Read.Eat.Listen: Believer

For the first time in many years, I did not go to Austin for SXSW, the annual conference/mass party/whose who of music of the moment (or retro moments).  A part of me must of thought I was going, as the weekend was pretty open, which turned into a good opportunity to explore some new-to-me hiking areas, see Oz (so-so IMHO), and hear some local music. Nature stole the show, however: Springtime is busting out all over, as you can see from these photos of Coyote Hills Regional Park which straddles a ridge opening up on views of the Bay, Coyote Hills Slough as well as East Alameda Contra Cost Counties.

Meanwhile...Reading.Eating.Listening has occured:

Read: I got a lot of mileage out of Sharon Salzberg's 2003 release "Faith: Trusting Your Own Experience" last week. Detailing her early journey to India in the 1970s to study Buddhism as well as her life teaching mindfulness and lovingkindness practices — she cofounded the Insight Meditation Society and is a contemporary of Ram Dass —I took a lot of heart from her journey from ordinary broken to risk-taking seeker, dedicated practitioner and leading teacher: "In order to deepen our faith, we have to be able to try things out, to wonder, to doubt. In fact, faith is strengthened by doubt when doubt is a sincere, critical questioning combined with deep trust in our own right and ability to discern the truth."

Eat: I have a bit of an obsession with cardamom going. I've been putting the aromatic spice  in smoothies, and in...waffles. Breakfast in bed, baby! Buy the the green pods, grind them fresh when you want to add them to something, in this case gluten free waffle mix. I also used orange juice as a liquid and threw in chia seeds for good measure (and fiber). Yum.
Listen: If I had been in Austin this weekend, I would have gone down to the Continental Club or otherwise sought out the True Believers, who had reunited for the event: