Spirit-Centered Eating, Part 3: The Spirits of Others Affected by Our Eating

Everything we kill and eat is the neighbor, child, sibling, and possibly parent of others. What effect does our killing and eating other living beings have on those to whom they are related? Are we mindful of the effect?

Do we take the killing and eating of plants and animals for granted? If so, why? How did we become so thoughtless about killing and eating other living beings?

How might eating habits change by being mindful of the spirits of others connected with what we kill and eat?

Next time you're about to eat something, pause for a moment.  Consider the effect of your eating on the spirits of others affected by the killing of what you're about to put into your mouth.

The Wisdom of Spirit-Centered Eating

Perhaps there is wisdom in us being mindful of our own spirit as we eat. 

Perhaps there is wisdom in being mindful of the spirits of those we kill and eat.

Perhaps we do well to be mindful of relationships affected by the death of what we eat.

Perhaps we do well to treat with deep respect and honor those we kill and eat. On them our lives depend.

Spirit-Centered Eating, Part 2: The Spirit of Our Food

What about the spirit of what we eat? 

When we kill other living beings in order to eat them, their spirits leave at different speeds. For example, an apple doesn't die as soon as we pick it. Its spirit leaves gradually over time. However, the spirit of a freshly killed chicken leaves quickly.

How spirited are the seeds, roots, stems, leaves, vegetables and fruits we eat? How spirited are the fish, birds, and other animals we eat? Generally speaking, fresh, local, in-season, organic, whole foods are the most spirited. The sooner we preserve the plants animals we kill, the more spirit they retain. However, the more processed plants and animals are, the less spirit they retain. 

Try this: eat a meal of fresh, local, in-season vegetables and eat a meal of the same vegetables from a grocery store's canned vegetables aisle. See if you sense a difference in the spiritedness of the two meals. An even easier test is comparing fresh, free-range, organic chicken eggs with cheaper caged, chemically-treated chicken eggs. Can you sense the difference?

Spirit-Centered Eating, Part 1

This is the first of a three-part series on the practice of spirit-centered eating.

Our spirit is that which makes us alive. To stay alive we must eat. To eat we must kill and take the spirit of what we eat. Eating is a spirit-related matter.

One of the practices of thumotic spirituality is spirit-centered eating. It's being mindful of spirit- our own spirit, the spirit of what we eat, and the spirits of others- while we eat.

Our Own Spirit While Eating

What happens to our own spirit while we eat? Is our spirit nourished, uplifted, and strengthened or is it deprived, brought down, and weakened? 

What about how we prepare, serve, and eat the plants and animals we consume? How do these affect our spirit?

What about the circumstances of eating- the place and the others with whom we eat- how do they affect our spirit?

Simply being mindful of our own spirit while we eat can transform our lives.

Part 2 will be about the spirits of the plants and animals we eat.