Reflections on
"Simple Abundance"
July ~ Days 8 ~ 15
Month of July ~ Slow Down
"Lovely July...with the evocative murmur of honey bees on the wing and the smell of sun tan cream". (Cynthia Wickham)
"The pursuit of happiness becomes our personal priority this month, as the sweet strains of the fourth Simple Abundance principle ~ Harmoney ~ start to be heard in our hearts.
July 8 ~ In Search of Soul Food
What do you think of when you hear the words "Soul Food"? I think many of us will immediately think of something made by the African Americans, and while I do think the term originated with them, I think the essence of the meaning is applicable to any race or culture.
What makes it 'soul food'? It is food heavy in tradition and caring. Food that tells us something about who we are and where we came from. When we are eating our personal version of 'soul food', we have a deep seeded recognition of something ....a dejavu quality.
Maybe it doesn't even need to be old and tradition wise. When you eat these foods, it is more than the food itself, it is a feeling of "nothing could be better than this". Some people may feel it when they eat hotdogs at the ball park...kind of like a collective consciousness of all the other people who have done the same thing thru the years. Others when they eat a certain ethnic meal...Italian, Mexican, Chinese - even if they are not from that culture! I do believe my husband welcome eating Spaghetti every nite for supper!
The one thing that I'm sure of, is that when someone is eating their 'soul-food', the heart is always involved.
July 9 ~ Nursery Fare
Sometimes it's nice to enjoy simple foods...foods like we ate when we were little, before everything became so complicated. No big recipes that take all day to cook, just hotdogs sliced and put in beans on a hot summer day.
Maybe winter will remind you of long ago days of hot oatmeal, with buttery toast dipped in it. Hot cocoa. Grilled cheese dipped in tomato soup. Just because we're all grown up now, doesn't mean we can't still experience some of the simple foods we once knew. Did you have a specific method of eating your Oreos?
One of my favorites is to mix my adult drink with my childhood drink. A package of instant cocoa in a mug of hot water, with one teaspoon of instant coffee added.....not for breakfast, just some evenings when I feel like I need some special something.
"The kitchen's the cosiest place that I know;
The kettle is singing, the stove's aglow,
And there in the twilight, how jolly to see
The cocoa and animals waiting for me."
What food gives you a gentle "there, there" when you need it?
July 10 ~ Kitchen Mysticism
"The home is a sacred place where you can communicate with the four elements of the universe: earth, water, air and fire," says writer and kitchen mystic Laura Esquivel. "You mix it with your love and emotions to create magic. Through cooking, you raise your spiritual level and balance yourself in a world that is materialistic."
Do you create magic in your kitchen? As you go about your kitchen adding a touch of this and a touch of that....is something more added that didn't come from the shelf? As you cook and think, do your meditations, hopes, and desires pour thru your mind and heart, and mystically become entwined in the meal you are creating?
When you cook something for your family or just yourself...it is the same. If you make the meal in anger and sling it on the plate in bitterness, I bet you won't finish it...it may end up against the wall. Our spirit became part of the meal, and we had to eat our own sorrow and bitterness. Don't feed that to yourself or anyone else. Cook your meal as if it were the mightiest enchantment on earth and let the love and hope of your brightest dreams flow thru you while you prepare it.
July 11 ~ Creative Discoveries in the Kitchen
Have you taken time lately to actually PLAN to make something. Not just quick food or well-known food, but something that you may have to either follow a NEW recipe, or create one! Does considering this immediately bring to mind thoughts of "I don't have time" or even a little scary to think of what that dish might be like that you 'created'?
Could it be the same way in the life we are creating for ourselves? ....what comes quick and easy, and maybe we could do better...but there is no risk involved in this way. What if we are emotionally stuck on some event in our lives, and can't get it out of our minds so that we can continue our lives?
Try not to give too much importance to one thing in your life, to where it overshadows the others. Consider each thing in life, as not the whole picture but only as separate ingredients that made up the REAL picture. Like the separate ingredients in a cake that do have an effect and change the product, but they are NOT the product.
