cooking, listening, remembering
It’s a funny gig, this rush. This hurrying to have everything figured out. To try to effort answers. Forcing clarity through a narrow gaze. This front body momentum. Leaning forward we search outwardly, like a carrot dangling in front of us, always out of reach. Perhaps the same as putting premature avocados in the oven trying to speed up ripening. To save you a lot of time, and oven energy, I’ve tried both: Both don't work.
I thought that was what it meant to utilize fire energy. To be ferociously passionate, and have hungry drive. Like a raging bush fire, guzzling up dry leaves. There’s something in that that speaks to a lot of how I have lived my life. With tempo. With intensity and fullness. Throwing myself into the flames of things with willingness and desire. And also with a detriment to my body’s health and vitality. With a rushing to my healing, much to Trevor Hall’s dismay.
Tired, tired, I was, from lots of burning.
As I entered April, my idea of fire started spreading to engulf the idea of cooking. Slow cooking. Ahhh yes the type of cooking where all of the decadent high nutrient dense juices are gently extracted over time. Where then these special flavours have time to blend with the whole concoction, mixing the individual ingredients into the one whole meal. Which always ends up being so delicious with tender acknowledgment to the time of creation. Perhaps it is much like our intuitive ideas that bubble up and then need that steady consistent heat to warm to. To mix with the whole meal of our life.
And of course, I am writing to you from an outdoor fire pit. I am sitting on the comfort of luscious grass dusted with autumn leaves. You, to me, are sitting on the stump of a log from a neighbouring tree. Together we gather around the fire of transformation to share stories of where we've been, what we've remembered and how we be. So know that I welcome you to write back, how or what this moves within you.
Being away from the surging flames of basic living, belonging on home soil for April, I gave myself time to stew on big fire concepts like “what is my direction?” and “for what purpose?” that I had been trying to rush the answer to. I let them simmer away in the cauldron of my womb, while I tidied my mind. By pulling weeds. Literally. On mystical Aotearoa soil, I dug my hands into the earth with such delight and readiness. Listening to the teachings of misunderstood thistles who were there for protection and presence. Following tangled roots under the network of ground, as I patiently realise which route to take. Being part of the composting cycle of laying dead leaf material and exhausted plants from Summer to rest on the garden floor to provide nutrients for the new growth as it sleeps. I was in devoted conversation with Her. Great Mother.
“Being naturalised to place means to live as if this is the land that feeds you” - Robin Wall Kimerer: Braiding Sweetgrass.
And that nourishment of being so connected to the land, Her cycles, Her needs, Her wisdom and Her priorities, as if it was part of my own body, facilitated such rich healing and processing. Gently this time. Without the need for a cathartic emotional release to try rid myself of what I was feeling. To be with all that is here. And through that processing, I was more able to see the far stretching silver thread of time that will forever be swirling, and how right now in the place that I am under my feet, all that I desire and seek, will make its way to me when ready. I can continue to respond to the little nudges and whispers of inner guidance that come through when I am able to hear, and I will add those vegetables to my cooking pot, letting them flavour the mix of who I be. I will naturally be tasting the meal along the way, mmm yes very yummy thank you (if you do that in a King Julian voice off Madagascar 2 you might get the reference), and, I am acknowledging that there is a longer process on the menu and my fire energy is helping sustain that, and sustain my body at the same time.
Perhaps you need a reminder, like I did, that times of transition and decision need to be gentle. Giving time for all of our body systems and fragments to gather around the fire pit of transformation and listen to each others wisdom and stories. To provide estuarine environments that give space for calibration to the new. Like how it enables Salmon to avoid fry-ing with chemotherapy like changes of environment as they join with the wider wholeness of the ocean.
So as I gift this to myself, perhaps you could gift it to yourself too. The permission to be slow in your pursuits, to allow time for your passionate creativity to move with you and your anatomical system to keep up. I look forward to eating around the fire with you.
