hung upside down by my rear feet. That’s not true about the tagging and rear feet. I got all processed, given a room with a fresh made bed where I struggled to sleep against the every 15 minute life-check. At bedtime, I took whatever they gave me, and slept fitfully.

The schedule is rigid and filled with groups to help give tools to be used when we got released. The age span was varied across generations. The rise and fall of their humming with sparkles of laughter seemed alien. It had been so long since I wanted to smile.

Fast forward to Saturday when I “woke up”, looked around and wondered what the hell I did this time. Some things from the fog began arriving at light-speed with the resounding shuddering groan of burdened heart. I was feeling physically better with a sidekick of humor.

The people stationed with me in the prison of lost souls finding their way home again were unbelievably kind, introspective, wise, giving, and genuinely looking out for each other. We exchanged our journey through the mental health system like trading cards spread out in an emotional three-card monte.

It wasn’t as morbid as you may think. It was soothing to know that other people have experienced horrors like mine. They made me feel “normal” again. They helped me believe in the amputations that we endured in our psyches that couldn’t touch who we were really are. They gave me hope even when they didn’t have it themselves. I needed those battle-worn veterans mingling their stories with mine, conjuring solutions through our newly refreshed communication skills.

I got released on Tuesday afternoon on the condition that I’d arrive Wednesday morning at 8AM for Outpatient Therapy classes to which I agreed. My mom came to get me and bring me home. I made her a card in art class which she loved. She brought me a hot cup of coffee with hazelnut creamer in it. I practically chugged it down. “Ah, nectar of the Gods.” (Bless you Bapa). I felt relief, excitement, loving, and most of all I felt and feel grateful to be alive.

Wednesday morning arrives and I return to the same door I went in the last time. I ask the receptionist where I could find the day program.

“You go back out the doors you came in and drive down the side of the building where you’ll see the door to get in.” She directed. I thanked her while thinking thoughts of wonder.

Sure as tooting, I drove around, parking in the back lot where the door actually was. As I parked, my favorite Bible verse: Isaiah 43:1: “…Don’t fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are mine.” appeared in my mind’s eye. It brings me deep comfort because I imagine LOVE saying that to me. It fills me to the brim.

I am very blessed to have walked into that main door instead of the Day Program I was supposed to find. I AM strong. I am not my diagnosis. It is an issue with my chemistry being out of whack. I do believe I am a miracle. I’m feeling a thousand times better than I did a week ago when dying seemed like a great idea. It wasn’t. It isn’t. Call

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline Call 1-800-273-8255 Available 24 hours everyday

Unreal

Magenta is as made up as time or leap year.

Like unrealized assumptions and conclusions not jumped to

Or consequences not suffered at the hands of your higher self

How many decisions got left to The Fates?

Sisters of three set your weft as you will

So I can feel secure in the lies I tell myself