Poetry Chaikhana
Sacred Poetry from Around the World

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Food

The food we eat is the most tangible exchange we make with our environment. Our food is what most immediately connects us with the physical world around us. When you take in food, you temporarily negate the illusion of separation between your body and the rest of existence. Food is a breach of the boundary where we normally perceive separation to begin.

In other words, food is communion. It is an affirmation of interconnection and unity with our environment. What we take in becomes, in a very visceral way, a part of us. And we increasingly become composed of it. Remember the common saying, You are what you eat.

This is exemplified in the Christian tradition when Christ tells his followers that, if they don't eat his flesh in the form of the sanctified bread they have no connection with him, he is saying that his essence must be taken into their being in the way that food is taken into the body. Divine substance must be taken in so that it becomes a part of us, and we a part of it. Our thoughts, feelings, our very cells, our total identity must be built of that divine substance -- until finally no boundary is seen between one's individual being and the eternal Being which sustains us. That is holy communion.

Similar esoteric principles are found, with greater or lesser emphasis, in all world traditions, such as Hindu traditions of prasad. Food is inherently communion with the physical world. It just requires that you peer a little deeper to recognize the more sublime communion, as well.

Something to chew on...

See also

	Bread
	Food

Poems with the theme of Food

	Angelou, Maya Alone
	Attar, Farid ud-Din The Hawk
	Attar, Farid ud-Din The Vain Bird
	Aurobindo, Sri The Word of The Silence
	Dasimayya, Devara Hunger the great serpent
	Eldar Edda (Anonymous) Odin's Shaman Song (from Eldar Edda)
	Francis of Assisi Prayer Inspired by the Our Father
	Gibran, Kahlil Good and Evil (from The Prophet)
	Gorakhnath Gorakh Bani
	Granger, Ivan M. Supper
	Hamadani, Ayn al-Qozat As Long as I Live
	Holderlin, Friedrich Bread and Wine, Part 7
	ibn Gabirol, Solomon Come to me at dawn, my beloved, and go with me
	Janabai There is nothing empty of divine
	John of the Cross Not for All the Beauty
	John of the Cross Song of the Soul That Delights in Knowing God by Faith
	John of the Cross The Fountain
	Kerouac, Jack The Scripture of the Golden Eternity
	Khayyam, Omar [11] Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough
	Khayyam, Omar [56] And this I know: whether the one True Light
	Ko Un Two beggars
	Lalla (Ded, Lal) Your way of knowing is a private herb garden
	Lee, Li-Young From Blossoms
	Levine, Stephen In the realm of the passing away
	Maharshi, Ramana The Marital Garland of Letters
	Maharshi, Ramana The Song of the Poppadum
	McCombs, Chris Go Deeper
	Merton, Thomas A Practical Program for Monks
	Milarepa Response to a Logician
	Milarepa The Song of Food and Dwelling
	Mipham Rinpoche, Sakyong Fortunate Birth
	Mipham Rinpoche, Sakyong To My Father, to the Vajra Sangha
	Nammalvar While I was waiting eagerly for him
	Niffari (an-Niffari, Muhammad ibn al-Hasan) Stand at the throne (from The Standing Of the Presence Chamber and the Letter)
	Pope, Alexander The Universal Prayer
	Rabia (Al-'Adawiyya, Rabi'a) My joy
	Ramprasad (Sen, Ramprasad) This time I shall devour Thee utterly, Mother Kali!
	Rumi, Mevlana Jelaluddin Fasting
	Rumi, Mevlana Jelaluddin What I want is to see your face
	Sanai, Hakim The Good Darkness
	Saraha The Royal Song of Saraha (Dohakosa)
	Shabistari, Mahmud Reason (from The Secret Rose Garden)
	Shankara Nirvana Shatkam
	Sinan, Ummi The Rose
	Stein, Edith I Will Remain With You...
	Stein, Edith Novena Of The Holy Spirit
	Symeon the New Theologian You, oh Christ, are the Kingdom of Heaven;
	Therese of Lisieux The Divine Dew
	Trungpa, Chogyam A Heart Lost and Discovered
	Trungpa, Chogyam Purifying and Invoking the Four Directions
	Vivekananda, Swami Song of the Sanyasin
	Yeats, William Butler Sailing to Byzantium
	Yoka Genkaku (Xuanjue, Yongjia) [7] Release your hold on earth, water, fire, wind; (from The Shodoka)
	Yoka Genkaku (Xuanjue, Yongjia) [35] High in the Himalayas, only fei-ni grass grows (from The Shodoka)

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Poetry Chaikhana Sacred Poetry from Around the World

Food

Poetry Chaikhana
Sacred Poetry from Around the World