Like some previous weeks, this writing is describing another facet of these mini retreats I’m hosting for individuals at my home this fall. My hope is as always that regardless of whether you are interested or available for those retreats, that this writing will be of use to you.
I’ve had an awakening about food in the year and a half, and in my typical Venus in Gemini fashion, I’ve wondered if I should quit everything else and just make food and write about it. I’m not going to do that, in part because I am still discovering what contribution I might be able to make to the words humans use about food in the USA in 2026. FOOD IS WILDERNESS is a working title / short hand for what I intend to explore.
After I had my first kid I realized I would become a person who makes food for friends when they need it, as much as I can, and that continues to feel like a key tenet of my religion (which is perpetually being made up and borrowed from wise ones). I bring this up because realizing I wanted to become this person came from the desperation I felt, the vulnerability I felt, and the flood of gratitude I felt for all the people who made me food when I was caring for my oldest child in those early months. It was an awakening of sacred proportions, to discover what food is, in that life stage. Food is life force that transmutes into another form of life force, milk for a baby. And food from restaurants is wonderful, but not the same as food made by a friend for a friend, in one’s home. I understood nonconceptually, that food is so much more than the numbers and words we use to measure its value. (It’s this mystery magic without breastmilk being in the mix, or it being for another being, also. Just for being life force for your own existence. But the breastmilk scenario helped me realize this.)
The delight of eating the food people cooked for me during that time was also unparalleled. I’ll never forget a whole chicken made for me, still my favorite way to roast a chicken, by beloved Kate. Thank you Kate. I sat on the floor in my living room and ate it with that wild animal hunger that comes with breastfeeding, a peak life moment.
I also remember making risotto for a friend going through chemotherapy, and learning later that it was something they could eat, because they felt so sick. The fulfillment of hearing they could eat the food I made, that it could actually nourish in a time when so little could do that, was another peak life moment.
Feeling this reciprocity of taking care contributes so deeply to my sense of vitality! It’s a circle and if both halves - the receiving and the giving are not happening, we feel lonely and despairing, I think.
There’s something especially important about it not being asbtract, also. The offering and receiving being food takes it out of metaphor land. Metaphor land is beautiful, but it also can keep us only conceptually involved in life on planet earth, not literally one species among many, inextricably constituting rays within the circle of life. It’s not factually true that we are only involved in life on earth metaphorically, but the way we tend to talk and think about food, seasons, and “nature” reinforces this metaphorical, abstracted presence on planet earth. I think this way of (not) engaging with life causes us a lot of suffering.
So I want to feed you! Because food is sacred, it is alive, it is wilderness! When we know and remember it is actual life, not a task on a to do list, the knowing brings both the food and our own beings (same thing!) alive! So I want to make you food in the context of remembering this sacredness of life together. It’s just lunch, AND it’s also temporarily squash that will become bones and blood of your body, your movement, and eventually, soil for another being.
Experiencing this magic is as simple as eating and just wholeheartedly eating! Not even in a serious or somber way! The sensations of taste, temperature and texture ARE the wellbeing we are longing for when we try to “eat clean.”
It is the knowing and actualization of this interrelation to taste a winter squash in November.
This kind of thing can seem like extra, or “nice.” But my experience lately has been that it’s the difference between me knowing (my) life has wholely arrived, right now, versus in some vague future that’s more “optimized.” Aka serenity and joy at the presence of more fullness than I could have dreamed up if I was inventing planet earth’s species. Winter squash! Chicken broth! Parsley! Incomprehensible gifts of living! Let’s not miss it!
My experience has been that when I dissolve this temporary and ultimately false distinction between wilderness and the life of plants and animals in my dutch oven, stirred by my hand with a former tree aka wooden spoon, I overflow with gratitude at what is present. And when I’m noticing the overflowing nature of planet earth, the first thing I desire is to share it.
So I want to make you food because I want your belly to be full. But also because—with the potency of our attention—receiving something as “small” as a bowl of soup, can bloom into the remembering of how taken care of we are. Everything we might contribute arises from knowing the truth of the care we are receiving just by being here right now, today.
Hopefully this can remind you of the care you’re receiving through whatever food you are eating today, no matter where it comes from or who cooked it or packaged it or grew it or processed it. The point is no matter who—it was someone! Someone (so many someones of all species) did all that so you could receive life and change it into another form of life.
When we remember this, when we feel it fully, effervescence of our own unique giving arises.
And if you feel it’d be supportive to come and sit with me and receive nonmetaphorically, I’m here! Here’s more writing on these Remembering Retreats in case you missed it!
Blessings to you either way!
Sarah
PS, Last week I discovered Baker Creek Seed catalog and mentioned it in my newsletter, and a friend let me know some people boycott them for some icky ways they dealt with some stuff in recent history. I’ll let you look into that on your own if it’s relevant to you, and here are a few other seed companies you might be interested in!
Kitazawa Seeds
Johnny’s Seeds
True Love Seeds
Oshala Farms