Cooking with Intention
A few years back I participated in a Professional Development activity that had nothing at all to do with culinary arts (or so I thought then), but much to do with Contemplative Practices and its place in learning.
According to the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society, “contemplative practices quiet the mind in order to cultivate a personal capacity for deep concentration and insight”. You might be wondering what this has to do with cooking? Bear with me a moment and we will arrive at the big picture. Some examples of contemplative practices are meditation, prayer, mindful walking, yoga and other contemporary physical or artistic practices.
Earth’s Elements perspective is one that classifies cooking as a form of artistic practice that can and should be approached with positive intention and clarity of mind by evaluating one’s own state of mind and emotional processes before assembling any meal. This understanding is as important, if not more, than the raw ingredients and final outcome of what you create with them. An example of how intention can change patterns and the frequency of matter is expanded on so eloquently in Dr. Emoto’s book, Messages in Water. While Emoto’s research applies to water and its varying stages, the same concept can also be applied to food. It’s hardly a new phenomenon, the idea that our thought vibrations (patterns and energy) have an impact on everything around us, the seen and unseen.
Our thoughts, as it relates to food, have the power to impact it and create a gastronomic masterpiece or disaster. This idea, along with the compatibility of ingredients and level of digestibility, has the ability to change the frequency of food in such a way that it is either pleasing or not to the senses. In Cousen’s Conscious Eating, he states, that food prepared with loving energy “and with the consciousness of the essential oneness of the person preparing the food and the person eating the food, the food itself will be absorbed and elevated by that consciousness” and I could not agree more, have tested it and certainly hold this to be true in preparing and offering healthy food to the public (2000,p34).
Cooking, or culinary artistry, from a contemplative perspective, can also help one to awaken their own awareness and interconnectedness with all life forms, particularly plants, who are entrusted with one of the most sacred roles on the planet. They are our teachers, as they transform light into chemical energy that we rely on as our fuel, our sustenance, our daily bread.
Preparing food with intention, other than just to fulfill an immediate desire, takes a level of consciousness and awareness that requires presence and purpose.
So the next time you’re preparing your meal, ask yourself:
Where am I? How do I feel at this moment? Why am I doing this task? Do I enjoy it? Have I taken a moment to show gratitude for nature’s offering? Clarify your intention, be present and positive!
This is truly a starting point in making food preparation a transformative experience for yourself and those you nurture with your food.
©2012 by Elizabette Andrade. All Rights Reserved.