MIRACLE MEALS

     It occurs to me here at Kripalu, where many people make their meals a sort of meditation, that my meals, for the most part, are the opposite – a sort of unseeing sprint through food in order to find the next thing I need to do. It’s more like dashing than eating, more like three-times-a-day madness than mindfulness. Being here in this stillness and repose, and eating among people who patiently take pleasure in their meals, has raised in me the desire to switch to a slower, more mellow kind of eating. I want to relish the look of linguine before I taste it, and take pleasure in the aromas arising from a full bowl of soup. I want to savor the food I eat, even the slim sandwich at lunch, even the small slice of tomato in the salad. I want to chew like the food was chosen just for me, chew like love and long life will come from chewing. Eating, it seems to me, should be like thinking greatly, or singing with a full feeling of freedom, or sitting beside someone you love because you’re in love. A meal done that way could be a miracle.

Written at The Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health,

with Delycia for R+R

July 3, 2013