Kitchari for the Unmoored
Whatever held it together is gone, NaPoWriMo Day 9
for Trinity, Gail, and Candice – who taught me this when i was unmoored
movement one soak a half cup of split yellow mung dal and a half cup of white basmati rice in separate bowls cover with water overnight if you can (vata is dry. the soaking is the first softening.) drain and rinse three times until the water runs clean warm the ghee in a heavy pot low flame patience is the first spice when the ghee is shimmering add a half teaspoon of cumin seeds a half teaspoon of black mustard seeds wait for the popping (this is called tempering. the seeds open and give the ghee their fire.) add a thumb of fresh ginger grated add a pinch of hing – asafoetida – the strange resin they handed you in a tiny jar and told you to use sparingly, it will do the work (i cannot. i have tried. the smell undoes me. i leave it out. the teachers would forgive me. they would also shake their heads.) add a half teaspoon of turmeric the color of a sun you cannot look at directly stir let it bloom the kitchen will smell like somewhere your body has never been and also always been add the drained dal and rice coat them in the spiced ghee gently, like you are waking a child add four cups of water rock salt a small piece of kombu if you have it (vata is dry – the ghee answers dry with fat.) (vata is cold – the ginger answers cold with heat.) (vata is light – the dal answers light with weight.) (vata is rough – the mung answers rough with smooth.) (vata is subtle – the salt answers subtle with here, here, here.) (vata is mobile – the cooking answers mobile with stay.) bring to a boil then low cover forty minutes add sweet potato halfway through carrot a small beet if you want the ground to come up into the food do not leave the kitchen the kitchari knows when you have left it when it is done the dal and rice will be soft almost one thing a stew that has forgotten it was ever two ingredients finish with a drizzle of fresh ghee a handful of chopped cilantro a squeeze of lime if your agni is strong serve into a warm bowl sit down take a breath before the first bite (this is the vata version. for mixed company, the pot holds one thing and the bowls hold the rest – coconut for a pitta body, extra ginger for a kapha, each of us fed according to the weather inside us.) (Trinity said some of the old teachers say that if you eat kitchari and nothing else for a month it will heal anything. i have never tried it. my teachers were not into fasting. i am telling you because she told me. a lineage is what you pass on even when you do not use it.) thank the rice thank the dal thank the plants thank the cow that gave the ghee thank the teachers thank the teachers thank
movement two soak the dal you did not soak the dal no time dal is in the pot already ghee is not melting flame is too low flame is too high was there ghee you cannot remember the second aphorism you cannot remember if there was a second the mustard seeds are not in the jar the jar is in the same cabinet the cabinet is the same cabinet the jar is not you are cold the kitchen is cold vata is cold you are making cold food for a cold body like increases like they told you like increases like the recipe is becoming the disease you are stirring the disease you are adding salt to the disease vata is dry. vata is light. vata is cool. vata is rough. vata is subtle. vata is mobile. (this is vata derangement.) the recipe is vata now the cure has caught the disease the teachers’ voices are subtle now the teachers’ voices are drifting now the teachers’ voices are
movement three ghee / mung / rice / ginger / turmeric / salt / water / cilantro / lime / agni ghee / mung / rice / ginger / turmeric / salt / water ghee / mung / rice / ginger ghee / mung / rice dry / light / cool dry / light dry d l c r s m . . . (this is vata derangement.) (agni.) (agni.) (agni –)
kitchari – the food you make when you cannot hold yourself. rice and mung and ghee and spice, cooked until they forget they were ever separate things. vata – the wind inside the body. creative when it moves, unbearable when it scatters. composed of air and space, which is what you are made of on your worst days. vata deranged – when the wind has taken over. sleeplessness. racing thoughts. cold hands. a body that cannot stay inside itself. agni – the fire that turns food into body and experience into wisdom. when it is strong, nothing accumulates. when it is weak, everything does. ghee – butter that has been burned down to its essence. sacred oil. what carries medicine into the body. hing – a resin. pungent, strange, ancient. a pinch is all you need. some of us cannot bear the smell. mung dal – split yellow beans. the easiest thing the body can digest when the body has forgotten how to digest. kombu – a small piece of the sea, added to the pot, to ground what is floating. tempering – the moment the seeds open in hot ghee. the beginning of almost everything. – for the teachers who taught me this, and for the feeling of being unmoored.
Thirty Nights of Possessed Writing
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Not prompts - something closer to interruptions. Conditions that alter the field. Thirty of them. One for each night of April, if you want it that way. Or not. Use them, ignore them, enter anywhere. Skip nights. Repeat one. Let them sit unopened. No instruction. They interrupt. They persist. They do not resolve.
pretty
you can't stop the signal