Enter & Be Nourished

Enter And Be Nourished

Mixed Media Collage

8" x 8" matted, image dimension 3.75" x 4.5"

$25 includes shipping in North America

The chopsticks in this little mixed media piece are talking to you.  Never had a conversation with a pair of chopsticks, before?  These ones are particularly wise.  Here's what they have to say, listen up:  "By expecting nothing we gain everything."  Sounds like a bit of Zen wisdom, wouldn't you say.  And here we are talking about expectations again. 
The other stick bears the title of the piece, "Enter and be nourished."

So let's talk about nourishment?  What nourishes you?  Are there different kinds of nourishment?  The other day a friend suggested we might do something together.  He is a raw food chef.  Dinner and art he suggested.  And these words came to me in the shower.  (I think the shower is a nourishing place for me; I get some of my best ideas there!):  Food to nourish the body and art to nourish the spirit.  Then it felt like we needed one more thing (to create that magical threesome).  Meditation to nourish the mind.

And can we really separate the 3 or is the separation artificial?  Is this just the western preponderance to chop things up and put them in a can before serving?  Are we bloated on a diet of concepts?  When I feed my body things which are truly nourishing I suspect I am also nourishing my  mind and my spirit.  I am creating an environment in which all aspects of myself are nourished, an environment where each imaginary limb supports each other.

And if I nourish my mind, perhaps I build discipline and awareness that assist me in making mindful food choices and eating more mindfully.  If my monkey mind is tamed even slightly, I suspect it aids things like digestion and in subtle mysterious ways nourishes my physical health.  The whole quote on the chopstick is: "Enter & be nourished by traditional Zen training,"  which seems to speak to both mind and spirit.

And my spirit?  How does it fit in to the nourishment buffet?  I suspect when it is nourished and uplifted by some inspiring or meaningful activity or by human connection it too, supports the other forms of nourishment.  The physical body responds to a joyful, peaceful spirit with health and vigour .  The mind is deeply connected with the spirit;  feelings of joy and peace produce more positive, grateful thoughts.  

And in the grand scheme of things we can't be carved up, reduced or boiled down.  At least not if we are to continue our little human life here.  We are a complex whole swimming in a cosmic soup, always connected in ways so subtle and overriding that we can barely understand.  Scientists talk about psychoneuroimmunology.  We can talk about the unity and mystery and deep intuitive knowing of our true selves.  How at some level we are in touch with what nourishes us on every level.  We know in every cell of our body if only we will trust and have faith in our deepest knowing.

So here it is.  A bowl of something to nourish us, some talking chopsticks to offer wise counsel.   Summer has arrived.  Let's spread out the table cloth, break out the lemonade and throw a few nourishing thoughts on the barbie. ( I hope  Ken won't feel left out.)

What Nourishes You?

When I thought about what to write this morning I thought about this painting and in turn it made me think about food.  This painting of rice bowls has a heavily textured background and the painting  (16x20) could be hung either way.  I was playing with what is up and what is down.  The chopsticks are painted Asian script paper that has been collaged on.  

It is easy to think about what nourishes us when we think about food.  We think healthy.... we think green veggies, fruit, grains, protein sources.  We are all acquainted with junk food, the fatty, salty or sweetly processed foods that call to us.  And we know how these things can make us feel.  Maybe sluggish and lethargic, maybe they give us a headache or an upset stomach, maybe they just make us feel generally crummy.  Or maybe after we eat a bagful or plateful it still tastes like more.  You know that feeling of being full but not satisfied??  But sometimes we eat these things anyway.  We don't think about it, we need comfort.....  In a way that's a completely different story, left for another day.

But there are other parts of this body/mind that are either nourished or not by what we put into ourselves.  What activities do we choose, who do we choose to spend our time with?  When we start to look at these things and pay attention we can find what nourishes us.  Last winter I spent a lot of time watching TV (gasp!).  I love the Food Network and Home and Garden channel but what I found after repeatedly gorging myself on them was this:  I would turn the TV on for one show and then just stay and before I knew it the evening was over.  There was a strange drug like quality for me. And I always felt crummy when I got up, kind of like a human slug, physically tired and disappointed in myself for spending yet another evening in front of the telly.  This was not a nourishing activity for me.  

When I go out for a coffee and find the music is so loud that I can't visit with the person I am with I feel on edge somehow.  I am not nourished by the space.  The coffee may be superb, the art on the wall fabulous, the people watching fun, but the whole package doesn't work for me.  The other day we had lunch in a wonderful local restaurant called "Cafe Ceylon" and while it was full and busy and noisy there was still a nourishing quality to it.  You could feel the food was prepared with love and care, the place was decorated in this simple clean style and everyone was having a good time.  I can say I have seldom felt more nourished in a restaurant. 

There are people too that fall into the nourishing category, people that support our spiritual life, people that inspire and uplift us and those folks for reasons unknown feel like kindred spirits.  And sometimes when we look at relationships we have had for a long time we can see we hang on to ones that are perhaps not nourishing, perhaps even destructive.   

It is important I think to look at what nourishes us.  We can tell almost immediately by looking inside and asking how we feel.  Does this give me energy or does it deplete me?  The body seldom lies while the mind is easily confused and often jumps in to second guess us.  We may still have obligations that we need to keep, people who don't nourish us that we need to see, activities that drain us and must be attended to.  But sometimes we keep the non nourishing because we don't think about it or think we have no options but to continue as we have always done. My mother falls into the non nourishing category for me.  (Does that seem unkind?)  I mention this as an example of how I work with the nourishing/ non-nourishing aspects of life.  I could pretend that this was not true or that I was above feeling this way (I have tried this and it doesn't work).  Not only does it not work it stands in the way of finding "wholesome" solutions to the problem.  To learning how to nourish and support myself.  First I acknowledge what is true for me and then I flail around for a long time trying to come up with solutions!  At one point I found that taking my computer over when I visited my mother so we could watch the Oprah and Eckhart Tolle webcasts was nourishing for us both.  I plan to record some of her thoughts about her family history.  It is important for me to see her but I also want to support a healthy emotion and mental environment for both of us. 

As we become more familiar with what nourishes us we will make more wholesome healthy choices, find creative ways to do what needs to be done.  This will nourish us in ways we might never of imagined and move us in the direction of our dreams and toward being the person we are really meant to be.  And when we are nourished and strong we can more easily nourish others.