Food.
1. Buy it with thought
2. Cook it with care.
3. Serve just enough
4. Save what will keep.
5. Eat what would spoil
6. Home-grown is best.
Don't waste it.
2. Cook it with care.
3. Serve just enough
4. Save what will keep.
5. Eat what would spoil
6. Home-grown is best.
Don't waste it.
Food for thoughts!
One of the biggest challenges that Saucy Roots has afforded me has been to seriously look at is the "bigger picture" what does that look like now, what does my future shaping up to look like, and what did I miss out on when looking in the past. One could stop and think about what life has been like, hell we can sit and look through the digital files of .jpegs that fill our computer hard drives of memories and flick through images upon images of tears and smiles gone by but there seems to be that emotional attachment that drives us to look back. A comfortable spot that looks almost the same as the couch we are sitting on to run through memory lane.
Some memories make a warm cozy feeling well up in our hearts such as a baby being born, the smell of that new skin and the smiles that little one puts on when he or she recognizes someone for the first or third time. Other memories traumatize our very souls because we were put in situations we know little about but leave us hurt in bigger ways then we can imagine.
Time, for some people, is measured by experiences and emotions felt. I admit I am one of those people. Photos can stir up memories of the past but the emotion will tie me to a disaster or two in no time. Experienceing an emotional disaster this morning as I type this. ( Gotta get it out one way or another. )
There tends to be a protective power force shield that wraps around each of us. I blamed it for a long time on the fact I was born under the astrological sign of Cancer and my crab shell was the safest place I could be and by gawd, no one was allowed into my shell.
Stay out! Beware!
The perfect signs that were stapled to the hard shell and that's the way I wanted it to be.
Leave me the frick alone.
When stuck behind this shell I had no idea the true vulnerability that this shell really had. When looking at a crab shell in real life they are seriously not that strong nor are they as thick as the creature thinks they are. This leaves the creature vulnerable but still fearless and willing to fight any battle that leaves them scared and afraid. Personally, I felt that my shell was so thick that nothing could ever penetrate and of course I was completely safe from the outside, thank you very much.
But the truth lies in the reality of the what made up that shell coating in the first place.
I can conjure up so many images and memories that trapped me inside my shell. There wasn't a balance of happy moments where I wouldn't need my protectiveness.
The biggest challenge it left me was a small vision of what life was. Trapped in the everyday activities of life or habits that kept me safe from straying outside the house, or my protective shell, when I would venture out. Looking at the "bigger picture" or plan for my life was not an option. NOR WAS IT IN MY RADAR SCREEN.
There was no direction, there was no purpose, there was no point.
It truly feels amazing today to be writing in a past tense.
Recently, I have been reading through books that talk about Soul Ties and what types of relationship are created when we live behind a protective shell and a narrow point of view. Looking at was is created turns out to be a very mundane day to day life that rolls along in an unassuming way. Leaving no room for adventure or excitement unless it's very controlled and in a very safe place not only physical but mentally and emotionally. Sorry but this also leaves no room spiritually.
So what does the bigger picture look like? Is it as simple as planning out what to preserve from that garden and how much a family of three could eat within a month? Well, honestly I thought so! Transformation was the key to everything!
Change your mind! * Change your attitudes! * Change your habits!
These could be the biggest phrases any life coach can cheer about but it really isn't as simple of a change as laying out your dinner menu for the next month or the next week. It's even a little more complicated then laying out a food preservation plan for the entire year or what to stock up on in case SHTF!
Cases or cans of beans and rice can be calculated and measured for any number of people in a family for a single year or over multiple years. There are plenty of websites that have built in calculators to help you figure out the cost per weight per family member including whatever animals that reside in your care.
We are talkin about a preservation of the soul, the body and the heart of you and me. Figuring out the numbers and weights of rice or pasta to store under your house for the zombie attacks is grade school addition and subtraction compared to this!
