The beauty in the colors of green and purple shine for a delicious meal in this hearty, super healthy, filling salad. Health-boosting ingredients make this salad rock! Enjoy the tenderness of red leaf lettuce, Vitamin A, C, and E - rich red cabbage, sprouts that are loaded with enzymes and protein, all topped with a creamy avocado-cilantro dressing. We ate this before heading out for a walk, and it kept us going strong, despite the biting cold.

February has been red cabbage month for us. It all started one night when I made a delicious salad from red cabbage and beets, topped with coriander, cinnamon and currants, with fresh orange juice squeezed on top. The salad shown here is a spin-off from that denser salad. I've also been craving the slaws from our local Coop. Cabbage is warming to the body, and this may be the reason why I'm drawn to these foods right now.

Ingredients: Serves 2
4 cups red leaf lettuce (or your favorite greens), chopped
1 cup red cabbage, super finely sliced
1 cup sprouts (clover, alfalfa, and radish shown in photo)
1 small Hass avocado, peeled with pit removed
1/2-3/4 cup pure water
6-8 stems cilantro
3 tablespoons green onion, chopped
3 tablespoons currants
1/2 teaspoon coriander spice (for cabbage)
1/4 teaspoon Himalayan salt, optional
Juice of 1/2 orange, squeezed on top

Directions
Rinse lettuce and cabbage. Shake off excess water, or pat dry.
Chop lettuce, and grate cabbage. Arrange in layers on platter, with lettuce first, cabbage second.
Sprinkle coriander spice on top of cabbage.
Put avocado into blender with water, cilantro, green onion, and salt. Blend until fairly creamy. It's pretty with bits of cilantro showing.
Pour on top of cabbage and lettuce.
Add sprouts, sprinkle on currents, and squeeze orange juice on top.
Serve immediately.

I love it when one thing leads to another. How a thought or idea will take me from where I am to the next place. Like trails of golden breadcrumbs left in the inner fabric of the universe, messages reach us at just the perfect time. Social media is having a large effect of bringing the world to our doorsteps, as does music. I recently saw a Facebook post from the "Super Fit Vegan" and activist, Jeff Sekerak, that Monsanto has purchased the largest bee research company, Beeologics, with the intent to genetically modify honeybees to be resistant to pesticides and chemicals. This information was so shocking, I was speechless. On that same day I watched a video from 1976 of Cat Stevens singing Morning Has Broken (lyrics by Eleanor Farjeon), with such heart. The two pieces of information (the bees, and the song of creation) stood at polar opposites: one came from what to me was power, greed, and control, and the other from love.

The following day I saw a picture of a beautiful amethyst necklace on Facebook, and was drawn to click on the link and arrived at Dharma Shop. According to Wikepedia, dharma means "that which upholds, supports or maintains the regulatory order of the universe." Their page had photos of jewelry, and in one of the pictures was a quote attributed to Buddha: "If you truly loved yourself you could never hurt another." This really jumped out, and as I was contemplating those words I inwardly heard the phrase, change we must. This happens to be the title of an album by Jon Anderson from 1994 that I've listened to many times. In this excerpt from the opening song, State of Independence, he wrote:

Sound like a signal from you
Bring me to meet your sound
And I will bring you to my heart

Love like a signal you call
Touching my body, my soul
Bring to me, you to meet me here
Home be the temple of your heart
Home be the body of your love
Just like holy water to my lips

Yes, I do know how I survive
Yes, I do know why I'm alive
To love and be with you
Day by day by day by day

These are messages about states of consciousness that I feel can help transform our world. To stay in the heart of all hearts, to be love, for no other reason than just to love. Where ideally, everything I do and say comes from the purest essence that I can access and practice "day by day by day." Because all change starts from within. Like Buddha says, if we truly love ourselves, we could never hurt another. Jon Anderson writes in the liner notes: "We need to remember that we all survive because of each other. The trees, mountains, flowers, birds, animals, insects, humans: we all need each other in this life. Yet we have forgotten the true natural thread resounding in us all that keeps everything in order."

For me, the way to access the "true natural thread" begins with centering and listening. Then awareness and information comes. This moves into choice. All I can hope to do is take action when I can, and to stay inwardly connected as much as possible, and to "live mindfully", as Thich Nhat Hanh teaches. From this place we can exude the peace that we long to experience on this planet, and this ripples out and touches others, even the "Monsantos" of the world.

We can do the same with our diet, and our life. How can we live it from the highest intention, and not from fear or control? These are important questions. I don't have all the answers, but I know they will come as I follow the streams of consciousness that light up, and follow my intuition as it leads me to the next step. In this way I may continue to evolve and live a life filled with love.

From this "state of independence", we can choose love, resonate with love, initiate ripples of love, and spread love. For me, this is the progression of conscious awareness and its natural expression and evolution.

Change We Must (excerpts) by Jon Anderson. Click Here to watch the YouTube.

Coming through vision
Coming through wisdom
Coming together
This love

Giving me daytime
Giving this nighttime
Bringing within me
This love

Coming through wisdom
Coming together
This love

Coming to the earth
Singing to the stars
Change we must
To live again

Coming to the earth to the moon
Coming to the sky to the earth
Change we must
To live again