Gluten and Dairy Free Pancakes

Sunday is pancake day in our house. Sitting around the big table for a lazy breakfast (or lunch sometimes, if we get especially lazy!), the children in their seats waiting with eager anticipation as each pancake is lifted from the frypan...the flour that inevitably gets spilt on the floor, the diplomacy required to negotiate whose turn it is to crack the egg...it is all a beloved tradition.

When our family transitioned to a gluten free diet recently, I found a perfectly adequate, yummy gluten free pancake mix- out of a box. But you know what? The enjoyment of pancake mornings was a little stale. I wanted the spilt flour, the sneaky toddler fingers in the batter, the challenge (and frustration) of trying to move around three chairs pushed up against the bench...half the fun of pancake morning is in the communal cooking experience!

Luckily, I experimented with making up a recipe for gluten free pancakes and they tasted awesome (may have a little something to do with the lemon juice and sprinkling of brown sugar on the top- but hey, a pancake is only as good as it's toppings!)

Here's the recipe:

1 cup buckwheat flour
1 cup brown rice flour
A quarter teaspoon or so of baking powder
2 eggs
1 cup of coconut cream
Half a cup of dessicatted coconut
Enough water to get the batter to a happy consistency

Method:

Mix all the dry ingrediants well. Add eggs and coconut cream and mix. Play around with adding some water until you feel the consistency is right (you can always add a little more flour, or water).

Fry in a saucepan using coconut oil or ghee (if you do dairy).

What's your great gluten free pancake recipe? What toppings do you lavish on your pancakes?

Manifesting A New Nest

For the past two and a half years, my family and I have been incredibly blessed to live in a rambling bush house at the base of Nungali, the sacred Gumbaingirr mountain. The house was, a couple of decades ago, part of Satyananda Yoga ashram, and is part of a group of earthy times homes sprinkled up the lower reaches of the mountain. My children and I played in the bamboo forest, by the creeks edge, ate fruit straight from the trees...it has been magic.

Pictures of our current nest

But now it is time to move on. The landlord is ready to move back into the bosom of this beautiful house, and it's time for my nomadic family to pack up and find somewhere new. It's sad to go, but it's also exciting, to see where that deep, resonant and unmistakable call of the land takes us to. The land drawing us in- that is something I really believe in.

On the new moon just past (it was also our oldest son's birthday, for a little extra magical potency), we gathered our children, some paper, pens, dreams and hopes and visioned what we wanted this time around. With consciousness and clarity, we spoke it out into this sacred land we live on. What manifests will be a perfect reflection of this, as filtered by what we all need now on our Earth Walk.

Here's a little of what we called upon:

on healing land/high vibrations
cheap rent
bedroom/s that connect us
on a well functioning, beautiful and joyful MO or community
a healthy house- no mould etc
sanctuary space
a bath
tipi/yurt/belle tent
stairs that go down into a room of my own (that was our oldest son)
stairs that go down into a room of my own, with a high butterfly bed, and fairies (that was our daughter)
oven and stove
space for an outside/verandah bed
outside bathroom and kitchen
close to Chrysalis Steiner School
close to a daycare or preschool option
cool architecture
easy maintenance
cosy and efficient fireplace
tin roof (for the rain sounds!)
beautiful, heart expanding views
space for my heart work (me)
fireflies
in the rainforest
fig tree
beautiful waterhole nearby
as much off the grid as possible
specifically, places- Martells Road, Freida Hicks Drive/Nungali, on the Never Never, Darkwood Road, Kalang Road, Roses Road or in town

Dropping deeper, I visioned what makes a home space a heart space
love
emotional transparency
deep listening
the holding of space
gentle, conscious and creative parenting
connection to the earth
belonging
holistic
sustainable

I look forward to writing about what manifests for us!

Today's Beauty Way Invitation: One Small Piece of Gorgeousness

In the Sacred Living Movement, we talk often of the Beauty Way of living. Simply put, it's a way of being present to our lives, and how we can deeply nourish ourselves and those around us by consciously bringing beauty to our internal and external spaces.

The Beauty Way is one of the greatest lessons, both for birth work, and for motherhood- and yes, for ALL of my crazy, full, gorgeous, blessed life- from working and learning through Sacred Pregnancy. It's something I come back to again and again.

