between the ground and the feast

betsy traub

Last week, I took a walk in the woods with a dear friend, and for a few extraordinary hours, we found ourselves wholly immersed, away from the rest of the maddening world—two people lost in the splendor and simplicity of color and conversation, laughter and light. It wasn’t meant to be an escape, but it certainly felt like a reprieve.

Each step took us more into a moment of pause and intentional being, one we chose to embrace, so on we trudged, deeper and deeper, until we looked up and noticed the red trail had become the blue trail and the stream once on our right had disappeared.

In other words, we were lost in the woods.

Well, maybe not entirely lost lost, but definitely turned around, and when you have to teach a yoga class downtown in less than thirty minutes and have no idea how to return to your car?

Yeah.

Fun fact: while I do my best to be or at least present as low-key calm, who are we kidding? I am a catastrophizer through and through.

I texted my sweetheart:

We’re lost.

What do you mean?

Where are you?

In the woods.

Which woods?

Ellison.

Share your location.

Which I forgot I knew how to do, until I remembered.

I think you need to head south to get to your car. You have a compass in your phone.

Telling me to head south is like assuming I know which way is south, which is like assuming I know calculus. But I say nothing.

Or if you go north you will run into Blossom Road and I will pick you up there.

♥️♥️

And just like that, with some swift scrambling up and down a steep ridge, Betsy and I were out of the woods and I was on my way to the studio.

Inhale. Exhale.

Crisis averted.

From lost to found.

I wish I could say the same thing about how I awoke this morning and how I continue to feel about the current state of this country and the larger world because the things that were broken yesterday are far from being mended. Is it that I'm lost or more heartbroken? All I know is my thinking is upside down.

There is something to be said about being lost in the woods rather than lost in one's own mind.

A mass shooting in my beloved Maine has been superseded by the news that the Cornell student who allegedly threatened to "stab" and "slit the throat" of any Jewish male he sees on campus, to rape and throw off a cliff any Jewish female is from my hometown. 

And then there's my mother, who is in the midst of an extremely troubling medical mystery that has found her in the hospital since Sunday. Each day brings only more questions, more tests, and more imaging, but no answers.

I know others can do it, but for me to write an easy, breezy newsletter feels somehow untrue. At least at this moment.

People ask me if Lewiston is close to Monhegan? The answer is no and yes.

Any mass shooting is too close.

How is your mother? 

I don't know.

I try to find comfort in writing as a physical act. My pen scratching on paper is akin to the sound of my feet crunching in the leaves—both keep me out of my mind. But as much as I'm writing, I'm not really writing.

In her poem Not the Saddest Thing in the World, Ada Limon identifies this place as the one between the ground and the feast. How do we go about our day which isn't ordinary, exactly, because nothing is ordinary now even when it is ordinary?

I've been trying to come to my terms with what is the saddest thing in the world, what is or is not mine to do, but of late, the only thing productive thing I seem to do is bake. 

It started a month ago when I bought this glass dome, and because I can't figure out where to store it, I've opted to keep it filled. The smallest gesture of something I can do. Sometimes small-batch blueberry muffins, others the ease of a Krusteaz cinnamon swirl crumb cake. You can substitute butter for the oil and call it your own—thanks for the tip Miki!

OR make these Totally Chocolate Chocolate Chip cookies from Nigella Lawson:

• 4 oz semisweet chocolate

• 1 c flour

• 1/4 c unsweetened cocoa powder

• 1 t baking soda

• 1/2 t salt

• 1/2 unsalted butter, room temperature

• 1/2 c light brown sugar

• 1/2 c granulated raw sugar

• 1 t pure vanilla

• 1 egg, cold

• 2 c semisweet or dark chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 325°F. Melt 4 oz chocolate.

2. In a small bowl combine flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt—a fondue fork makes the perfect whisk.

3. In a larger bowl, cream together butter and two sugars. Sometimes I use my 1994 freestanding KitchenAid, but a hand mixer will work just as well. Add the melted chocolate.

4. Beat in the vanilla and the cold egg, then mix in dry ingredients. Stir in chocolate chips by hand.

5. Scoop out 1/4 c size mounds and place about 2" apart on a baking sheet lined with parchment. Do not flatten.

6. Bake for 18 minutes

7. Allow to cool on the baking sheet for 4-5 minutes, then transfer them to a cooling rack to harden.

Placing under a glass dome is of course optional.

We do what we need to find our way back to ourselves. To trust in our enough and our ability to show up, because between the ground and the feast is where we live now.

thanks for reading ~

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The Hidden Heart Retreat • February 1-4, 2024 • Finger Lakes, NY

Join Heidi Kroft and Sarah Webb in the Finger Lakes for an extraordinary weekend of self-discovery! Through the practices of yoga, meditation, and creative journaling, we will reconnect with ourselves, paying attention to all that makes us sing and explore how to receive our whole heart whisperings in beauty and bravery. 

this intimate retreat is for women of all ages and life stages 

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if you enjoy this newsletter i’d love it if you spread the word or click the ♥️ and leave a comment so we can grow & get to know one another in community. my deepest gratitude to all who are already sharing, liking, recommending, and restacking narrative threads: from breath to pen.