Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Bounty

A couple of days ago Noelle and I took a trip to our farmer’s market. 

It is such a lovely place -- small, but just big enough to have plenty to choose from,  quiet and uncrowded so you can enjoy the walk through the vegetable laden aisles. 

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Such a contrast this experience is to my normal grocery shopping experience.  The refrigerated air and flourescent lights jolt  my senses to alertness allowing me to methodically run through my list and pick out what produce is needed for what recipe.IMG_2208a

Being in the fresh warm air of the open market surrounded by sunlight glinting off each brightly colored offering of Nature’s bounty caused me to forget even what was on my list.   I found myself falling into the lushness and comfort of it all.  My left brain with its lists was suddenly( and uncharacteristically I might add!) quiet.

Baskets spilled over with their fruits, showing me in the most obvious of ways what abundance looks like. 

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Hay bales formed makeshift aisles with pumpkins, squash, and gourds of all shapes and colors stacking themselves this way and that, displaying for me what a fine fruit they have grown to be.  Orange and gold, brown, and a bit of green.  The deep richness of the harvest. 

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Oh no, no lists told me what to get this time.  Because these little fruits and roots and shoots actually called to me.  My hand reached out to touch and it would have gone against every part of my sensory self to not gather into my basket the riches that lay before me.

And then…to finally experience that most of explosive of the senses: taste.

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This is how food can look, this is how the experience of partaking in the great ritual of eating can begin.  And it occurred to me that this is what I hope very much to bring to my children in all areas of their life. 

I want for life to be so enticing they cannot help but move toward it. 

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I want to create spaces and experiences which engage every part of them.  Flowing, rich with color and texture, complex, beautiful, natural, bathed in warmth and light.

I want them to hunger for these experiences, to feel the deliciousness of yearning.

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Oh, because there is nothing more satisfying than finally tasting that sweet fruit.

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