My mother and in-laws are old. I married a Jewish atheist. Ergo, I’m in charge of the Seder.

There is an atavistic part of me that feels fondly about this Spring ritual. Except now, I’m in charge, and I’m tired. I work a lot. My husband got a job in Seattle and is gone for a good chunk of the week. My house is a mess. And we have a Seder to prepare for 12 people by Saturday (we celebrate on the second night).

My mother told me that I owe it to my children to make my Seder longer than last year. My kids are in a Jewish school, and as they have told me, once they get Bar Mitzvahed this Fall, they’ve had enough with the Jewish education. That’s fine. It was my responsibility, and my joy, to pass along our heritage.

What I really think my mom was asking me was to make the Seder longer for her. Because she’s 82. Because she has emphysema. Because how many more Seders will she have? So I will.

For the past few years, I’ve been skimming the Maxwell House Hagaddah. The language is tired and old (like me right about now). So I bought a set of the 30 Minute Seder, hoping it will be reasonably fun and intelligent. But if I had my druthers, I’d do the two minute Seder, which appeared on Slate, and goes like this:

The Two-Minute Haggadah
A Passover service for the impatient.

By Michael Rubiner
Illustration by Mark Alan Stamaty.

Opening prayers:

Thanks, God, for creating wine. (Drink wine.)

Thanks for creating produce. (Eat parsley.)

Overview: Once we were slaves in Egypt. Now we’re free. That’s why we’re doing this.

Four questions:
1. What’s up with the matzoh?
2. What’s the deal with horseradish?
3. What’s with the dipping of the herbs?
4. What’s this whole slouching at the table business?

Answers:
1. When we left Egypt, we were in a hurry. There was no time for making decent bread.
2. Life was bitter, like horseradish.
3. It’s called symbolism.
4. Free people get to slouch.

A funny story: Once, these five rabbis talked all night, then it was morning. (Heat soup now.)

The four kinds of children and how to deal with them:
Wise child—explain Passover.
Simple child—explain Passover slowly.
Silent child—explain Passover loudly.
Wicked child—browbeat in front of the relatives.

Speaking of children: We hid some matzoh. Whoever finds it gets five bucks.

The story of Passover: It’s a long time ago. We’re slaves in Egypt. Pharaoh is a nightmare. We cry out for help. God brings plagues upon the Egyptians. We escape, bake some matzoh. God parts the Red Sea. We make it through; the Egyptians aren’t so lucky. We wander 40 years in the desert, eat manna, get the Torah, wind up in Israel, get a new temple, enjoy several years without being persecuted again. (Let brisket cool now.)

The 10 Plagues: Blood, Frogs, Lice—you name it.

The singing of “Dayenu”:
If God had gotten us out of Egypt and not punished our enemies, it would’ve been enough. If he’d punished our enemies and not parted the Red Sea, it would’ve been enough.

If he’d parted the Red Sea—(Remove gefilte fish from refrigerator now.)

Eat matzoh. Drink more wine. Slouch.

Thanks again, God, for everything.

SERVE MEAL.

But I won’t. I’ll do my half hour. I’ll do my duty. And I hope, I know, I’ll feel gratitude that we’ve had another year to sit around the table with each other as a family.

I’ve taken myself off of any promotional email lists. Because like Pavlov’s dog, when that email arrives, I run to the computer and shop. And almost always, I end up buying something I don’t need.

But still they find me.

The other day I got a $10 off certificate to Crocs. I own a pair of Crocs and don’t need another. But I went to the website, and more than one hour later, decided on three pairs of shoes: a pair of pumps (because surely I need a comfortable pair to augment the ten uncomfortable ones I already own); a pair of olive leather sneakers (I need more flat, comfortable shoes, which I actually do); and a pair of grey sneakers, because, well, grey is different than olive.

Long story short, the pumps were too big and the grey ones uncomfortable and I ended up returning both of them for $20 shipping and handling. So at the end of this excursion, I spent 3 hours of my life, $20 extra dollars, supported cheap manufacturing in China, degraded the environment, increased my carbon footprint — all for things I didn’t need in the first place.

Time to wake up and call a spade a spade.

The real work is becoming native in your heart, coming to understand
we really live here, that this is really the continent we’re on, and that
our loyalties are here, to these mountains and rivers, to these plant
zones, to these creatures. The real work involves a loyalty that goes
back…billions of years. The real work is accepting
citizenship in the earth itself.

Gary Snyder

I was interviewed by MSNBC on the John Friend controversy…

Joseph Kony has been abducting children for 30 years and turning them into prostitutes and child soldiers. These children kill and mutilate other human beings under Kony’s orders. This situation is obscene.

Please watch this video and spread the word.

Kony must be stopped. We can do it.

I’ve refrained from commenting personally on the recent John Friend incident/s in part I work at Yoga Journal as the communications director. But it turns out, that whatever I might say publicly is pretty darn close to what I’d say privately.

First, about John Friend. He screwed up. He’s mostly admitted it. His behavior was irresponsible, wrong and hurt many people. The definitive investigative piece has yet to be done about the Friend fiasco, and I look forward to reading that one day. But am I shocked by his behavior? Not really. A powerful person seducing followers? Tell me which professions are off limits to this behavior? Medicine? Religion? Politics? I think not. It’s not yoga that corrupts — it’s power, it’s ego, and the inability of some leaders to say no, even when followers say yes. And about those followers — no one should check their critical capacities at the door of any yoga class, or any yoga bedroom. If you’re an adult, you’re responsible for your behavior, whether you are the teacher, or the student.

