Food Chats
Harbin Hot Springs, CA
2010

I eat most meals in distraction
No one taught me to connect
To what I’m putting into my body

I don’t allow an unknown penis to enter me
Why do I not take the time to get to know
Food that will flow through all of me?
Isn’t that even more sacred?

I eat often as if I’m not sure where my next meal
Is coming from
I eat often as if mass starvation is eminent
I stuff in mouth-fulls
Not knowing what it really is
Not knowing where it was grown
Not knowing where it was made

I’ve been alive for 35 years
Still have not faced starvation
Yet I eat
As if it is coming anyday

My guides suggest that I chat with my food
As a way of feeling more connected
With what I allow into my body

I am shocked by what I discover!
My food has stories

My first food chat is with an African veggie stew 
Over rice
Salad and raspberry moose cake join in

I choose the carrots first in the stew
I imagine them growing in earth under sunshine
I imagine them growing in Costa Rica
I wish I knew where they really did grow
But they don’t tell me
“You had asked to not receive that sort of detail
you thought it would freak you out.”
They say
So I speak to them
Without finding out where they really grew

I discover I love the process
Of imagining the journey of each piece of my meal
Before landing on the plate
About to be chewed into the abyss of my sacred body



I speak with the rice
“Wouldn’t it freak you out if you knew
that we came from a rice patty in the Phillipines
where your sister passed last year?
That’s be a small world eh?”
I like the potential of that
That I could be eating rice grown
In a rice patty that my sister saw
But I don’t get that sort of detail

I envision someone walking through the patty
I envision a machine being driven through the patty
I envision the rice being packaged and mailed
I envision it being bought
Being driven to the restaurant
Being measured out and added into boiling water
To now sit casually on my plate
And be mashed by my teeth

I eat slower than I’ve ever eaten
Yet run out of time to chat with all of my food parts
Raspberries demand some attention
So I chat with them

I love this new practice
Of eating in silence
Of eating to eat
Of connecting with each item
About to enter my body

How many books have I read over a meal?
How many emails have I written over a meal?
How many people have distracted me
From the beauty of the food that grew
Put all of its energy and focus
To now be eaten by me?

Isn’t it time to honor the food
For living to sustain us now?
I invite you to chat with your food
It may take some practice before it replies
Until then
Enjoy using your imagination
To envision its journey
As it joins yours.

******************************WE ARE ALL STARS***************************

All images and writing are copyrighted.  These stories will be published by 2012.
Printed version available upon request.
All feedback and comments are welcome.  Please send to blissmeander at gmail.com