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When I hold in my hands a beet picked moments before from my own yard, or sink my teeth into a buffalo burger from Colorado pasture, or serve my family a plate of broccoli and quinoa from a local farm, I feel deep peace in my bones. Gratitude and connection radiate through my body, a balm to my soul. Eating local, organic food fuels my body with optimum health; and also it feeds my soul. While my cells soak up the increased nutrition from "slow" food, food raised only miles from my dinner table, my spirit and heart bask in the grounding, soulful knowledge of the land that grew that dinner. Eating locally becomes a spiritual practice of balance, awareness, and integrity. We all know the saying "You are what you eat." This is true of all things, including our food itself. Plants grow by assimilating and processing nutrients, minerals, and other properties of the soil and water that nourish them. Animals then take in those transformed elements. All animals, from wild elk to farm-raised pigs to humans, are made of the land itself. From my work with the consciousness of plants, stones, water, and other natural elements, I have learned that each patch of soil has its own "energy" or "personality." Water, too, takes on the energies of all it encounters, and passes those frequencies on to whomever drinks it, human, animal, or soil. An apple grown in Washington state carries in it the water of the Columbia River, the soil of glaciers and cedar trees, and the sweet dampness of blackberry brambles. A peach grown in Boulder county, on the other hand, vibrates with the unique personality of alluvial silt, Rocky Mountain streams and lakes, and sandy orange clay. We are what we eat. When our cells pulse with the energies of Chile, Argentina, and China, we are scattered and indistinct. But when we nourish our bodies primarily with the gifts of the land we walk upon each day, we become grounded and centered in the place we call home. Our bodies live in direct, right relationship with the land around us. I can live more fully on this land when I eat food grown here: I am at home, in my body and on the earth. Living in a global economy gifts us with many things, like greater cultural understanding and the ability to find just about anything that suits our fancy at the click of a mouse. Such a vast world leaves us hungering, though, for real community, a sense of place and connection with real people in real time and space. Community has come to mean people who spend money in one place, or chatting with disembodied minds on a computer screen. Although I do participate in these mental communities, I feel most served and heartened by a real life community, especially when we gather to do real things, like farm and eat. If our commercials reflect our private desires, what we so deeply crave is a culture of red-and-white checkered table cloths decorated with slow-churned ice cream and freshly baked bread, surrounded by friends and family. There are smiles and laughter all around. We feel seen, met, and nourished. A key part of community is food, and when that food comes from that very same community, the ties that hold that checkered cloth to the table, that root our bums to the picnic bench, those ties are made all the stronger. From local community grows an understanding of each other, as we look into our neighbors' eyes and share the bounty of the earth. We grow with our food a local ethic of food, nourished from the soil beneath us and the rain that falls from these very skies. We begin to understand reciprocity. We can hold the hands that tended our food, even perhaps find that those hands are our own. We become aware of the needs of the land, the animals and plants. The weather affects us directly. Our bodies and souls become a part of the land right here, right now, tended by these neighbors and friends with whom we have gathered. It feels good to know your food. It feels right, and whole, to commit to the land and the people we encounter each day. Eating locally serves the land, the local economy, and our bodies; but perhaps most importantly, it feeds our souls. So come, pull up a chair, and share with me these foods grown right here, at home. Clea Danaan is the author of Sacred Land: Intuitive Gardening for Personal, Political & Environmental Change (Llewellyn, 2007). See more of her work at www.IntuitiveGardening.net
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