Discardia

Discardia Admired

We live on such blind speed with obligations shooting by so fast and under such pressure that stopping to smell the roses is yet another obligation and we move on at rocket pace even unaware of the tiniest phenome of a rose. Into this vacuum of life has come a fascination with things slow and deliberate -- the slow movement for example – and now this gem of a book, Discardia, by Dinah Sanders.

Sanders demands we celebrate slowness by advocating quarterly holidays of Discardia, of letting go, of cutting roots, of weeding the garden of simplifying the food of life, of ending procrastination and finding what is there when you have done that.

The holidays come before Winter, before Spring, before summer, before the end of summer. The actual dates are based on complex equations involving solstices and equinoxes and your place on earth to avoid me saying something like “before Christmas, or before Rosh Hashanah.” more based on natural rhythms than on cultural rhythms – although, to my mind, the two must be linked. These holidays start with Sanders’ core principle, “Decide and Do, Quality over Quantity – and proceed onward with principles to fight the ever present danger of inanition.

And so I am half-way through and wielding a machete to carve out time from my press of obligations to finish this intriguing work: a fragrant rose to savor.