Food, Yoga and Thankfulness

By Steven M. Garrett

“When you wake up in the morning, Pooh,” said Piglet, “what’s the first thing you say to yourself?”
“What’s for breakfast?” said Pooh. “What do you say Piglet?”
“I say, I wonder what’s going to happen exciting today?” said Piglet.
Pooh nodded thoughtfully.
“It’s the same thing,” he said.

Pooh knows that food can be exciting. The word “exciting,” comes from Latin meaning to “set into motion,” while one of its common English meaning is to “elicit a feeling.” Put them together and you have “setting feelings into motion.” So, in other words, Pooh tells us that we can he looks forward each morning to feelings evoked by food. Pooh knows that food is more than just calories, vitamins or even taste. But being a bear of little brain, he probably couldn’t tell us that in so many words.

In this season of sharing, preparing and gathering food, we also find many reasons to be excited. Research has shown that eating together is healthier and that this connection goes beyond the nutrients in our food. It relates to our feelings about food-centered traditions and the people who we share food with. We are excited to break bread with those we love — because we know them well. We know their stories and they know ours. And indeed many of their stories are intertwined with ours.

Not only do we all have personal stories, so to does our food. And the stories of the food we eat and our own stories are also intertwined; whether we are aware of it or not. Just as knowing their stories brings us closer to people, and that such closeness to others is part of our spiritual journey, I will try to make the case that knowing the story of our food can be part of a personal spiritual journey.

Like millions of Americans of all faiths, yoga is part of my spiritual practice. Yoga is an ancient spiritual practice, made quite complicated by millennia of teachers and subsequent splits into countless strains and approaches. However, I will try to distill the philosophy of yoga down to some common and relevant elements for the purpose of this sermon. To do this, I will draw on 10 years of experience as an itinerant yogi. I have taken Iyengar, Bichram, Ashtanga, Yoga-Fit and Hatha Flow and while these yoga styles are quite different, there are philosophical commonalities among them.

Western thought draws clear distinctions between mind, body and spirit. While this schism has many roots, it became part of the common intellectual and religious zeitgeist through the writings of Enlightenment era thinkers, like Rene Descartes. However, in distinct contrast, the yogic path to enlightenment is an awareness and active cultivation of the integrity of mind, body and spirit. Through breathe control and movement, we become aware of how the constant chatter of our mind distracts us from connecting more fully with the beauty and grace of the world.

This is not to say that our mind has no function in yogic spiritual practice and growth. It is through the mind that we learn the proper yoga movements and breath control. We also learn how the world works, so that we can be mindful of the how the choices we make affect the world. You may be wondering what yoga has to do with food. I posit that food is one pathway that we can use to cultivate integrity of mind, body and spirit.

There are similarities between the grace we say and feel when sharing food and that of namaste; the closing benediction offered at the end of each yoga session. Taken literally from Sansktit, namaste means "I bow to you.” According to Deepak Chopra, when combined with prayer hands and a bow, it means; "I honor the Spirit in you which is also in me."  While both have other connotations, grace and namaste are a deep forms of thankfulness for the bounty we have been offered; whether it is the blessings of yoga, good friends and/or food.

But there is more to say about yoga and food.

In the sacred Hindu text, the Bhagavad-Gita, Krishna instructs Prince Arjuna on the philosophy of yoga, where he explains that the root of all suffering and discord is the agitation of the mind caused by selfish desire. The only way to temper this desire is by stilling the mind through self-discipline while engaging oneself in a higher form of activity. Krishna refers to this as the “yoga of work.”

By “work,” Krishna was not only referring to being mindful in our livelihoods but also in and all of the actions that we perform in our lives. Yoga does not end once you roll up the mat. The work on the mat is just one way that we learn to extend yoga to everything we do. This brings us back to being mindful of the stories of our food — and acting accordingly. When we purchase food, the differing stories of our food affects the health and well being of farmers, farm workers, livestock, wildlife and ourselves. Knowing these stories not only helps guide right livelihoods, but it can bring awareness and grace into an activity that we perform several times per day — eating.

When my wife and I were in college, we had some hippy friends that always served organic food, even though they were dirt poor. They always made a point to note that the food was organic when they served it. They also told us how they got the food; often through bartering, gleaning, or some way which did not always involve money, but instead involved hard work or negotiation. At the time, we vaguely understood why they went to all this trouble and why they told us all about it. However, what we did understand was how important the food was to them and that the act of serving this food, along with its story, was a way of showing how important we were to them.

When someone offers food that they have prepared, all considerate people show appreciation. However, when someone tells you the story of the food they are serving, you have an opportunity for grace (or namaste) that goes beyond “Thanks. Now please pass the potatoes.” The stories are not necessarily just about how and where the food was grown, which is important, but it also may be about the effort and/or sacrifice taken by the cook.

For example, the server may have used a late, beloved ancestor’s recipe; spent an unusual amount of money; driven all over the place for the right ingredients; grew or hunted the food; or spent hours cooking. By sharing the hard work that constitutes the story of the food, they are showing their love for us. And we show ours by demonstrating a deep appreciation that can be part of a spiritual practice. Through such practice, we can develop a state of grace; a deep spiritual form of thanks.

Our mind records the story, our spirit is awed by the love of sharing, and the cells in our bodies are created together. And we are made whole.

Of course, the act of eating food, like practicing yoga, is also about health. The act of saying namaste is about being thankful for the gift of yoga as well as thanking ourselves for doing something so fundamentally good for us. By taking care of ourselves, we feel better and thus we feel better about ourselves. Eating healthfully has the same benefits. In a time of rising obesity and diabetes, being aware of good nutrition, acting on this awareness and thus feeling good will make our path to spiritual growth that much easier.

Besides receiving and sharing food, we also integrate mind, body and spirit through other food related activities, such as gardening or gathering. Preeminent author Wendell Berry wrote; "One of the most important resources that a garden makes available for use, is the gardener's own body. A garden gives the body the dignity of working in its own support."  He also wrote: “A person who undertakes to grow a garden at home, by practices that will preserve rather than exploit the economy of the soil, has his mind precisely against what is wrong with us.“ And finally, he wrote; “To live we must daily break the body and shed the blood of Creation. When we do this knowingly, lovingly, skillfully, reverently, it is a sacrament.”

In these quotes, Berry talks about the body, the mind, and the spirit respectively — all in the context of raising food. But Berry, and people who raise food for themselves or others, all know that raising food is not only hard work that should be appreciated, but that sometimes it seems that nature constantly sends plagues and pestilence to test our faith.

Just last week, our chickens got out of the coop and destroyed the cilantro and arugula bed that I had tended and so eagerly awaited as winter greens. My first thought was these girls may be of more use in a stew pot than in their current occupation of meagerly doling out eggs. But I suspect that my greens will largely recover and the near loss of this precious crop will make me ever more thankful when we finally get to eat and share them.

I can only imagine that Winnie the Pooh also appreciates the hard work of getting food. Pooh had a difficult, painful, and humorous time gathering his own honey from high in a tree top. For his troubles, he got stung many times and fell from the top of a tree; hitting every branch before finally smashing into the ground. While he is a bear of very little brain, he will not likely forget that experience and his knowledge will always make his honey taste much sweeter.

Like Pooh, we should all be excited about food; even more so by knowing its story, our own story, and the story of those we love and share food with. Namaste.

Steven M. Garrett has been working for a for just and ecological sane food system for 20 years. He is currently a consultant and a Ph.D. student in geography at the University of Washington.