If you are able to see this distinction (and sometimes we all have a problem with it) your life AND cake will emerge full of flavor and fragrant!
July 12 ~ The wolf is at the door!
This expression is often used to express when some disaster has befallen one, when if dawns on you that the 'jig is up' and 'the party's over'. In times of economic crisis, we have 2 choices...either live a life of feeling impoverished or realize that changes may actually provide MORE satisfaction than we previously experienced.
Ladies, I am a person who recently realized that our finances were fast approaching the limit and that I was going to need to make some changes quickly. At first it felt like these were going to be sacrificial/desperate changes. But, having made them, I wonder why I was paying for them for so long already. I mean, I've been really poor before, and was just as happy then. Then after years of marriage, seemed like we could afford anything we decided we wanted, within reason (not a mansion or mercedes benz). Now, we are again at a place where we need to shave the extra fluff in our life and see what we can cut out. I am searching for the things that are the most important things that I enjoy, and retaining them, while setting free things that we've been paying for that were 'pleasant enough' to have.
M.F.K. Fisher recommends weeding out desires, leaving only the holy hungers, "so that you can live most agreeably in a world full of an increasing number of disagreeable surprises." By concentrating on the good at hand - a good glass of wine, a good tomato, a good loaf of bread. A beautiful sunset, a lively conversation, a loving relationship. She knew that the good life does not depend on extravagant indulgences. The good life does not deprive. It exults. "You can still live with grace and wisdom if you rely on your own innate sense of what you must do with the resources you have to keep the wolf from sniffing too hungrily through the keyhole."
July 13 ~ Stocking the Larder (Pantry)
During the years 1920s-1940s, Nell Nichols was the woman everyone turned to for household inspiration and advice. She was fundamental in teaching about 'efficiency' in the home and taught others to actually perceive home-making as a SCIENCE, hence came the term 'Home Econmomics'.
The idea of a 'master list' for food shopping has a greater purpose than what I had originally realized. I thought, "I don't need one because I know exactly what I need, and 99% of the time came home without forgetting something I needed. However, I have to admit that I have found myself in the same situation she describes about 99% of the time also - You know the one, where you go for a jug of milk and loaf of bread and it turns out to be $35?! Now if you have operated like I have over the years, that is, I would go to the store frequently and end up buying so many things every time I went, then maybe it will help you also. No wonder I was able to spend so much every month for just 2 people! It is true for me that the more often I go out to ANY store, the more money gets spent, whether I needed anything or not.
I have learned the value of menu planning. It is the best way I know to be sure you are eating a variety of food, and don't keep falling back on the same foods, just because you don't have to think up something else. There is something to be said for the process of putting it on paper, you can SEE what you are eating and somehow that gets into another level of thinking in your brain and produces 'lite-bulb' moments of realization.
Keep in mind that these ideas are not to produce more work for you! They are the key to getting done FASTER, and providing you with a little more time for yourself, and as Nell points out, "The greatest need today is for calmer homes, and no fireside can be calm unless its guardian is at peace with the world".
July 14 ~ The Celebrating Table
"The table is a meeting place, a gathering ground, the source of sustenance and nourishment, festivity, safety and satisfaction. (Laurie Colwin)
The evening meal, or if you work some strange schedule, let's say 'YOUR MAIN MEAL' should hold something special for you. If your day has been pleasant and fulfilling, it can boost it with a feeling of celebration. If your day has been difficult and over-long, it can bring the blessings of comfort and consolation. While we all may eat carry-out food for a change, if you eat it too often, you may get the feeling you have been on the road too long, and need to 'go home'! Eating food that we prepared with our own hands can give us a feeling of nourishing our own selves and provide comfort and a sense of 'being home'.
Sarah talks about a book called "Monday to Friday Cookbook" by Michele Urvater and how it is really helpful for those who have trouble coming up with menus. Perhaps the local library will have a copy I can checkout. :)
July 15 ~ Guess who's coming to dinner?
