‘I dreamed that I floated at will in the great Ether, and I saw this world floating also not far off, but diminished to the size of an apple. Then the angel took it in his hand & brought it to me and said “This must thou eat”. And I ate the world’ — Emerson
This theme will extend and enrich our experience of body and body’s connections. Working with food, drink and bacteria will be bringing us into greater intimacy with mouth, tongue, gullet, tum, and gut. To bring attention to the entirety of the alimentary canal (as I never call it!) is fascinating – this watery passageway that we can trace between orifices of mouth and sphincter. These places where our body opens – to receive, and to give. Like breath, a rhythm of in and out. Like breath, a practice of participation. You may wish to cultivate a practice of presencing with the body, using breath, or heartbeat, or the wetness of the mouth to lead you into a profoundly embodied meditation. This will nurture the work no end. As we go through the practices over the next few months, you will have more images and information, plus sensory refinement, to bring to these meditations. Such a practice is soothing, grounding, and connecting, enhancing respect, curiosity and compassion for being a body. |
Of all the I have read on the topic of the sacredness of food and the depth at which we can encounter this, I recommend the book by Martin Prechtel entitled The Unlikely Peace at Cuchumaquic: Keeping the Seeds Alive, the Parallel Lives of People as Plants. It is vast, wild, beautiful, noble, tragic — the truth of it is felt to the bone. On this topic, nothing else comes close, as it comes straight from the indigenous imaginal — the place where the imaginal is most powerfully preserved.