Food real food…

We all have a relationship to food that is at once joyous and infuriating. Food is a standard in our lives and we can’t get away from it. We have to eat to live and survive. It appears, in this country especially; we have turned food into survival through over indulgence. This seems like an oxymoron yet let me explain. We love to eat we love the feeling that food gives us. It is nurturing, it is grounding, it is a replacement for our sense of well being and love. Because by nature humans want more love (that is all anybody really wants), we turn to food which has no person attached to it that can judge us or find reasons that we can’t or shouldn’t be loved, to get a sense of self. So we eat more because if love is what we desire we certainly want more of it. We anthropomorphize food, make it our friend, our lover our partner our therapist. It takes away the need to look at the deeper issues of why we feel un-loved. Food is such a beautiful part of our lives and I want to invite people and myself to gracefully find a way to turn food into a precious and nurturing ritual that enhances our hidden yet already peaceful sense of well being. Instead of making food a person I would like to make food another essence of myself. Food becomes that which expresses my delicacy as a woman and as a being who cares for herself. When food is over indulged in it takes on qualities of a master and slave. Food is the master and we are it’s slaves. With that there comes the constant need to please. You become split within yourself between being true to your essence your nature and instead you serve your outer self as food the ruler. If food can come down from the realm of king and become your essence we all benefit. We all slow down, eat with conscious awareness of how we chew, how we set a table what we prepare for the enhancement of our essence. If food becomes our artistic expression then we all become very careful in our execution of our gift. Our making of nourishment becomes the act with which we create something that a mandala is not permanent to our eyes but constant in our being. It is so beautiful and yet when we eat it, leaves like the wind blows the mandala away. Still the energy that was put into the food stays with you and moves into your cells, into your sense of self and becomes a more conscious you. It becomes the essence of you. It can be healing when you have made it from love instead of using it as the outer expression of a love that is hollow and perhaps not real love at all. Real food is like real love it is born of the earth. It grows like some kind of miracle that we have come to take for granted. Yet the journey I am on is to remember where my food has come from, the journey that it has taken from field to plate. This is not woo woo stuff… this is awareness of life and how we occur on the planet. This is about becoming yourself deeply and caring for your world by caring for yourself. So it seems simple that we make food, dishes and recipes to satisfy our desire to look good in the world to our family and to ourselves. But we can also create the path of preparation and picking out recipes and making sacred space for food as the very basic practice of becoming more authentic. It is Spirit or God whatever you wish to call it (your belief in something greater than yourself even if you called that earth or nature) that is where this food comes from. Food consciousness is a foundation of your spiritual life. Throughout history in all sacred places the ritual of food has a profound place in the connection to God. Whether it be in the preparation of the sacrament or the blessing or the intent or the symbology, food is a ritual of love. It becomes so sacred to the development of your sense of self and your connection to God. Care for your inner environment by being aware of your participation in where the sustenance of your life comes from and you feel a deeper connection to yourself as a unique expression of the Divine.

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