"I learned early on that setting a table is so much more than just laying down knives and forks. It is creating a setting for food and conversation, setting a mood and an aura that lingers long after what was served and who said what was forgotten.
When you set the table, if only for yourself, and you take the time to do it beautifully, you experience the 'Sacred in the ordinary'. The place you come to for nourishment can do more than just nourish your body, it can nourish your spirit and create a sense of harmony as you eat the food before you. In a world full of things to accomplish and stress, harmony is something we should strive to present ourselves with, as a check and balance system to keep us from being consumed by fast-paced anxiety.
Don't find yourself drinking out of an old jar and eating off an paper napkin continually. What is the message that will send your self esteem? Everyone is worthy of good things, EXCEPT me? Even if you have only a few mixed dishes and nothing special, take your time to set them out for yourself and place them with care, realizing you are creating an atmosphere to nourish yourself in.
And what will be the message to your self esteem, if when your 'authentic self' graces your table, she finds generous portions of the love, respect, and welcome she so richly deserves served up with an ambience of care and validation.
Read July 16-23
*In order to understand the full context of these reflections, you will enjoy your own copy of the Sarah Ban Breathnach book:
"Simple Abundance ~ A Daybook of Comfort and joy"
Sarah's Website ~ ENJOY!: www.simpleabundance.com
Uploaded July 2001
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED-COPYRIGHT 2001
This page hosted by 
Get your own Free Home Page
Month of July ~ Slow Down
"Lovely July...with the evocative murmur of honey bees on the wing and the smell of sun tan cream". (Cynthia Wickham)
"The pursuit of happiness becomes our personal priority this month, as the sweet strains of the fourth Simple Abundance principle ~ Harmoney ~ start to be heard in our hearts.
July 8 ~ In Search of Soul Food
What do you think of when you hear the words "Soul Food"? I think many of us will immediately think of something made by the African Americans, and while I do think the term originated with them, I think the essence of the meaning is applicable to any race or culture.
What makes it 'soul food'? It is food heavy in tradition and caring. Food that tells us something about who we are and where we came from. When we are eating our personal version of 'soul food', we have a deep seeded recognition of something ....a dejavu quality.
Maybe it doesn't even need to be old and tradition wise. When you eat these foods, it is more than the food itself, it is a feeling of "nothing could be better than this". Some people may feel it when they eat hotdogs at the ball park...kind of like a collective consciousness of all the other people who have done the same thing thru the years. Others when they eat a certain ethnic meal...Italian, Mexican, Chinese - even if they are not from that culture! I do believe my husband welcome eating Spaghetti every nite for supper!
The one thing that I'm sure of, is that when someone is eating their 'soul-food', the heart is always involved.
July 9 ~ Nursery Fare
Sometimes it's nice to enjoy simple foods...foods like we ate when we were little, before everything became so complicated. No big recipes that take all day to cook, just hotdogs sliced and put in beans on a hot summer day.
Maybe winter will remind you of long ago days of hot oatmeal, with buttery toast dipped in it. Hot cocoa. Grilled cheese dipped in tomato soup. Just because we're all grown up now, doesn't mean we can't still experience some of the simple foods we once knew. Did you have a specific method of eating your Oreos?
One of my favorites is to mix my adult drink with my childhood drink. A package of instant cocoa in a mug of hot water, with one teaspoon of instant coffee added.....not for breakfast, just some evenings when I feel like I need some special something.
"The kitchen's the cosiest place that I know;
The kettle is singing, the stove's aglow,
And there in the twilight, how jolly to see
The cocoa and animals waiting for me."
What food gives you a gentle "there, there" when you need it?
July 10 ~ Kitchen Mysticism
"The home is a sacred place where you can communicate with the four elements of the universe: earth, water, air and fire," says writer and kitchen mystic Laura Esquivel. "You mix it with your love and emotions to create magic. Through cooking, you raise your spiritual level and balance yourself in a world that is materialistic."