Preserving the harvest from your garden can be looked at in a different way. It's the preservation of who we are meant to be as humans, what are purpose is and the whole point to our existence. When we plant a new seed we have big hopes that each seed will grow up, produce fruit, set out new seed and then die back to the ground when it's life cycle is complete. Yes, we have all heard this same analogy, I only rehash it to show you the same concept in a different light.
Our parents planted seeds, one of those seeds took roots and started to grow. We grew into living beings that roll through the predictable stages of life, high school graduation with the basics under our belts, college graduation with great jobs and money income for our futures, marriage to who we think is suited for our future mates, producing more fruit by having kids, helping the next generation grow into healthy plants just like we have done, setting seeds by our actions and decisions we have made then eventually coming to our end when we reach old age. See, our lives can be measured and weighed. We can be found lacking. But is there more?
We can plot our lives on a timeline.
We can measure our movements to the outcomes we have produced.
We can settle for our created lives that bring us satisfaction but leave us empty.
We can measure our movements to the outcomes we have produced.
We can settle for our created lives that bring us satisfaction but leave us empty.
In the eyes of others around us our accomplishments can be on a scale set by where we live and the standards that have been set by others and their measure of perfection for us.
So .... how do we take that comment and show it in a different light of preserving the harvest for ourselves and future generations? When we are setting strategic outcomes based off what others say is perfection will we truly measure up to who we are meant to be a humans? We won't! We can't! It's impossible. Standards will always change, scales will always be tilted one way or another and we will constantly be chasing one dream after another in hopes of truly measuring up to the publics eye.
So what then ... we have come to a point in the conversation with our selves that looks a little like this. Do I maintain the stays quo or do I change? What does the bigger picture look like? What do I have as a purpose? What truly is the point to my existence?
It's easy to follow the crowd to go along the timeline of life that everyone goes through and on some level every single person follows that timeline. Don't get me wrong, I know I am on that timeline myself and can see the scary half way mark right up head.
Life really didn't start happening until I started asking that question for myself. To many moments in life left me holding too many carpet bags of shit that were really heavy to carry nor where they really moments or emotions that I wanted to carry any more. My little crab shell of a house was filling up and the hoarder in me was overflowing with visual impact. Here I was thinking my two bedroom, one and a half bathroom was quiet and cozy perfectly built the way I wanted it.
2 bedrooms and one and a half baths all crammed into less then 1,000 square feet was and is very limiting. To some, living that small is perfect its freedom its a dream life!
Don't get me wrong I would give anything to downsize my physical life to less the 400 square feet and write all day being debt free, but my emotional life and baggage needed to hit the road in search of something else. So that's where my questioning started to reshape my entire life. Each space of the shell was perfectly designated for the specific task of each room and the walls instead of being lined with wall paper was lined from floor to ceiling with bags. Each bag had a label and I am not talking Coco Chanel or Louis Vitton types of labels ... I am talking single words that would perfectly described the contents of each bag. Shame. Lies. Addiction. Fear. Anxiety. Pressure.
Preserving the harvest of fear, anxiety and troubles left me with self-doubt and so much hurt that every relationship that was created was seriously doomed from the beginning. Ugh. Some relationships were tied together with unhealthy needs. Just simple needs of love that really could not be found with the person that I had just tied myself to. That is really hard to say and yet even harder to type. Being such damaged goods ( in the eyes of everyone ) I could have easily looked like any homeless woman walking any major city streets with 17 shopping carts somehow tied together with black trash bags covering all my beautiful precious carpet bags. The carpet bags of emotions that I lugged around because they were precious and what made me who I am, even though it was all created from my own fear and ignorance.
Little did I know that I was more then that. My life was bigger then what I was seeing. but then again, I never wanted or imagined looking out from behind the shell to what was really out there and what I had been creating for so long. All that was built was solely built on fear, anxiety and the intoxication of never having or never being enough.
Where are you in the conversation with yourself? Leave a comment below. Would love to know where you are on your journey. Thanks!
