TRILOGY HEALTH Bodywork & Healing Arts

Most people can't be bothered to cook meals from scratch each day:  fast food accounts for the largest slice of consumer spending on food.  Yet dishes prepared with love and thoughtful attention from carefully selected fresh ingredients nourish the spirit of those who concoct them as well as the health of those who dine on them.  Cooking is an experience of transformation that we should consider a great honor to take part in.  Magic happens when foods from different life sources are turned by chopping and heat into something capable of sustaining human life.  Bring some of this magic into your kitchen with this meditation.

Leave your preoccupations and worries at the kitchen door.  As you was your hands, imagine the day's concerns being rinsed away with the physical dirt and impurities.  Wipe over work surfaces in the same frame of mind.

Bring together all your ingredients.  Handle them carefully as the offering of other life sources.  State your intention to create the happiness of those your are cooking for.  Declare it out loud.

Let the activities of washing, chopping, and stirring suffuse your body and mind.  Surrender yourself to each task, letting it be an outward sign of your inward state - calm, untroubled by distractions, and full of love.

As your mind gets drawn away by thoughts, constantly anchor yourself to the task at hand and to your intention - to satisfy with good food and love.

As you work, visualize the food you are preparing nourishing the diners with love, and see this love spreading out from the dining table as they take it with them out into their own lives and interactions.

Present the food beautifully - not with carved vegetables and florid napkins, but by honestly and mindfully placing it on the plate.  Now, even before it is eaten, the recipient will absorb feelings of caring and emotional sustenance.