birthday celebration fit for saints

no sooner than i walk into shivaa's house she says, your husband called to remind us that it's your birthday, i said to him, we've been planning this. hwubby has been sprinkling his emails to mutual friends with such a gentle and not so subtle reminder and so in the last couple of days i have been looking at subject lines in the inbox wondering what they are about. here's the kick. usually i hit 'delete' if i couldn't recognize it. yet i feel a prompt from within to open it. so i do. i've been showered by blessings.

i digress.

anyhow i am fortunate up to my eyeballs. such sublime company i have. while navigating through heavy traffic to shivaa's house ruth and i have a spectacular back and forth about how to choose between 'pleasant' and 'beneficial.' really fun. really impactful because how i decide to spend time in the evening pretty much shapes whether i can get up to meditate.

the discussion continues over shivaa's sublime food after chanting vedic hymns and meditation. i have this experience that the sacred syllables are streaming out of me, that they are just part of who and what i am. the feeling of oneness is exquisite.

speaking about exquisite, shivaa's salad is exquisite beyond measure. fresh garbanzo beans. she shells them. each one is like a tender-jade-green bead. it looks alive and tastes alive. i bite into it and i say, after this it is going to be hard to go back to dried garbanzo. tossed with lettuces, fennel, parsley all from shivaa's garden, blood orange, ground brown cardamom and a sesame-orange dressing this is a sublime sumptuous satisfying creation. what about the soft-gold butternut squash soup? blended smooth in a base of shittake broth the full, earthy flavor is given a couple of lifts by fresh lime leaves, bay leaves and lemongrass. then there is shivaa's quac. quac is easy to make but it's not easy to make a really good one. shivaa's quac strikes a fine balance in terms of texture, taste and looks gorgeously green. then we clean the palate with fresh pineapple ripened at its peak.

i make a wheat-free, gluten-free brownie-cake. shivaa completes it with fresh whipped cream and raspberries. the best raspberries i have had in a long while. diana and i, both geminis, blow the candle together, on behalf of two other fellow geminis, neil and norm. we eat cake, laugh some more. i feel totally nourished. there's no place i'd rather be, no people i'd rather be with. except hwubby, of course.

i leave with a satisfied belly, a bag full of gifts and blessings from dear friends who happen to be great beings. my heart overflows with laughter and gratitude. now that i perceive the huge diamond of my inner self i see all these precious gems of great beings around me. lucky me indeed. this is birthday celebration fit for saints.