Today, it's time to offer a little challenge- no, an invitation. This is for you, if you already walk in the Beauty Way. It's also for you if you've never thought or heard of the Beauty Way before. It's especially for you if you consciously or unconsciously are repelled to the concept of beauty, because hell, it is a concept that has been so twisted by our mainstream culture (if this is you, try this: what is one item I could place in my space, or on my body, that would open my heart a little more? That's all. Be gentle. This is your work alone).

So here is my invitation:

What is ONE SMALL THING you can do, right now, in the busiest spot of your home, to bring in walking in the Beauty Way?

Some ideas:

*Lighting your favourite incense in the entry way\
*Making your bed neatly and lovingly
*Placing flowers in the kitchen

Then, what is ONE SMALL THING you can do, right now, to nurture your own body in beauty?

Some ideas:

*Make a simple body scrub from raw sugar and coconut oil, and exfoliate your skin
*Pick a flower and put it in your hair (a great activity to share with little ones!)
*Stop and STREEETCH and find your favourite yoga position.

Here's my little beauty way moment, inspired by a line in this awesome India.Arie song...

"Sometimes I shave my legs, and sometimes I don't. Sometimes I comb my hair, and sometimes I won't. Depending on the way the wind blows, I might even paint my toes..."

Painting my toenails...and my, didn't they look sweet with my favourite shoes and my new wrap skirt...

Okay...now go and do it! Get your Beauty Way on, and post a pic in the comments! Enjoy!

An Invitation to Love

This post is dedicated to my partner Zai, and the love that endures between the two of us. May it deepen and expand through the years. 

Photo found on Pinterest

Last month, my partner went travelling. He attended a wedding in England and then spent some lazy weeks pottering around Europe. He explored neolithic villages, saw the full moon rise at Stone Henge, and cycled through the back streets of Barcelona. 

And children and I- we stayed at home.

It was an epic challenge for me, at least in my mind. It was up there with labour, which for me is one of the  ultimate challenges and rites of passage a woman can go through.

And I admit, it was the unravelling of me. Not when he was gone, but in the months leading up to the trip, knowing he was going, knowing he had made the choice to go, knowing that I would have to delve into new parts of myself to shift from the way we have mostly equally coparenting, at least from when our second child came into the world, to being absolutely, radically, self reliant, and accountable to these three precious beings. I cried, I screamed, I channeled my hurting bleeding heart.  I doubted our relationship. Mostly I doubted myself.

What did I need to do? Trust, surrender, love. That old mantra, gifted to me by my third son and his blazing arrival into our lives, the mantra that seems to apply to anything and everything in my life. It would be okay. There would be gifts.

The greatest gift, it was revealed, was the stripping away. My partner and I rescinded our roles to each other as co-parents and as housemates. Wow, how encompassing those roles had become, without us seeing it! How much of our interactions- and, to be truthful, our frustrations and dynamics with each other- were wrapped up in parenting our children together, and sharing domesticity.

Within hours of watching his plane fly off into the ether, I was struck down by two things: firstly, a deep sense of missing him, of his presence travelling further and further away, faster than the speed of sound. And secondly, from that great heart-spaced emptiness, what flowed in: the realisation that I LOVED him, so deeply, so strongly, so purely. When all else was taken away, what was left was love, and for some reason, I hadn't expected that.

Photo found on Pinterest

So the lesson, for me, in this experience that I fought against for so long:

Open up to the raw places, the places that make you feel abandoned, empty and alone: what do you find there?

Photo found on Pinterest

(It's a great lesson for love relationships, but I am thinking right now, it would be great for relationship with the self too).

And I invite you, dear reader, to this: How can you open up to the raw places today? How can you create a place where you let go of expectations, of relationship dynamics, of feelings of security? What happens when you do?

I actually want you to go and do this. What are you holding onto so tight, and what happens when you let go, for just a little while? What sparkling little lessons rush into that empty space? Share your story in the comments, if you feel to.

© Sammi Cambray/Sacred Whisper Bellingen 2014

Sammi is a holistic doula and birth counsellor, and the publisher of Sacred Whisper Bellingen

Ph: 0418 950 793

The Evolution Of Food...on a family level

Yes, things have been very quiet here at Sacred Whisper Bellingen for a few weeks.

