mind your manna

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What’s all the noise about?

 

How many times in the last forty + years have we screamed and yelled that something huge was happening?  That we had woken up and figured out that there is killing going on under our satiated noses, that we are being fed a BIG lie by the corporate profit motive and the viral expansion of our own greed that it represents…


Fresh from a world war we barely escaped but for our rationed childish impulses, lamenting such deprivation and inconvenience, we celebrated by being driven on deeper and deeper into consumerland.  Rejoicing in a newly full larder - despite our parent's thrift - our newly unfettered ‘nature' hurtled about consuming everything in sight - with no end in sight - until we collapsed into a grinning pool of processed and unbalanced non-food, made to taste.  No, hey! but wait a minute.  England had welcomed in (grudgingly it seems) a collective of post war, colonial, migrating influences that would show us a “life” beyond our suet pudding, pork chops, lots and lots of white stuff; cod & chips.


Yes, we woke up hard and had our tale to tell.  Indeed, we insisted.  We screamed out at a volume in direct proportion to our new, as yet, unformed awareness - in the ol’ tradition of: “…those that need the teaching most, preach the loudest.”  But, we were on to something here. We were heading for a societal physical and mental health collapse, and what we then knew and preached too loudly --- this secret we had unraveled from the wise, aged disciplines that we had tripped over during our dream's state and walkabouts --- was obviously so needed in England’s collective kitchens and consciousness.  'Sooner or later it was inevitable,' we exclaimed…


We were so right.


Fast-forward: 40 years

The stars are aligned.  This headlong rush into nihilistic self-gratification that threw us out of the 1950’s, in pretense and out of control, seemed to ride on the principle that that which satiated us could never be healthy, and visa versa.  What nonsense! Even our grandparents bound up tight in their Victorian restrictions knew better than that.  How could anybody believe that wholesome food must be presented poorly and taste awful, or not taste at all?  Here we are, after all our ranting, some people STILL believe that!  Hey, some people still believe that a wholesome life that embraces the concept of holistic global inclusiveness and universal connectivity is evil.

 

Time to turn off the TV.
We also discovered, macrocosmically, that we inhabit bodies that directly respond to ALL they consume --- whether, eaten, drunk, heard, smelled, thought, or certainly felt from within - or without.  From within, we respond to energy from without.  We are a field.  We are a force of nature, we are both created and creative.  We are what we eat.
We found that out.  We acted.  We changed.  And we told everyone about it.
At long last the tipping point has been reached and now the miraculous movement permeates its way freely through mainstream thought; now we have friends everywhere.  In eco-constrained eating circles there are few remaining that don’t get it: we are a self-sustaining mechanism that relies on consuming within the laws of the land, and those parameters are expanding rapidly and exponentially while those laws are laughing at us: warmly to eco-sensitivity, sardonically to the insensitive.
It is not for me to expound upon the truisms of a vegan or even a vegetarian lifestyle, the noise is loud enough within the circle.  We all carry our truth with us and give it our all. But let me take a moment to congratulate all patrons of manna, and celebrate these 43 years of patronage.  I urge you now with your tummy full of wondrously tasty, healthy and sustainable foods –- hopefully from manna -- to go further, to cock your ear to the ground and eye to the heavens and discover your wholeness, your holiness, your whole i ness.  Learn about your trinity, your tri-unity:  your animal, directive and counseling natures, and their proper interaction.  Then your newfound responsibility will resonate through the universe(s).  Avoid religion if you can, but if you really need that much help with some imagery, utilize that energy and avoid as much as possible the cultish sermons meted out.
Eat your raw foods and study the enzymatic effects of all foods on your particular body (know thyself).  Chew your liquids.  Drink your solids.  Hydrate thoroughly, but gently.  BLESS YOUR FOOD!
AND, do not forget to come to manna for some further nourishment.  Say hello too, I’m the one smacking his lips…
Roger Swallow
© 2010