What To Do When All You Think About Is Food

I keep thinking about food.  What might I have for breakfast? Images of poached eggs and thick-sliced sprouted grain bread.  A smoothie with fresh yoghurt, ripe bananas, cacao and oat milk.  An apple and a spoonfull of almond butter.  Macadamia nuts with sultanas and dried figs.  The perfect cappuccino or a pot of chai - the floral spices muddled together in the stone bowl of my mortar and pestle and brewed delicately with honey and milk.  As my brain ever rapidly produces possible menu items, my mouth fills itself with impatient juices.  How am I supposed to be present when my mind can't stop flirting with the future kitchen?  I am frustrated. 

Such is the humble practice of my meditation.  Every morning, after a kind stretch, I sit quietly for at least 15 minutes.  The routine is beautiful and nearly always takes some detour like that described above.  Food is my mental escape.  It is the maddening digression from work, play, connection and even silence. I use it to distract myself from everything.

This morning, however, I tried something different.  Rather than being the witness to my thoughts or coming back to my breath or exercising any number of techniques designed to empty the mind, I felt my belly and moved lower.  I recognized the impetus behind the habitual food dreaming as a desire to consume, to eat life.  I moved beyond the hunger for food. As it turns out, I'm not starving.  I want to fuck.

I began imagining myself making love with everyone.  Touching, licking, waves of delightful fire. My whole being engaged in a sexual feast.  Legs spread arms wide - body cracked open for this experience of life.  No shame, just real human connection rooted in the physical body.  A celebration of humanness!

There seems to be a tendency to confuse sex with uncouth intentions. Not a real revelation, but actually consider the opposite.  That more than being "not a bad thing" sex can be the beautiful entry point into a practice of integrity, honesty and (of course) love. 

Public education, if we're lucky, may touch on the sexual experience, though it is typically to warn teens about STIs.  Our parents may have shared some bits in a serious and awkward conversation that always included "protecting yourself."  Rarely is sex talked about as a creative, exciting opportunity for embodiment, a playground for the art of connection.

I am not brushing aside the risks of sexual play, but they are harped on.  On a public soapbox, the announcer for sex over-emphasizes potential dangers without giving enough credence to the healing aspects.  Nor does he mention that sex is intense (in part) because the risks are great.  But this does not mean sex is bad or only dangerous.

Sexual interaction provides an opportunity to share with another person or connect with oneself through the focus of paying attention to the body.  Sex does not have to adhere to rules, it does not have to include penetration or even nudity.  The kind of sex I am talking about does, however, require the flesh.  It is not intellectual.  It is experience.  It is the twin desire to the food impulse - to taste life sensually, erotically.  There is an aliveness in the quality of sexual presence - a delightful and deep magic that pulls us beyond mediocrity. 

When the meditation ended I reentered the house.  As the day progressed, everything was colored differently.  Suddenly everyone became a sexual being.  It did not matter age, education, relationship, I simply viewed every person as a sexual creature.  It leveled all social expectation. Everybody begins at the bottom.  All it took was relaxing my vagina and anus with every human interaction.  Simply paying attention to these sexual parts - to my nipples and my tongue, the fleshy hoc, and my hands.  It made my awareness of other people more whole and sexier.  I blushed often and thought less about food.  My dining thoughts did not disappear entirely, but I gained another choice about what to do with the energy. 

An Ode to Physiognomy

The human face is a work of art.  There is a multitude of fantastic arrangements.  Those perfect lines, rich with stories and suffering.  A woman a few rows from me looks up at the screen.  The skin below her chin rests on her manubrium, wobbles in rhythm with the movement of her worried eyes.  The small, bespectacled man beside her whispers something and a dimple appears in his right cheek.  Her generous neck lifts momentarily and her eyes brighten.  Her expression comes alive with the secret. 

I sit in the Boston airport right now, waiting to board.  I fly into Amsterdam and then on to Vilnius.  I admire the expressions around me, wondering about the lines that will someday speak of my experiences before I have a chance to articulate them.  We fear wrinkles, the betrayl of our inner world and histories.  We fail to celebrate their honesty.  Wrinkles are tools for truthsayers, artists of vulnerability.   

I especially love the weary face.  It shines in airports, sewn into the traveler's composition.  Sometimes excitement is there, often it communicates the long day.  Here, at gate A14 the European face is showcased.  It is an older crowd, so the story lines are abundant.  This particular countenance is rich with history.  It seems to me the depth of ancient culture can be read in the weathered facial features of Europe's elders.