Gratefulness

 
So apparently my new thing is to be absolutely and completely starving the 4 days or so before my cycle. Salt salt and more salt is the thing to crave it seems. And of course salt and bloating go so well together too right? Arrghghghg. lol   The body is a strange and wonderful thing. 

 In thinking of food I was pondering all the ways I am blessed by it. Even in my leanest of lean times with groceries it's been mostly good. I grew up waiting in line with my mom at food banks, and I have done the same as a mother several times (though it's not often these days.) with my own children. I can recall being excited when I was little at the thought of getting a huge thing of peanut butter in our food box because it meant I could have lots of peanut butter toast. As a mother I was excited to see fruit, crackers, and Ramen noodles because I knew I could stretch the noodles out a lot for the kids and that crackers would help with snacks. 

I grew up on Food Stamps, and as a mom my family has been on and off them. Lately, mostly off. What a strange place to be. You're embarrased to need them, but so grateful they are available. You are angry that you have to jump through some of the more degrading red tape procedures to get them, but you do it because...well, because kids have to eat and food isn't free. When I was a kid we had paper food stamps that came in little booklets. You had to rip out the amounts you needed. It took forever and when I was 13 I just wanted to die of shame. Eating my dinner that night I wonder if it ever occurred to me that so many other people would have given everything to feel that shame just so the could eat a fraction of what I had in front of me. Probably not... I was just a kid. 

But I am not a kid now, and yet that same sense of embarrasment and "why don't we have more" still shows up from time to time. On any given week we can spend maybe 80 dollars a week or so on groceries for 4 people (two of them teens) and pets. Occasionally we have more to spend, and often we have less. Sometimes I am so so so frustrated that we don't have more, because sometimes the healthier things are spendy. Sometimes I am truly embarrassed that we don't have as much as other people do. Sometimes I need to remember that I am NOT standing in a food bank line today, and that so many others are.  I need to remember that many people will die from not having enough to eat. And I need to be grateful.  

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  Blessed be the Earth for giving birth to this food
Blessed be the Sun for nourishing it
Blessed be the Wind for carrying its seed
Blessed be the Rain for quenching its thirst.

Blessed be the hands that helped to grow this food,
To bring it to our tables
To nourish our minds, bodies, and spirits.

Blessed be our friends, our families, and our loved ones.
Blessed Be.

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This food is the gift of the whole universe,

Each morsel is a sacrifice of life,

May I be worthy to receive it.

May the energy in this food,

Give me the strength,

To transform my unwholesome qualities

into wholesome ones.

I am grateful for this food,

May I realize the Path of Awakening,

For the sake of all beings.