Today, I no longer think of myself as simply a chef. I create opportunities for a sacred exchange of love, gratitude and celebration of the gift of life on Earth. As anyone who cooks with love and care, I am an alchemist with the sacred task of transforming the sacrificed life of one being, whether it is plant or animal, dead or alive, into life-giving nourishment for another.

When I cook in right relationship, the love of the Great Mother flows through the love and sacrifice of her creatures, filling us with Divine Nourishment and creating oneness. One becomes food for another, dispelling the illusion of being separate. This is the nourishment I have always longed for.
When I eat in sync with the season, it’s as if a wise woman appears along a cold, barren trail. She invites me to warm myself by a fire with a deep bed of coals, and offers me a hot bowl of soup, a loaf of bread.

Our Mother Earth brings love to us through the form of food and sensual experiences. Without this we could not have a human experience. Without the human experience, our soul could not grow and evolve. Eating is a sacred act. Something living dies, we take it into our bodies, and it becomes part of us as we become part of it. Plant or animal, hunted, gathered, or bought in the supermarket, this exchange and balance creates the
interconnectedness in the physical realm and allows the natural world to continue. To treat the act of cooking and eating as a chore is a denigration of the love from our Mother, plants and animals. Eating is one of the most basic acts of self-nourishment and honoring of one’s life. It is a necessary step toward self-love and wholeness.

When we nourish ourselves with gratitude according to deep wisdom of nature, we are returning this love and respect by honoring our ife as sacred and interconnected with al there is. By nourishing ourselves nature’s way we are given a map to live by that honors and unites life, death, light, dark equally. It gives us the tools to receive the gifts of both sides to grow and evolve.

~ Mary Lane, Divine Nourishment, A Woman’s Sacred Journey with Food

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Art: Andrea Kowch, “Without Measure”
Andrea Kowch
https://rjdgallery.com/artist/andrea-kowch/