No one is above this stuff including myself. While I’ve never had an affair with a teacher, I was tempted once. While reporting for my book “Ravenous“, I felt the seductive pull from a meditation teacher. People who are charismatic, and in some form, present, as they say in Buddhist parlance, can reach parts of our souls that we normally keep closed off to others. This teacher should have known better, but didn’t. I did, though at times, it wasn’t that easy.

There’s the Friend controversy, and then the commentary on it. I was taken aback by William Broad’s irresponsible piece in the New York Times, on Friend and about the history of yoga and Tantric philosophy. I am no yoga scholar, but I do know that yoga’s origins did not start as a sex cult. (This link is to Chris Wallis’ fine rebuttal in flow yoga magazine). Only a very small part of Tantra’s philosophy is about sex, and one of Tantra’s main goals is to cleanse the body and awaken the spirit for meditation and enlightenment. Sex gets all the attention because, well, anything we’re repressed about gets a lot of ink.

I can’t put my finger on it exactly, but I get the sense that when Broad writes about yoga, he feels like he’s slumming, like he’s taking a break from reporting about real things like particle accelerators and DNA research. Like he’s a bit embarrassed by it all. Fine, so slum away, except do your research and get your facts straight. Instead, we get Beware! Yoga can harm you! (and practiced incorrectly it can) and Sex Scandal Rocks Yoga World! It’s one way of acting critical without responsibly reporting critically at all.

My bigger fear is that people who don’t know any better will read this stuff and their take away will be that yoga hurts you and that it’s filled with sex crazed teachers. Yoga, in fact, is a remarkable, time-honored path towards achieving greater self-awareness, greater kindness towards others, and to waking up. But you’ll never get there if you check your brain at the front door.

OK, probably not the most earth shattering topic, but since Callista’s hair has been in the news, I thought I’d add a few thoughts.

It’s no mystery why the woman wears her hair that way: it’s a helmet, a shield, armor against the world. She doesn’t want to be touched, or known, or seen as having any vulnerabilities. She has frozen her image and frozen is how she looks.

I truly deplore Newt so nothing his spouse could do or wear or be would affect my vote, but I must say, the second I laid eyes on Mrs. Gingrich III, I was repelled. So it seems like her game plan is working.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about money and how I spend it. I make a decent enough living, and always pay my bills. But I’ve been digging deeper underneath my purchases(I love clothes, and shoes, and purses), often bought on impulse, and making more clear to myself the difference between want and need.

I decided I needed some criterion for my purchases and came up with this: I would only buy things that 1. added to my health 2. created greater ease in my life 3. that made the world a better place, or 4. that brought me joy. Since the beginning of this year, I have spent money on a juicer (health), sneakers (ease), donated money to Planned Parenthood (make the world a better place, and TAKE THAT Susan Komen center), and a pink pencil skirt (um…hmmmm). OK, so this is where it gets tricky. I love my new pink pencil skirt. I decided I would slot it into the joy category, because, in truth, I own nothing like it at all (I tend to buy the same kind of clothes over and over again), and pink. PINK! Pink is delicious and makes me smile! It’s light and springy and femme and I feel happy in it so ok, I’ll call that me joy.

What I did not buy were several pairs of earrings, a new watch, some pretty sweaters, etc. I did not spend $1,000 on those things because they did not pass the “health, ease, better place, joy” test.

I’m not about to wear a hair shirt or because an ascetic, but I do think our actions reverberate not only personally but out in to the world. My work to discern between want and need is one tiny contribution to a world where the limits of growth have become eminently apparent, as has its cost.

I like growing older. I like that the unnecessary begins to fall away.

Tomorrow is the one year publication date of Ravenous. It’s been quite a year.

I spoke at bookstores and conferences about my own struggle to make sense of my relationship with food and my body. I received emails from people near and far who shared their own food stories and thanked me for sharing mine. And what I learned is this: there is almost no part of our lives that food doesn’t touch. We eat to survive, of course, and it’s troubling and sad that many people don’t have enough to do that. But for the lucky that do, our food contains stories– of who we are, who we wish we were, and who we hope to become. What we eat tells us where we came from, where we are, and where we hope to go. These stories connect us to ourselves, to our family, to our friends, to our community and the world.

I had hoped that by writing Ravenous, I would figure out a way to eat that keeps my weight sane and offers me more ease in my body. Lord be praised I have! But I did not expect that by writing Ravenous, I would become less hungry in other areas of my life. I don’t need as much stuff as I use to, or as much praise as I once sought. Things I thought I wanted (oh you know, you can never be too rich, too famous, or too thin), turns out I don’t. Not really anyway. Not where it counts.

Through writing my story, through creating something which for me is valuable, real and true, I have finally been able to shake the quiet desperation that ran through much of my life. Maybe I don’t need to endlessly strive for the next big thing, because life is good, here and now. I will continue to do my work, at home and in the world. And life will continue to unfold, I bet, in unexpected ways. And for that, and so much more, I am grateful.

Here’s my most recent blog post for Sparkpeople.

If you had asked me a few years ago if I could ever manage to eat a few almonds or a few olives or a few pieces of chocolate and not attack the whole can/jar/bar, I would have said, “unlikely.” I now know, after a lot of practice, it’s possible. Know thyself, and know that thyself can change over time.

And speaking of Spark People, they have a fine new cookbook out, Sparkpeople Cookbook (full disclosure, Hay House, who is also my publisher, sent me a copy). The recipes are simple, and offer a healthy approach to cooking — up the vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and lean proteins, while lowering the sugar and saturated fat. It’s smart about substitutions without sacrificing flavor. And for those who calculate such things, every recipe ends with a nutritional analysis.