I love my man. Love. Him. Like crazy, head over heals, dumb in love with him. Anyone who knows us in person, can certainly attest to this. But last night? Oh. My. Goddess. I was soooo mad at him I had to fight the urge to throw big things in his direction! So mad... No... actually, I was PISSED. I share this with you, not to cross boundaries or to tell you something he isn't already aware of, but to give you context. (We are by the way, better. The charge is still dissipating, but good communication skills, and practice go a long way for moving through conflict.)
While in this state last night, I went downstairs to start preparing dinner for us. I was actually contemplating staying holed up in the loft all night long, fuming, but my hunger kicked in and downstairs I went. I found myself grating carrots for our salad with a vengeance. Every time I slid... no... rammed that carrot over the grater, I replayed the story and all the ways I really wanted to respond to Jon over and over again in my head. Until out of no where, my deeper wisdom must have kicked in, and I stopped, took a deep breathe and put it all down.
I startled myself when I realized what kind of energy I was infusing our food with. All that frustration, reaction and anger all going into our gorgeous fresh salad with each stroke. I just stopped and continued breathing, because I needed to eat, needed to prepare food, but didn't want to pour all this negativity into it, and didn't quite know how to step out of my storm of emotions.
I love preparing food. Its an art, much like all other art is. We express ourselves and communicate through the things we create, and food is wonderful in that we ingest intention and the life vibration not only contained in the food itself, but in the intent of the person who prepared the food to begin with. I have always known this, and although there are long stretches of time when the only intention I pour into my food is the pleasure of actually preparing it, I have also very specifically poured healing, love, community and magic into my dishes. I certainly never want to imbue a meal with my own drama of anger and being caught up in reactions that are sourced from my own unconscious crap!
So I shifted. It took me some minutes, but I shifted. I brought myself down a bit, reminded myself that although I was angry and that was totally fine, I was and will always be deeply in love and committed to this man, and what was happening in that moment was perfectly normal and fine. And that although space needed to be made for me to feel what I was feeling, I also wanted to bring in what I thought would be helpful and healing to us in that situation and what would be most supportive to our love.
Taking a deep breath, and approaching the food on the counter like a prayer, I began to prepare again. This time, honoring my anger, and bringing clarity, communication, healing, abiding love, resolution and nourishment to help our bodies repair and regenerate after the stress of conflict. This brought back the pleasure in cooking and also reminded me of how powerful cooking with intention could be.
It also reminded me of that amazing gorgeous movie Like Water For Chocolate. Tita's cooking was so imbued with her love, passion and sorrow, that anyone who ate her dishes would be swept up in the storm of her emotions. I so love this movie, and tried to find some youtube videos and came up with this one. I really didn't want to provide you all with one that was dubbed in English, because quite frankly it loses some of its magic. For those who do not speak Spanish, I think the movie still translates! So just as a set up, Tita, is in love with Pedro, and he is married to her eldest sister. One day he brings her flowers to celebrate her year anniversary of cooking for the family and in her joy she cooks up a quail dish filled with the rose pedals he gave her, and the passion she feels for him... Everyone at the table gets swept up in the fire of her passion... including the middle sister who literally begins to burn... such a great movie.
*There is nudity in this clip as well as an unfortunate killing of a quail*
So... how do you prepare your food? Do you enjoy it? Do you think about what it will do in the bodies of those you are feeding, including your own? What is it like to think about it as a healer witch preparing the potion that will create shifts and changes and growth in the bodies of those who ingest the culinary potion? Its an amazing way to frame the act of cooking no? Oh and PS... I still think he's a hottie!