Do you create magic in your kitchen? As you go about your kitchen adding a touch of this and a touch of that....is something more added that didn't come from the shelf? As you cook and think, do your meditations, hopes, and desires pour thru your mind and heart, and mystically become entwined in the meal you are creating?
When you cook something for your family or just yourself...it is the same. If you make the meal in anger and sling it on the plate in bitterness, I bet you won't finish it...it may end up against the wall. Our spirit became part of the meal, and we had to eat our own sorrow and bitterness. Don't feed that to yourself or anyone else. Cook your meal as if it were the mightiest enchantment on earth and let the love and hope of your brightest dreams flow thru you while you prepare it.
July 11 ~ Creative Discoveries in the Kitchen
Have you taken time lately to actually PLAN to make something. Not just quick food or well-known food, but something that you may have to either follow a NEW recipe, or create one! Does considering this immediately bring to mind thoughts of "I don't have time" or even a little scary to think of what that dish might be like that you 'created'?
Could it be the same way in the life we are creating for ourselves? ....what comes quick and easy, and maybe we could do better...but there is no risk involved in this way. What if we are emotionally stuck on some event in our lives, and can't get it out of our minds so that we can continue our lives?
Try not to give too much importance to one thing in your life, to where it overshadows the others. Consider each thing in life, as not the whole picture but only as separate ingredients that made up the REAL picture. Like the separate ingredients in a cake that do have an effect and change the product, but they are NOT the product.
If you are able to see this distinction (and sometimes we all have a problem with it) your life AND cake will emerge full of flavor and fragrant!
July 12 ~ The wolf is at the door!
This expression is often used to express when some disaster has befallen one, when if dawns on you that the 'jig is up' and 'the party's over'. In times of economic crisis, we have 2 choices...either live a life of feeling impoverished or realize that changes may actually provide MORE satisfaction than we previously experienced.
Ladies, I am a person who recently realized that our finances were fast approaching the limit and that I was going to need to make some changes quickly. At first it felt like these were going to be sacrificial/desperate changes. But, having made them, I wonder why I was paying for them for so long already. I mean, I've been really poor before, and was just as happy then. Then after years of marriage, seemed like we could afford anything we decided we wanted, within reason (not a mansion or mercedes benz). Now, we are again at a place where we need to shave the extra fluff in our life and see what we can cut out. I am searching for the things that are the most important things that I enjoy, and retaining them, while setting free things that we've been paying for that were 'pleasant enough' to have.
M.F.K. Fisher recommends weeding out desires, leaving only the holy hungers, "so that you can live most agreeably in a world full of an increasing number of disagreeable surprises." By concentrating on the good at hand - a good glass of wine, a good tomato, a good loaf of bread. A beautiful sunset, a lively conversation, a loving relationship. She knew that the good life does not depend on extravagant indulgences. The good life does not deprive. It exults. "You can still live with grace and wisdom if you rely on your own innate sense of what you must do with the resources you have to keep the wolf from sniffing too hungrily through the keyhole."
July 13 ~ Stocking the Larder (Pantry)
During the years 1920s-1940s, Nell Nichols was the woman everyone turned to for household inspiration and advice. She was fundamental in teaching about 'efficiency' in the home and taught others to actually perceive home-making as a SCIENCE, hence came the term 'Home Econmomics'.
The idea of a 'master list' for food shopping has a greater purpose than what I had originally realized. I thought, "I don't need one because I know exactly what I need, and 99% of the time came home without forgetting something I needed. However, I have to admit that I have found myself in the same situation she describes about 99% of the time also - You know the one, where you go for a jug of milk and loaf of bread and it turns out to be $35?! Now if you have operated like I have over the years, that is, I would go to the store frequently and end up buying so many things every time I went, then maybe it will help you also. No wonder I was able to spend so much every month for just 2 people! It is true for me that the more often I go out to ANY store, the more money gets spent, whether I needed anything or not.
