Dining with the stars
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Dining with the stars
Recently I bought new placemats for my dining table. I knew why I was drawn to the silver cotton rectangles, with delicate silver stars, at the store. And why I needed to throw out the shabby brown grass mats of the past and replace them with something simple yet spectacular. The placemats signalled a shift from the place of inner impoverishment that I had been living from and the magnificence I was now connecting to inside.
The dining table is the place of eating: gathering food with utensils in our hands, placing it in our mouths, then chewing and swallowing. Such a basic ritual is learnt at such an early age. And yet we never consider what energy it is that impulses us to eat in a particular way and what it ultimately is that we are really feeding on. Are we eating in full connection with and honouring of ourselves as a divine vessel for our Soul, or are we eating in disconnection from the Soul within? In recent months I had begun to become very honest about how I was actually eating and the impact that this was having on my wellbeing.
I became aware that I was not always fully myself, not completely with my Soul, when it came to eating. I would be living in a certain way through the day and then when it came time to sit down to eat, a very different type of energy – that can only be described as ‘beastly’ – sometimes took over. I began to clock and observe the appearance of the inner beast and how it would sometimes appear, as if waiting at the gate, when food was on the table. Pulling at the leash, it would have to be restrained from scoffing down what was presented, sometimes not even sitting down. Its hunger did not seem to match my circumstances. I was not deprived of plentiful and quality food whenever it was needed, so why was I eating to the tune of not having enough? What was I really and truly seeking? And regardless of the genuinely nurturing food I had consumed, why did I feel heavy, bloated, over-stimulated and or disconnected from the still presence inside whenever the beast made an appearance and had its way at the dinner table?
Eating, I have realised, is not only an act of nurturing the body with foods and drinks that truly support it. It is an opportunity to be with ourselves, all of ourselves, all of the time. In this light, it is not only about what we eat, but how we eat it.
When we settle into our body, by taking care of it and remaining connected to the intelligence it reveals, we remain connected with our Soul. This means we are less likely to feel the pull of the beast when it comes to the act of eating. However, when we drop being consistent with our practice of self-care, we invite the beast to dine with us at the table. Indeed, to live in the steady and consistent flow of self-caring for the body (which in turn cares for our connection to the immortal Soul within) is what we are actually truly hungry for.
And while our bodies need food to exist in the physical world, our bodies are also imbued with divine particles. What this means is that we literally come from God. Not only are our Souls of God, but our bodies are the clay fashioned from the stars. And we can feel the stars in the body – which is revealed as a divine vessel, when we care for it, nurture it and move it in accordance with the intelligence that it naturally expresses, such as not indulging in overeating because the body tells us through bloating and indigestion.
And this is why the placemats were bought – to nurture, confirm and to celebrate the divinity of the body and the Soul presence within, which is as magnificent as the stars.
Indeed, we are the stars.
Filed under
Over eating, Soul, Human body, Nurturing