My partner, Zai, was given the opportunity to travel around Europe for a month (and had some amazing experiences). My life during this time became very focused: the wellbeing of myself and my children, our sweet little rhythm, and very little else.

This simple and unhindered presence to my family and it's intimate inner workings shone a light on a few areas that just clearly weren't working as well as they could. Little lost opportunities for meeting people's needs better, more sustainably, and the wise little life lessons that are inherently part of living a conscious lifestyle.

The biggest evolution for us here- the natural process of something clearly being unworkable, experimenting with solutions, and integrating a new way of being into our lives together- was the way we do food. 

Photo sourced from Pinterest

Food is big in our family. Zai's passion is food and cooking and the divine alchemy he undertakes from raw ingrediants, coming up with something far greater than the sum of the parts (psst...the secret ingrediant is love. And probably cumin seeds). And having three growing children...yes, food is a big part of our day.

In our family we had been following a standard traditional food rhythm for a long time. Breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea, and a focal point of dinner at the end of the day. Some of us are vegetarian, and some of us eat meat.

But some problems were definately showing up. The kids would be requesting their next meal (read: I'm huuuuungry, in that voice only children can use). I would prepare the next meal and one of two things would happen:

1. Two bites would be taken, and they would be full.

2. "I DON'T LIKE THIS!!" (Also in that voice- and pitch- only children can create. Optional: a thrown fork/spoon/tantrum)

Occasionally, there was also 3. They ate it happily (mostly if involves rice, tamari and sunflower seeds, every child's favourite meal in my house.)

So, I was finding I was dealing with a lot of wasted food. One benefit: our chooks were extremely well fed and happy. But I wasn't happy. On a deep level, it doesn't feel right to be wasting food. And it's not just the food, it's the time and effort that goes into preparing it- and I'm sure you can relate to those days that I felt I was simply preparing food, serving it, and cleaning up after it all day.

Photo sourced from Pinterest

There was another dynamic going on here. My children, bless them, are beautifully independant creatures. Even the youngest of them knows how to push the chair up against the bench to climb up and get a piece of fruit from the fruit bowl. I would often find them making honey sandwiches or preparing themselves some snack I probably wouldn't condone.

I love their independance. I do. But the same thing was happening with snacking- they would eat half or a third of the apple, and be done. Or they would make themselves enough sandwiches, that their appetite for the next meal (which would be more nutritionally sound, mind you!) would be broken.

So I had to tighten things up. I had to create an environment where we were all more conscious of the blessings that we have in having abundant food, and be responsible with that abundance.

Firstly, we put an end to snacking. This was especially difficult for my middle child, for whom food and independance and choices and all that has such great ramifications for her little being. But we did it, explaining clearly that we weren't snacking, and after a while, she was a lot less anxious. She wasn't constantly asking for food, because she had the security of knowing a meal would be coming up sometime in the near future. She was releived of the need to ask and ask and ask. It would be provided anyway- when it was time.

The second thing, was making our "big meal" of the day at lunchtime, rather than dinner time. We all had more energy then- me, for preparing a meal, and the kids, to either help, or to play whilst I made it. I found myself appreciating the flavours, textures and nutrition of the good food I offered, simply because I had time-- I still had so much of the day ahead of me, instead of thinking of housework and bedtime routines and getting everyone through the meal so we could get on with all the jobs. It also gave us precious time to sit and connect and slow our rhythm down- being at home at lunchtime meant we couldn't spend all day out of the house, just morning, afternoon or neither.

Photo sourced from Pinterest

The third thing we did- which I did, and which really shifted things for us- was to collect up all of the leftover food from the day, put it in the fridge, and serve it up, buffet style for dinner at the end of the day. It sounds odd, but it was so easy, the kids didn't complain (after the first day or two), meant dinner time was simple and the food wastage problem was solved.

We kept our little meal time rituals, for continuity. We light a little candle at each meal, and someone gets to blow it out and make a wish. Sometimes we sing a blessing over the food, and sometimes we share the best parts of our day. It's a special time.

We are embarking on a new food adventure with our family now- gluten free. That's a whole other post...

So how do you do food in your family? How do you deal with food wastage, snacking, what are your little rituals? Please share in the comments below.

© Sammi Cambray/Sacred Whisper Bellingen 2014

Sammi is a holistic doula and birth counsellor, and the publisher of Sacred Whisper Bellingen

Ph: 0418 950 793