Senses, Spring & Overwhelm
Taking ownership of my attention one day at a time.
Spring has captured the hearts and minds of humans since its inception. Before a globalized food system, spring meant work and the promise of more nourishing food. Lambing in the early season brought life and calorically dense milk worthy of celebration.
Our modern lives still feel the weight of winter and the renewed hope of spring. We see it in the form of cabin fever, seasonal depression, and spring holy days. This latest convergence of holidays brought such joy to many and violence to others. It can be so hard to let the joy shine through when I am aware of such atrocities. Still, the thrum of life continues and many are emerging to sing their songs, plant gardens, and invest in a hopeful future.
Are we faking it? So many of us seem to be hanging on by threads, marching along not totally sure how it is supposed to all work out. I count myself lucky to have the option to continue my personal winter or step into spring’s energy by adopting a daily practice of light making.
I still carry grief with me as I join the sowers and create space for growth. It remains a weird time to be alive and occasionally I find it overwhelming. I find peace by turning the attention of my overactive mind towards the cacophony of birds summoning lovers to their side.
A moment of just being.
As our senses awaken with the spring, I want to draw your attention to how your senses impact your relationship to food. In my next few posts, and private voice memo (for paid subscribers only), I will be exploring how bringing our senses into the kitchen can relieve stress and make us better cooks.
Though important, we will go beyond our sense of taste and explore how to use our senses to take ownership of our valuable attention. We will talk about sensory safety, and how to use ALL of your senses to cook without a recipe.
When we think about the role our senses take in our relationship to food, we find our connection to time. I feel time when I catch a sudden whiff of chicken stock on the stove as I come in from outside. It's heavy and savory like a hug from someone who genuinely cared for me as a child.