Tag: time

Episode 1 (Grape Juice is Unnatural)

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Sparky My Muse Podcast-Episode 1
(Grape Juice is Unnatural)

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So, What you can expect on the show?

• I will add a new show about once a week.
• Once a month I want to feature Interviews with interesting and creative people.

• A segment about “wine for newbies” will be featured each time.
And each show will include, one way or another, something on how to improve yourself and live the good life: as a person, as a creator, and as a person on planet earth!

The wine segment for episode:

I work at Spring Gate Vineyard and I learned something sort of odd.

Did you know Grape juice is unnatural?

Grapes are considered a berry.
The skins have yeast and the fruit inside contains sugar, so that fermentation is the natural outcome.

Extraordinary means have to be taken to stop the process. Usually fermented wine was diluted with water in ancient times.

Martin Luther is attributed as saying:
“Beer is made by men. Wine by God.” He was very fond of both.

 

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The Berry on the Vine? (Wine Series)

I plan to take this series and broadcast it…as a podcast!

The Spark My Muse podcast is coming in May and a “wine for newbies” segment will be on every show.

Two shows are finished so far, and a few more will be completed before it launches officially.
Stay alert for updates!

 

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So, about those grapes!

Grapes are actually classified as a berry. They are berry cool.
(shout out to Strawberry Shortcake, yo!)

What’s so interesting about grapes is that only taste like grapes if they are eaten fresh or squeezed into (unfermented) grape juice at just the right time, with few exceptions.

• Fermented grapes seldom taste likes grapes (among those few exceptions are Muscat, Niagara, and Concord).

• Instead, once grapes are wine they taste like a whole variety of fruits and other things.

The chemical compounds in fermented grapes are even more complex than blood serum and taste far better (unless you’re a vampire).2854238804_a8b92961e9_z

Wine takes on characteristics of many different sorts of fruits, depending on the variety and where they have been cultivated. Additional taste notes happen during fermenting, refining, filtering, aging, and so on, done by the vintner (wine-maker).

Here’s a very short list of the many fruit notes (subtle tastes) that fermented grapes can offer in both sweet and dry (non sweet) types of wine.

Citrus Fruits:

lemon, lime, grapefruit, orange, etc…

Pome Fruits:

Apple, pear, quince, etc….

Stone Fruits:

Peach, plum, apricot, etc….

Tropical Fruits:

Mango, pineapple, star fruit, passion fuit, papaya, etc….

Seed Fruits:

Pomegranate, persimmons, etc….

Berries:

Strawberry, raspberry, blackberry, cranberry, blueberry, etc…

Wine takes on other qualities too, such as vegetal notes, herbal notes, mineral notes, and many more.

Never underestimate the grape!

Do you have a question about wine?

Ask me!

Silence and peace

Timely short prayer write some 50 something years ago, or more.

I’m gathering up the energies to write something in long form. Several ideas brewing but not sure of my next choice. For now, the silence.

lake-and-leaves

Prayer of Thomas Merton

I beg you to keep me in this silence so that I may learn from it
the word of your peace
and the word of your mercy
and the word of your gentleness to the world:
and that through me perhaps your word of peace
may make itself heard
where it has not been possible for anyone to hear it for a long time.

Time as a Bubble

Bubbles_Angela_Kelly_01-480x384I used to dread the coming of winter and the long cold months that encased the landscape–making it bleached and barren.

I still find winter difficult. I need the colors of nature to brighten my day and lift my mood. I like wearing sandals and not layers of clothes. But, I’ve finally lived long enough to experience winter as a few uncomfortable months, instead of a dreaded expanse of time.

It seems we experience time in a kind of frozen way. At the time, Winter seems like the only season that exists and the memory of warm weather fades and seems unreal from within the time table in which we find our selves. Time is not a stretch. It is a bubble. Each moment is a short pop away from not existing. Freezing bubbles isn’t possible…at least not completely (though the picture above would suggest otherwise, right?)

Once March comes, I feel much better about the new year. Here’s to brighter days and warm nights and enjoying each moment no matter what.

Freedom from cynicism

“Critical thinking without hope is cynicism. Hope without critical thinking is naïveté.” – Maria Popova

RBSP-Launch-Streak-Double-MKilliancropThere is a balancing act for those of us with a creative spirit and a thoughtful disposition. We totter between hope and cynicism. This is the ongoing waltz, or slam dance. 

Hope, without an anchor, leads to some inflated expectations that are soon slapped down by reality or disappointment.

But, in those disappointments, we can become wounded or hardened and grow an exoskeleton of cynicism.

Proverbs 17:22

A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.

The truth is, I don’t understand life that well. (Not suffering or joy. Both are weird to me, still.) All the pat answers fail desperately, as it is their nature to do. And so, when this happens a few routes remain:

1. You can shut you eyes and re-double your efforts. (You’ve molted but you want to stick the feathers back on.)

2. You can live with uncertainty. This works well for a time, if you can handle it, but in truth, no one is stagnant. This is merely a stage, not a destination, or place of solace and rest. This disposition gives way to a kind of state disenchantment or resignation, and sometimes a tart cynicism. It is the stone in the shoe of hope.

• Or, one can start over, but never in the same place.

3. You can become a contemplative (a mystic, a sage, or a seeker) and this means that you’ve let some things go, but you are still fervent on all the major points. Here, you have freedom from cynicism. You haven’t let the bitterness or the indefinite way of things beat you into a sad lump.

I’m not sure where you stand, but you stand somewhere.