Quotes

Food and Breath

I have recently come to realise that food is my religion, (sometimes the most obvious things are the most obscure to our own-selves I guess!) there are depths and diversity to food that is unfathomable, every culture, people and time-period has it’s own food rituals. There are a million ways to prepare a potato, thousands of cultures to ferment milk with and every chef I’ve met has his/her own best way to cook pasta. They are all right, they have found what works best for them, and this is how spirituality and religion should work as well. I spent a fair amount of my life in the regimented, institutionalised, hospitality industry and food can also be dogma, like religion. Or it can be deeply personal, flexible, connecting and delicious :). The point here that diversity is delightful, necessary and inspiring–every good food lover knows this intimately.

I particularly appreciate the following Upanishad as it brings together my two most sturdy and dependable roots, food and cranialsacral therapy. In cranialsacral therapy the underlying breath of life of each person’s system is what is tapped into in this gentle, healing bodywork. Over the past two years I have had to deepen and listen to my body, in particular I have listened to my gut tube and to all the tiny micro-organisms that live in my digestive tract. I have listened to my vagus nerve relax and calm in my gut as it remembered how to be non-reactive, and hyper-stimulated any more. That cranialsacral session marked an increased absorption of nutrients from my food.

Everything is intertwined, food and breath, breath and body. Even the lowest levels of electromagnetic frequencies can disrupt cell communication and cell membranes. A butterfly flaps it’s wings and everything changes. In this way, giving thanks and appreciation for your food before eating also helps prepare your body to receive it.

May the Universe never abuse food,
Breath is food,
The body eats food,
The body rests on breath.
Breath rests on the body.
Food is resting on food

The one who knows this
Becomes rich in food and great in fame

-Taitliriya Upanishad 11.7

Ox Mountain

Ox Mountain

The trees on Ox Mountain were once beautiful. However because the mountain is on the borders of a great state, they were cut down with axes and saws, so how could they retain their beauty? Yet they continued through the cycle of life and the feeding of the rain and dew to put forth buds and new ...

How to Metaprogram Yourself

How to Metaprogram Yourself

I've recently been spending some time down at Village #Occupy Vancouver as well as reading Robert Anton Wilson's book Prometheus Rising. What a great combination. What is happening at Village #Occupy is so inspiring. I am just thrilled everyday for every minute I can be down there. We are especially ...

She Takes Back Her Body // We Take Back the Earth

She Takes Back Her Body // We Take Back the Earth

Angst about the body robs a of her creative life and her attention to other things. -p218 These quotes from Women Who Run With The Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes seem appropriate given all of the crazy things going on in our world these days. It is hard to imagine how powerful the simple act o ...

Literacy for Stupidification

Literacy for Stupidification

Spending time in Burma, I have seen this type of education in effect in the most basic manner possible. Children are generally made to sit on stools, still as boards. They spend hours reciting things, sometimes in English, with no knowledge of what they are saying. This is not authentic education, w ...

Painting a New Vision

Painting a New Vision

It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the high ...

The Hundredth Monkey

The Hundredth Monkey

In the South Pacific there was a genius monkey. It is well known that monkeys love yams, but on that island the yams were too sandy to be eaten. This genius monkey took a yam and washed it in the edge of the sea, and then taught her family to do the same. Before long, other members of the tribe ...

Armchair Cooking

Armchair Cooking

This old Chinese saying cracks me up every time...hope you enjoy it as much as I do :) Man must sit in chair With mouth open for Very long time Before roast duck fly in -Chinese proverb ...

Wage Peace

Wage Peace

Wage Peace with your breath Breathe in firemen and rubble, Breathe out whole buildings, and flocks of red-wing blackbirds. Breathe in terrorists and breathe out sleeping children, and freshly mown fields. Breathe in confusion and breathe out maple trees. Breathe in the fallen. And breathe out l ...

The Power of Shaking and Quaking

The Power of Shaking and Quaking

One of my favorite books is The Chymical Wedding by Lindsay Clarke. I read it twice when in New Zealand staying at this very remote bach on a secret beach. Since today is one of 2011's lunar eclipses I wanted to share this excerpt today. I have been thinking about this particular section quite a bit ...