2012 9100 Gingerbread

I was crushed when the 9100 holiday committee decided (in a meeting I was not present for) that there would be no more raffle for Christmas.  I still wanted to bake anyway.  I had one coworker who wanted an assembled, undecorated house to decorate with her children, and another coworker who had requested one for her two kids last year when I was finished decorating.  A third coworker's marriage recently ended and a messy custody battle is starting and I had left over dough with her kids in mind.

I hadn't done much with my baked on sugar cookie last year, so this year, the shingles, the candy canes, all the miniture trees - I cut and baked them all on the gingerbread pieces before assembly.

 

An example of the house wall.

And then the second project, which went together quickly and had a lot of inspiration going for it

I have done these in the past with a stack of oreo cookies.  I bought some, and the oreos fell apart.  They used to take some skill to open, but they've made them much easier - it was harder to keep them together than to open them.  So, I took leftover dough and made a stack of cookies of my own.

I made little sugar cookie anchors for the candy canes.

And taking inspiration from some "Pinata Cookie" idea I saw online (these are so amazingly impressive):

http://www.sheknows.com/food-and-recipes/articles/958083/cinco-de-mayo-pinata-cookies

I did something much, much simpler.  The reindeer on top is three separate cookies with the tails cut off except for the middle, and the legs and antlers cut off the middle cookie. 

Best piece of news yet, the Recreation Therapy Department has asked if I would bake for them if the Holiday Committee doesn't want a house.  So, I'm back and making money for the comfort of my patients during the holidays next year! 

Thanks everyone for your support and interest.  I know I was a little brief this time, but if you have any questions about the techniques, icing, dough, whatever, I am happy to answer those questions.  The box kits are getting bigger and fancier every year, but I know you can do this too.

 

Aiki-Ninjabread Cookies

I can't be the only one out there who got these cookie cutters this year.  I got two sets - one from an old girlfriend and one from Mom.  "John, I saw these and I just thought of you!" 

I'm not a ninja.  I've done Aikido since 1990, Taiji (Yang style since 1990, Chen since 2000, and Wu Hao since 2005), and I have orange belts in Shotokan Karate and Judo that predate my ever moving to the USA.  I started Nine Dragon Baguazhang in 2005, and now I am a certified teacher.  But no Ninjitsu.

Using my sugar cookie on sugar cookie technique, this:

Became this:

So, a perfect gift afterall.  Even if I'm not a ninja.

 

Meditation on the Heaven Gua

Heaven Palm was my first palm that I studied.  I had the most difficulty with it.  Of course, I was still trying to learn the idea of a palm at the same time as learning what it meant to be Heaven.

Heaven is the Father Palm, the pure Yang gua.  That had a number of negative connotations for me, but mostly because I didn’t understand what Heaven was.  Would Heaven even be appropriate in a hospital setting?

Heaven is a used frequently in a Judeo-Christian sense, but this is not Heaven Palm. 

The one translation is Sky Palm, but the cold, unobtainable and ultimately intangible and colourless sky did not give me a helpful image to work with. 

The linear, domineering tactical attitude of Heaven is also something I hadn’t really been drawn to Baguazhang for.  I wanted to spiral and twist and dodge and be as hard to grab as smoke.

There is no animal or image from nature to look at and call, “Heaven.”  I spent hours looking at bonfires and candles when I studied Fire.  I can remember Kingsmere Lake during a hurricane, and many summers on the Churchill River for Lake Palm.  I can’t do something similar to point the way to Heaven.

Pure Yang.  This means the Male attitude.  Women can be Heaven, but does this mean that they have to act male?  I remember a friend finishing his PhD in Engineering, getting a keg and drinking most of it himself.  He drank until he vomited, then in a blind stupor used his wife’s toothbrush to get rid of the vomit taste in his mouth.  I remember his wife so clearly pissed at him saying, “That is so…MALE!!!!”  Maybe so, but not Heaven-ly.

I have heard thugs and bullies being referred to as having too much “Yang” energy.  Dogs that need to be put down for the good of society.  Not Heaven.

Little yappy dogs wrapping their legs around anything and everything and rutting on it – maybe an excess of Yang, but not Heaven.

Incoherant, brainless rage and power, like the Incredible Hulk or a Viking berserker?  Out of control mindless destruction that is a danger to everyone around – very Yang, but not Heaven either.

The guy from nearly every cop movie ever made whose role is to be loudly wrong-headed at every turn, looking like a testosterone overdosed idiot who makes life exasperating for the hero of the movie and probably provides most of the comic relief or a minor disgustingly pathetic villain...Yang, but not Heaven either.

I was told that reading the iChing is not the answer to understanding the palm, but it worked for me reading up on several Fire translations.  So, here is my interpretation of a synthesis of several iChing translations on Heaven.

The one translation calls the Heaven Hexagram, “Creative Power.”  Creativity is associated with artistry, and not immediately thought of as Yang.  But, the foundation of Creativity is the belief that I can create something that deserves to be made, something that deserves to exist, that I can make something better than it currently is and maybe even better than it appears in nature.  For a health care professional, it starts with faith in one’s diagnostic skills and one’s ability to help.  It starts with, “I can improve this, I am the right person with the right skills at the right time and the right place to make this better.”

In the change lines, Creativity and power are not embraced for their own sake.  There is a time and place for Heaven.  Heaven is perceptive, and self aware.  Heaven assesses the situation with constant unrelenting Honesty to myself and others at all times.  Heaven sees the need to be proactive, and sometimes the need to stay still.  Heaven clearly sees the cost of acting or not acting, and is very mindful.  Heaven, even when it does nothing, even when it waits, its being firm and decisive.

Dominance is not embraced just for the sake of dominance.  If I came across someone whose heart had stopped, I would answer to the Cardiologist but take over from the family member who hasn’t learned CPR, and still be expressing Heaven.  Heaven accepts that the best course of action might be combining efforts or implementing the ideas of others, or it might demand that one leads.  Heaven has a vision, and a goal and a diamond hard focused intent.  Heaven has wisdom, perception and intelligence with its decisiveness, drive and inspiration. 

The final change line explains Heaven the best to me.  Heaven is not about me.  Heaven is about having a balanced and well defined character, a moral fiber that doesn’t change with the tides of fortune.  Heaven wants to have a visible beneficial outcome in the world.  Heaven wants your life to be prominent and valuable to everyone around you and the entire world.