I have learned the value of menu planning. It is the best way I know to be sure you are eating a variety of food, and don't keep falling back on the same foods, just because you don't have to think up something else. There is something to be said for the process of putting it on paper, you can SEE what you are eating and somehow that gets into another level of thinking in your brain and produces 'lite-bulb' moments of realization.
Keep in mind that these ideas are not to produce more work for you! They are the key to getting done FASTER, and providing you with a little more time for yourself, and as Nell points out, "The greatest need today is for calmer homes, and no fireside can be calm unless its guardian is at peace with the world".
July 14 ~ The Celebrating Table
"The table is a meeting place, a gathering ground, the source of sustenance and nourishment, festivity, safety and satisfaction. (Laurie Colwin)
The evening meal, or if you work some strange schedule, let's say 'YOUR MAIN MEAL' should hold something special for you. If your day has been pleasant and fulfilling, it can boost it with a feeling of celebration. If your day has been difficult and over-long, it can bring the blessings of comfort and consolation. While we all may eat carry-out food for a change, if you eat it too often, you may get the feeling you have been on the road too long, and need to 'go home'! Eating food that we prepared with our own hands can give us a feeling of nourishing our own selves and provide comfort and a sense of 'being home'.
Sarah talks about a book called "Monday to Friday Cookbook" by Michele Urvater and how it is really helpful for those who have trouble coming up with menus. Perhaps the local library will have a copy I can checkout. :)
July 15 ~ Guess who's coming to dinner?
"I learned early on that setting a table is so much more than just laying down knives and forks. It is creating a setting for food and conversation, setting a mood and an aura that lingers long after what was served and who said what was forgotten.
When you set the table, if only for yourself, and you take the time to do it beautifully, you experience the 'Sacred in the ordinary'. The place you come to for nourishment can do more than just nourish your body, it can nourish your spirit and create a sense of harmony as you eat the food before you. In a world full of things to accomplish and stress, harmony is something we should strive to present ourselves with, as a check and balance system to keep us from being consumed by fast-paced anxiety.
Don't find yourself drinking out of an old jar and eating off an paper napkin continually. What is the message that will send your self esteem? Everyone is worthy of good things, EXCEPT me? Even if you have only a few mixed dishes and nothing special, take your time to set them out for yourself and place them with care, realizing you are creating an atmosphere to nourish yourself in.
And what will be the message to your self esteem, if when your 'authentic self' graces your table, she finds generous portions of the love, respect, and welcome she so richly deserves served up with an ambience of care and validation.
Read July 16-23
*In order to understand the full context of these reflections, you will enjoy your own copy of the Sarah Ban Breathnach book:
"Simple Abundance ~ A Daybook of Comfort and joy"
Sarah's Website ~ ENJOY!: www.simpleabundance.com
Uploaded July 2001
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED-COPYRIGHT 2001
This page hosted by
Get your own Free Home Page
"Lovely July...with the evocative murmur of honey bees on the wing and the smell of sun tan cream". (Cynthia Wickham)
"The pursuit of happiness becomes our personal priority this month, as the sweet strains of the fourth Simple Abundance principle ~ Harmoney ~ start to be heard in our hearts.
July 8 ~ In Search of Soul Food
What do you think of when you hear the words "Soul Food"? I think many of us will immediately think of something made by the African Americans, and while I do think the term originated with them, I think the essence of the meaning is applicable to any race or culture.
What makes it 'soul food'? It is food heavy in tradition and caring. Food that tells us something about who we are and where we came from. When we are eating our personal version of 'soul food', we have a deep seeded recognition of something ....a dejavu quality.
Maybe it doesn't even need to be old and tradition wise. When you eat these foods, it is more than the food itself, it is a feeling of "nothing could be better than this". Some people may feel it when they eat hotdogs at the ball park...kind of like a collective consciousness of all the other people who have done the same thing thru the years. Others when they eat a certain ethnic meal...Italian, Mexican, Chinese - even if they are not from that culture! I do believe my husband welcome eating Spaghetti every nite for supper!
The one thing that I'm sure of, is that when someone is eating their 'soul-food', the heart is always involved.
