Blessed Feast

We are a part of an intricate web of physical relations, which are at the same time moral relations. How we eat and drink, how we sow our land, how we get food to our plates, how we use other bodies, other human bodies, in getting food and drink to sustain us. These are moral issues which cannot be separated from very basic physical questions.Ellen Davis, Yale School of Theology

If we can eat with mindfulness, consideration for our bodies, and those whose work brought the food to our table, eating becomes prayer. In eating slowly, allowing flavors and textures to dazzle the tongue, spark the imagination, fuel the body, we affirm our aliveness and place in this world. As Ellen Davis writes, the very act of eating connects us morally with the earth and all its inhabitants. When we harm ourselves, by eating food that was cultivated or manufactured with toxic chemicals, we also harm the earth and those who work brought them in contact with the toxins. In eating well, we are telling God, "Thank you for my life, for my neighbors, friends, and enemies, my spirit."

Of course, eating is never as easy or straight forward as this. Eating well, with slowness and nutrition takes time and money which has been squeezed out of modern and not so modern lives. It also takes self-compassion and love which can be hard to muster many days.

My father's mother stopped eating when she was only thirty and died from her thinness. I have often wondered why she chose to stop feeding herself, to move the food around her plate but not to her mouth even as she cooked all day for her family. How did she resist the richly thick tomato sauce she simmered on the stove, the fresh bread Louie brought home from the bakery, the sweet tangerines in summer? What became more compelling than garlic, olive oil, and salty cheese?

It is a question for many of us why we stop eating well, just enough, and with attention. What prevents us from connecting with ourselves, the Earth, our neighbors, and God three times a day in the blessed act of feast?

Queen Asana

I try to visit the Queen, sarvangasana (shoulder stand) every day. The queen of the asanas, sarvangasana is an elixr for many things that ails us including depression, anxiety, fatigue, restlessness, fear, dullness. Raising the legs above the chest offers the heart a chance for profound rest.

I imagine my queen to be very very wise. She has long white hair that flows down below her waist and wears silky ivory gown. She receives me on the grassy knoll where she stands with infinite patience. Her wisdom and comfort pass to me not in words but in the soft gaze of her light blue eyes, her outstretched palms, her unwavering faith in the rightness of the moment. I sit in the cool shade of the maple tree, by her strong bare feet and am ennobled by her presence.

Unlike the King (head stand) who offers the storing of resources, one pointed concentration, the sharpening of blades, the Queen teaches us to let go of everything, to stop trying so hard, effortless effort. In surrender with devotion and irreverence, we learn how to unfold, open, and receive ourselves.

Will and Surrender

Anne Cushman asks us to consider, "Where does striving reside in the body?"

My striving takes up residence in the hinge of my jaw, a tightness in the bite of my back molars, a thickness in the tongue. Striving lodges itself into the neck where the head rests on the spine and causes my throat to jut out in search of a better future. In my striving, the rest of the body may fall away leaving my thighs straining up the steep hill of my desires with too little breath.

Striving fools me into thinking that I have more control over things than I really do. While setting goals, having a plan, and a strong will, helps me to break through torpor, listlessness, and challenges, will, in and of itself, is not enough for wholeness. Cushman writes, "What I really value most in life cannot be achieved through willpower alone. I can't make someone love me. I cannot will creativity, healing, compassion, joy, insight."

Surrender, the counterpart to striving, brings softness, flexibility, ease, stamina, to the "doing". Letting go of what we cannot control, manage, negotiate into submission melts the striving from the body, allows the doing to be done without so much angst and exhaustion.

I imagine surrender and will as two banks of the river of my life. When there is too much surrender, the river weakened and undirected may lack the force to press through hard rock. When not enough meandering is allowed, the river can destroy what is beautiful, necessary even, for the wildflowers to grow and marsh wrens to sing.