| Bless This Food Spirit of Lake Harriet | by Jinjer Stanton I was holding a boiled egg, firmly, but gently, in my hand, when I became aware of how perfectly it fit there -- and for a moment I wondered if the one had been made for the other. Then the words came to me, "This egg makes the hen my sister." And, being a college student with pretentions of being a writer, I decided that was the first line of a poem. That poem was not my best effort. But that line has stayed with me ever since -- and every time I take an egg into my hand, I am filled with wonder. This was my first conscious awareness of the magical connection between my food and me. It was my first intimation that there was a spiritual bond between eater and eaten. I later became a vegetarian, because I didn't want sentient beings to suffer, but I ate vegetables, eggs and cheese with exuberant abandon. Another of my most profound awarenesses around food occurred when I got my first real garden as a result of buying my house. I would walk out into the garden and ask in my heart, "Who wants to be dinner tonight?" and as I walked through the garden a zucchini or eggplant might call my attention, along with green beans or tomatoes or whatever else there was. And I would cook without a recipe, using only the ingredients on hand -- and the food was sublime. I have particularly fond memories of the stews. You could feel the life vibrating in the stuff! Then I began to study medicinal herbs, and my vegetable garden became an herb garden. My teacher was Matthew Wood. I was blown away by some of the magical information he shared and how many medical miracles could be accomplished with herbs. He would tell stories about this person or that who learned about a plant's uses by talking with the plant itself. They were lovely fairy tales. I loved how he spoke about datura having a femme fatale personality or blue vervain being for nervous people with a bluish cast to their skin. I thought they were more fairy tales. Then I met Water Maiden (Virginia waterleaf) in that space between waking and sleeping. She appeared in two guises: Victorian maiden and Indian maiden, very shy and demure. And she told me how she could be used medicinally and how she delighted to be the first green in the woods so that humans could have something green to eat after the long winter. For thousands of years, she has fed Native Americans in the spring. The question came to me, "If I won't eat meat because there are emotions and awareness of pain in animals, how can I eat vegetables?" I shuddered with the realization, "I can't!" The only things left to eat, following that logic, were fruit and unfertilized eggs. Fruit is expensive if you're buying enough to live on, and eggs get old really quickly. I was aware that there are saints in India who live on nothing but air and water. They live in unpolluted areas. They breathe in accordance with ancient yogic principles, drawing in prana (life force) as they breathe. I do the best I can, but I have trouble believing that I, personally, could live that way. Besides, I really love food. I had to reevaluate my entire relationship to food. Luckily, I'd read the Seth books by Jane Roberts and I remembered that he said in one of them that when we eat animals, they look out through our eyes. That they are willing to die to feed us so they can do that, so they can experience what it is to be human. That, and my understanding from Water Maiden, helped me to come to a new way of looking at eating. It became clear to me that I needed to become more mindful when eating. I needed to cook with a view to doing honor to the beings, plant and animal, who gave their lives to further mine. I needed to buy as organically as I could and make sure that the food I made was good. Poorly prepared food is an insult to the flesh of plants and animals who are eaten. Thinking of all the traditions around the world that are centered around honoring the spirits of the animals that are hunted, the grains that are harvested, and the Earth that supports us all, I've come to realize that this is a very important area in which our culture as a whole is spiritually bankrupt. It's not entirely because we wish to be disrespectful to our food. A woman I once knew wanted me to teach her how to cook. I tried, but she couldn't even understand that rotten strawberries should be thrown away and the black edges of her kale ought to be cut away before putting it in soup. And so many of us will buy a Big Mac rather than buy organic beef and cook burgers at home. We allow convenience to outweigh quality and it affects our health, not only on a physical level, but on a spiritual level as well. It carries us farther and farther away from the web of life that is vital to our making our time on this planet the highest and best it can be. It's not what we eat, it's how we eat. Even that prayer from my childhood can help turn that around (you can substitute whatever deity or spirit has meaning for you): "God, thank you for the food that is set before us and bless it to the use of our bodies. Amen." Jinjer Stanton is a Ministerial Guide at Lake Harriet Spiritual Community. She will lead classes on two Thursdays in July: "The Plant Human Relationship: Body & Soul" on July 22, and "Connecting Body & Spirit Through Movement" on July 29. She teaches yoga on Monday evenings and Thursday mornings. Contact her at Jinjer@isd.net or call (612) 722-9703. Copyright © 2004 Jinjer Stanton |
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July 2004 |
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