July 9 ~ Nursery Fare
Sometimes it's nice to enjoy simple foods...foods like we ate when we were little, before everything became so complicated. No big recipes that take all day to cook, just hotdogs sliced and put in beans on a hot summer day.
Maybe winter will remind you of long ago days of hot oatmeal, with buttery toast dipped in it. Hot cocoa. Grilled cheese dipped in tomato soup. Just because we're all grown up now, doesn't mean we can't still experience some of the simple foods we once knew. Did you have a specific method of eating your Oreos?
One of my favorites is to mix my adult drink with my childhood drink. A package of instant cocoa in a mug of hot water, with one teaspoon of instant coffee added.....not for breakfast, just some evenings when I feel like I need some special something.
"The kitchen's the cosiest place that I know;
The kettle is singing, the stove's aglow,
And there in the twilight, how jolly to see
The cocoa and animals waiting for me."
What food gives you a gentle "there, there" when you need it?
July 10 ~ Kitchen Mysticism
"The home is a sacred place where you can communicate with the four elements of the universe: earth, water, air and fire," says writer and kitchen mystic Laura Esquivel. "You mix it with your love and emotions to create magic. Through cooking, you raise your spiritual level and balance yourself in a world that is materialistic."
Do you create magic in your kitchen? As you go about your kitchen adding a touch of this and a touch of that....is something more added that didn't come from the shelf? As you cook and think, do your meditations, hopes, and desires pour thru your mind and heart, and mystically become entwined in the meal you are creating?
When you cook something for your family or just yourself...it is the same. If you make the meal in anger and sling it on the plate in bitterness, I bet you won't finish it...it may end up against the wall. Our spirit became part of the meal, and we had to eat our own sorrow and bitterness. Don't feed that to yourself or anyone else. Cook your meal as if it were the mightiest enchantment on earth and let the love and hope of your brightest dreams flow thru you while you prepare it.
July 11 ~ Creative Discoveries in the Kitchen
Have you taken time lately to actually PLAN to make something. Not just quick food or well-known food, but something that you may have to either follow a NEW recipe, or create one! Does considering this immediately bring to mind thoughts of "I don't have time" or even a little scary to think of what that dish might be like that you 'created'?
Could it be the same way in the life we are creating for ourselves? ....what comes quick and easy, and maybe we could do better...but there is no risk involved in this way. What if we are emotionally stuck on some event in our lives, and can't get it out of our minds so that we can continue our lives?
Try not to give too much importance to one thing in your life, to where it overshadows the others. Consider each thing in life, as not the whole picture but only as separate ingredients that made up the REAL picture. Like the separate ingredients in a cake that do have an effect and change the product, but they are NOT the product.
If you are able to see this distinction (and sometimes we all have a problem with it) your life AND cake will emerge full of flavor and fragrant!
July 12 ~ The wolf is at the door!
This expression is often used to express when some disaster has befallen one, when if dawns on you that the 'jig is up' and 'the party's over'. In times of economic crisis, we have 2 choices...either live a life of feeling impoverished or realize that changes may actually provide MORE satisfaction than we previously experienced.
Ladies, I am a person who recently realized that our finances were fast approaching the limit and that I was going to need to make some changes quickly. At first it felt like these were going to be sacrificial/desperate changes. But, having made them, I wonder why I was paying for them for so long already. I mean, I've been really poor before, and was just as happy then. Then after years of marriage, seemed like we could afford anything we decided we wanted, within reason (not a mansion or mercedes benz). Now, we are again at a place where we need to shave the extra fluff in our life and see what we can cut out. I am searching for the things that are the most important things that I enjoy, and retaining them, while setting free things that we've been paying for that were 'pleasant enough' to have.
M.F.K. Fisher recommends weeding out desires, leaving only the holy hungers, "so that you can live most agreeably in a world full of an increasing number of disagreeable surprises." By concentrating on the good at hand - a good glass of wine, a good tomato, a good loaf of bread. A beautiful sunset, a lively conversation, a loving relationship. She knew that the good life does not depend on extravagant indulgences. The good life does not deprive. It exults. "You can still live with grace and wisdom if you rely on your own innate sense of what you must do with the resources you have to keep the wolf from sniffing too hungrily through the keyhole."
