Maebius Musing

Happy new Year New Moon!

This post is about food. Specifically, the sacred and divine nature of yummy-ness that is consumed to feed our bodies and thus fuel our daily activities, be they mundane or miraculous. Eating is necessary to survive, and most food is taken in to do simply that. but then there is Food. Food with a capitol ‘F’, and is something which is eaten to Nourish us. Things like rich, organic, 80% cocoa, chocolate bars. Things like fresh-baked bread with a drizzle of honey and butter.

But specific things we can eat, even twinkies, can become Food if we are mindful of their consumption, and attach a bit of thought and intent to the process of sticking in in our gut. Granted, some items are better suited for such sacrament, and Twinkies are not really recommended over healthy foods, but they work as periodic treats/rewards if you are so inclined.

Each day, I am trying to be mindful of my eating choices. Instead of grabbing a bowl of Sugary cereal(like Capt’n Crunch) I choose generic Raisin Bran. Instead of a shoveling in a fast-food lunch, I bring leftovers from home, which taste better and are cheaper. Little steps like this, while small, can add up quite well in the long run, and are helping transition my general eating habits. (See prior post regarding salad-craving).

In addition to choosing what I eat, and this choice is by NO means a strict diet, more of a “I’ll skip the soda today and have a tea” type of thing….In addition to that, I am making an effort to really acknowledge my food as I hold it up before my mouth.

The meatloaf leftovers I have…they taste good, and I remind myself this beef is/was part Norman (our cow). The potatoes are from either our garden or my in-laws. The beans, from the store, but once a green living plant.

I know we all realize on an intellectual level that beans are a plant, and beef=bovine, but the sacred part of what I am trying is to Remind yourself that, each and every time you take a nibble on some food. I don’t feel drawn to offering up a prayer and blessing to cows of the world when I eat a burger, but slowly, the more I am reminded that’s where the burger comes from, the more the deep inner bits of my spirit smile. I now am starting to find my food-origin thoughts are becoming a reflex, that the mental this=that connection springs to mind automatically now.

In the case of a Twinkie, I have to stop and think a bit more, realizing in some way, part of the cake was a wheat plant, which has gotten mangled, drowned, and tortured into the current form. It’s not quite as bad as those particular terms, but they sprung to mind when tracing back to the origins of a Twinkie. This process leads me naturally to think, along the lines of “wheat = grain, perhaps a granola bar or actual home-baked cake leftovers would still be yummy and more wholesome than the Twinkie”.

It won’t stop me from treating myself to one from time to time, but it does make the decision be more informed and help avoid mere cravings for sweet and concentrate more on when I’m actually just hungry. (Though actually I have not eaten an actual Twinkie for years, but is a good metaphor for other foods)

As I mentioned before, keeping up this practice for an entire month on something so ‘mundane’ and continually present in my life such as ‘food’, is practice for the habit of meditation.

Referencing what many would consider the more wholesome foods, such as “80% cocoa” or fresh whole-grain bread with local honey, the experience becomes a bit closer to what some might consider a sacred ritual.

Example of today’s meatloaf: we raised the cow which provided the meat in this meal. We dug in the dirt, and grew the spuds which accompany it. Consuming this food completes a circle of life and death. Gifts and effort on our part, returning to us again. Energy sent into the world, to care for and keep healthy a bunch of other living organisms is now providing myself energy and health. Can’t define magick better than that, can we?!

And since magic[k] as I understand it is so intertwined with spirituality, and I do believe that Norman had a spirit of his own, I am reconnecting with the divine Spark of Life by taking in this Food. It’s a subtle thing, and much deeper than my meager words can relate to you, but I hope you readers understand the concept between these words.

What we eat, if it is consumed with a nod to the origins, and with an occasional almost-reverence, is Food. Food nourishes our bodies and spirits. I challenge you folks to try this little practice for one week (or one cycle of the moon if daring). I’d love to see comments about the results.

And to paraphrase Valentine Michael Smith…….May you never Hunger.

-Nate

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A post for the season, about ancestors I knew well….
I remember driving for what felt like hours(30-45 minutes), through the Big Tunnel, to the river where my great grandparents owned a cabin in Peach Bottom, Pa. I remember splashing in the river, hearing the exploits of my older relatives being impossibly ‘younger’ who swam the breadth of the Susquehanna. Continue Reading »

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Inspired by this blog post (from Dancing down the Moon) …specifically the line “It’s grueling work that slowly chips away at your established patterns and illusions, and sometimes it’s painful, because in order to transform something you must first invoke it.“

For as long as I can remember, there has always existed, in my inner-most mind, a strange relationship with the ‘Me’ that walks around at work or cleans up the dishes at home, and the “Me” that envisions himself drumming at bonfires, meditating amongst pristine wooded glens, and otherwise being all Spiritual-and-Stuff. The two just never seem to completely mesh, and any ecstatic experiences seem to rationalize themselves over time into a form of “Glimpsing that other Me” instead of becoming integrated as “this IS me, but better”.
Perhaps this same ability to envision myself as something far different and more grandiose than “reality” is one explanation for my love of roleplaying games, and other flights of fantasy evidenced in my book and movie collections? If puting my mind to a character, I can lose the outside mundane world and step into the role I build around myself.

But the dichotomy is there, and lately, as the season wanes into autumn, my thoughts are drifting once again to this type of reflective musing. Why is there such a breakdown? Is it the same for many people searching for Truth? (I think so, which is why so few people honestly say they found it.) Continue Reading »

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Over at Between Old and New Moons, there is a list of questions “for pagans about paganism“. I agree with some of the comments that these questions really deserve a blog post about each one. Very well thought out and written, mahud!

I’ll tackle them below….

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I’ve been pondering a pretty deep and vaguely unformed sentiment lately, which I hope does not come across as fanatical, or as anti-monotheistic as I fear it will. I was once a minister in our Lutheran church. God/Jehova is as real to me as Odin, and I think that Jesus guy was a pretty cool dude for his part in history. So if you read the commentary below, please consider it is not meant to be “god-bashing” in any real way.

It is to be a mental exercise, to help me flesh out some ideas by translating them into concrete words. And as anyone with honest thoughts about spiritual matters can attest, words often tend to fall short, or limit ‘Grokking” in such matters. I’m not as eloquent as a scholarly Bard, so I’ll try to keep the phrasing from being too loaded with unwanted connotations.

I also must admit to a slanted bias towards the inner workings of Christianity, since I was raised in that faith, and have only dabbled slightly in Islam, Judaism, Pastafarianism, and other monotheistic faiths. So there may be deeper connotations there that I am unaware of… Continue Reading »

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