This morning is a Farmers Market morning and anyone who knows me, knows I covet market time. Even when I travel, I will stop at a Farmers Market in a foreign town so I can find out what they eat, how they feed their community. In Monterey it was unbelievably tender artichokes; in Berkeley there were an amazing assortments of plums, pluots, and tangerines; and, in Lancaster the Amish have beautiful asparagus.
Food—fresh, from the earth, the real sustainable substance—feeds our bodies to make us strong, enables us to stave off illness, and gives us the energy we require. But food is not the only source that feeds us. We require more than just nutrients to keep us alive. To truly feel alive and feel joy we cannot only feed our bodies, we need to feed our souls. It may seem some individuals can exist on the repetition of day to day routines, but even they–like so many others of us–must attend to another part of their being: the creative being, the adventuresome being, the spiritual being. We are not complete unless we satiate the part of us that begs to be fed.
It is difficult to say what that part may be for you. Are you an artist in some form that desires to pick up the paint brush, place a pen in your hand? Are you seeking spiritual wholeness and crave some solitude and quiet to meditate or connect with something larger than your physical self? Are you really a lover of nature and spend far too much time in climate controlled arenas when what you really want is time outside—playing in the dirt or hiking a trail?
Whatever else is out there in this world of ours that helps complete the person you were meant to be, you must be willing to seek out the ingredients and be a part of the creation. If all we ate was one kind of food, we would not only become bored, we’d become unsettled and discontent. We might even become sick. But if we offered to ourselves those nutrients that not only kept us healthy but also fed our soul, then we would truly be living the life we were granted.
Be well,