Brown rice sushi and ecopsychology

Brown Rice Sushi with Avocado and Wakame

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Notes
This recipe makes enough filling for five or six nori sheets. The sushi is great the next day in lunchboxes if you do not think you will need the full amount.

Journey to Wellness

I have changed the format of this blog after some great feedback. It is very difficult to find a recipe quickly. From now, I will post the recipe first so that reading my musings on wellness will be entirely optional.

The powerful call of the wild

“If we surrendered to earth’s intelligence, we could rise up rooted, like a tree.” – Rainer Maria Rilke

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I recently came across the wonderful book The Voice of the Earth (1992) by Theodore Roszark and was introduced to the concept of ecopsychology. At the core of ecopsychology is a powerful idea that psychology and ecology are linked. Our sanity reflects the health of the environment. We are not well and neither is our mother, the earth we so rely on.

Ecopsychology sees nature as mother but also self. These ideas resonate with me because I started my healing barefoot in the sand. I am intrigued by the idea that as we disconnect from nature we disconnect with an intrinsic part of ourselves because we are emotionally connected to nature, the shapes in leaves and the roots that burrow deep into the earth.

Nature as mother – nature as self

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I found nature and myself later in life. As a teenager I moved from the suburbs to the City. I found freaks and misfits in a drunk and half mad subterranean existence. It was like finding God. I found a place to belong. The pulse of the City was a flickering neon light and I twitched, glowing with pleasure. I found friends that would guide me when my compass was broken and I am grateful for those early morning dawns, though I saw too many. I think a part of me always longed for wild untamed natural places. I did not know how to recognize it or feed it and an inner part of me was howling with unspoken grief.

In my twenties my sister and I hitchhiked around Australia. I learnt to feel a quiet worship for nature. I learnt to drink in the silences. I did not know it then, but I was learning to heal and it was the beginning of a love for nature and wilderness that would never allow me to feel settled in City life again.

A place in which to heal

It was not until I met my husband Rock on the Kimberley Coast that I began to feel at home in nature. He is a man with the wild places buried deep in his heart. He can navigate his way in bush for days without getting lost. He can read tracks and name birds. He gave me a love of wild untamed space which is one of the greatest gifts I have ever been given. Truthfully I have none of the skills that would allow me to live like this without him. I am 42 years of age and I do not drive a car because I have never found anything I dislike more than driving in traffic. So I am barnacle to this wild man. I cling on and together we roam.

In nature I have found an invisible cord that connects me to the environment. I have found a sense of wonder for the earth and everything in it. Each sunset brings from me a steady devotion, not only to Gaia but to myself. I have learned to heal and grow. I have learnt to face my loneliness and the deep raging parts of myself I wanted to bury. I have done it all with my feet very literally in the earth.

Nature itself cannot heal us but it can provide a platform of perfect truth and Beauty in which we can heal ourselves, should we one day choose to do so.

Servings

Prep time

Cook time

Recipe

Ingredients

2 cups brown rice
4 cups water
6 nori sheets
3 tbsp apple cider vinegar
2 tbsp tahini
1 tbsp tamari
1 Lebanese cucumber, cut into strips
2 avocado
1 tbsp lemon juice
Pinch sea salt
2 tbsp white sesame seeds
2 tbsp black sesame seeds
2 sticks wakame seaweed, hydrated in water and drained

Method

To cook the rice place the brown rice and water in a pot with a good snug lid. Bring to the boil and then reduce the heat as low as it will go. Cook until the rice has absorbed all the water and small holes are visible. Remove from heat and allow to rest for 10 to 15 minutes. Resist all temptation to remove the lid at this stage.
Mix tahini, apple cider vinegar and tamari in a bowl and add to the brown rice when all the water has absorbed and the rice is still warm. Stir in thoroughly and allow the rice to cool to room temperature.
Mash the avocado roughly with a fork, add the lemon juice and sea salt.
Arrange everything in front of you with a small bowl of clean water to dip your hands as you roll the sushi.
Place nori sheet shiny side down on a sushi rolling mat. The slats of the mat should be horizontal.
With slightly wet hands spread the brown rice mixture in an even layer on the nori sheet leaving a 2 cm gap at the end.
Spread an even amount of avocado in the middle – about a 2 cm wide. Scatter with sesame seeds and arrange cucumber batons and wakame on top.
Roll the sushi mat keeping pressure on the filling in the centre as you are rolling.
When you get to the end of the roll, dip your hands in the water and run along the edge of the nori sheet to help seal as it rolls. Repeat until you have used all of the rice mixture.
Refrigerate at least an hour before you cut. Slice with a very sharp wet knife into approximately eight or nine pieces and serve with tamari and wasabi.