The sacred spins in what we do every day. The simple act of preparing food and eating it can be a mediative and spiritually nourishing activity in which we pay homage to our existence and those we love.
Food is not just something we consume which gives us fuel. Food has the ability to communicate and teach us how to love ourselves, our planet, and those we care about. Tending to and appreciating how an onion divides, the perfect design of each layer, distinct, whole, yet contributing to the next layer, creating the onion itself, can tell us how to exist in our human bodies, how to fold into each other and out in dynamic ways. The slow stirring of a stew, the strategic seasoning of its base, the thoughtful addition of the right herb to accentuate its depth, can tell us how to tend to ourselves, our lovers, everyone we are on the world with. When we put a sugar snap pea into our mouths, wet with the promise of spring’s cleansing and healing greenness, when we pay attention to how it crunches under our teeth and how our tongues and throats make it ready for our stomachs, we awaken to the life sense that could save us from a dull and sad existence.
Fragrance of oregano and simmering tomato, lemon’s acidic tingle, an egg’s sputter in a hot oiled pan, basil’s verdant unfolding in early June light, each sense our food transmutes calls forth memory upon memory. We aren’t just sensing what is before us now, but feeling what it felt like to eat our grandma’s spaghetti and meatballs at age 5, what our noses smelled the first time we had pesto on a sandwich, how our eyes jumped as we seared our first egg in the too hot pan. Each sensory food moment builds with another in a chorus, recalls, calls back and forward from our past to our present to our future.
Food is not fuel. Food delivers our love. Food feeds our souls, hearts, spirits, creativity, senses, ancestors, and our need to offer ourselves to one another for the fullness of our being in the world.