Two times new gold

Food for body and mind

Galega, an ancient Portuguese olive variety

We are awaiting the new olive oil now that we delivered 1,000 kilos of hand-picked olives to the mill in our village. Curious are we about the yield in litres and the acidity. It is the topic of the weeks as long as this campaign - as they call the picking time here - lasts. Everyone, native and immigrant, are experts, specialists and know-it-alls. The advice on when to pick, how to preserve the picked olives, which press to use from this village or that town, are daily occurrences. We are used to it after all these years. Been there, done that.

We know one thing for sure and that is that nothing is certain.

So many factors play a role in the quality of oil and climate is one of them. The wild stories about sky-high prices for the new gold as olive oil is called nowadays are a novelty, though. There are apparently shortages in Spain. Well, with us on the other side of the Spanish border, there is none. The harvest is so plentiful that the olive presses can hardly cope.

Two weeks outdoors in this beautiful warm late autumn was no punishment and now it really is time to continue writing and working on the new series of meetings starting in January. I have given that series the title: World peace begins with yourself because if you don't know what wars you are fighting inside, you won't know what you reflect or even attract externally.

The meetings offer the chance to learn from each other how we are artificially composed and to take a step towards daring to be more ourselves. After all, you are not different from others. At most, you have a different story to tell that you believe in and have even become, without any proper investigation. 

I think the other new gold is writers and researchers like Naomi Wolf. Without them, the dark cloud sweeping over this world would be even bigger. This morning I read her piece Among the Rich.

Naomi has remained an investigative journalist despite the opposition she faces. I think she is good at her job and she has been writing openly since 2020 about the path she took at the beginning of the corona crisis. Her latest book (just out) is entitled Facing the Beast: Courage, Faith and Resistance in a New Dark Age. For the positivists among my readers: don't be put off by the title; it succinctly sums up the real situation in the world.

With everything Naomi has been through, she has developed a great sense of compassion. And we can all have that, with ourselves and everyone else in the world.

The easy way is to hate and condemn each other. There is no effort required for that so to speak on the world stage, in families and circles of friends. The tough way is to be able to feel love for everyone. After all, as I sit here with the sliding doors open while the sun sets, I know love is the only way forward.