July 13 ~ Stocking the Larder (Pantry)
During the years 1920s-1940s, Nell Nichols was the woman everyone turned to for household inspiration and advice. She was fundamental in teaching about 'efficiency' in the home and taught others to actually perceive home-making as a SCIENCE, hence came the term 'Home Econmomics'.
The idea of a 'master list' for food shopping has a greater purpose than what I had originally realized. I thought, "I don't need one because I know exactly what I need, and 99% of the time came home without forgetting something I needed. However, I have to admit that I have found myself in the same situation she describes about 99% of the time also - You know the one, where you go for a jug of milk and loaf of bread and it turns out to be $35?! Now if you have operated like I have over the years, that is, I would go to the store frequently and end up buying so many things every time I went, then maybe it will help you also. No wonder I was able to spend so much every month for just 2 people! It is true for me that the more often I go out to ANY store, the more money gets spent, whether I needed anything or not.
I have learned the value of menu planning. It is the best way I know to be sure you are eating a variety of food, and don't keep falling back on the same foods, just because you don't have to think up something else. There is something to be said for the process of putting it on paper, you can SEE what you are eating and somehow that gets into another level of thinking in your brain and produces 'lite-bulb' moments of realization.
Keep in mind that these ideas are not to produce more work for you! They are the key to getting done FASTER, and providing you with a little more time for yourself, and as Nell points out, "The greatest need today is for calmer homes, and no fireside can be calm unless its guardian is at peace with the world".
July 14 ~ The Celebrating Table
"The table is a meeting place, a gathering ground, the source of sustenance and nourishment, festivity, safety and satisfaction. (Laurie Colwin)
The evening meal, or if you work some strange schedule, let's say 'YOUR MAIN MEAL' should hold something special for you. If your day has been pleasant and fulfilling, it can boost it with a feeling of celebration. If your day has been difficult and over-long, it can bring the blessings of comfort and consolation. While we all may eat carry-out food for a change, if you eat it too often, you may get the feeling you have been on the road too long, and need to 'go home'! Eating food that we prepared with our own hands can give us a feeling of nourishing our own selves and provide comfort and a sense of 'being home'. Sarah talks about a book called "Monday to Friday Cookbook" by Michele Urvater and how it is really helpful for those who have trouble coming up with menus. Perhaps the local library will have a copy I can checkout. :)
July 15 ~ Guess who's coming to dinner?
"I learned early on that setting a table is so much more than just laying down knives and forks. It is creating a setting for food and conversation, setting a mood and an aura that lingers long after what was served and who said what was forgotten.
When you set the table, if only for yourself, and you take the time to do it beautifully, you experience the 'Sacred in the ordinary'. The place you come to for nourishment can do more than just nourish your body, it can nourish your spirit and create a sense of harmony as you eat the food before you. In a world full of things to accomplish and stress, harmony is something we should strive to present ourselves with, as a check and balance system to keep us from being consumed by fast-paced anxiety.
Don't find yourself drinking out of an old jar and eating off an paper napkin continually. What is the message that will send your self esteem? Everyone is worthy of good things, EXCEPT me? Even if you have only a few mixed dishes and nothing special, take your time to set them out for yourself and place them with care, realizing you are creating an atmosphere to nourish yourself in.
And what will be the message to your self esteem, if when your 'authentic self' graces your table, she finds generous portions of the love, respect, and welcome she so richly deserves served up with an ambience of care and validation.
Read July 16-23
*In order to understand the full context of these reflections, you will enjoy your own copy of the Sarah Ban Breathnach book:
"Simple Abundance ~ A Daybook of Comfort and joy"
Sarah's Website ~ ENJOY!: www.simpleabundance.com
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED-COPYRIGHT 2001
This page hosted by
Get your own Free Home Page
