Nourishing History
by Chris Wardle

In our fast-food-faster era, convenient, to the factory food industry we’ve become a sacrificial lamb dinner smouldering on the altar of cognitive dissonance. “I want it, now!” a catch cry for affluent entitlement branded (without that metaphor’s searing, smells-good pain), and sold the marketing sizzle.

I burn for other things.

I dream of a growing world not losing sight of lessons learned from the wisdom of elders, who saw nurturing value chains as more valuable than filling emptiness.

Food as grateful abundance. Preparation as joyful communion. Harvesting as stewardship shared. Planting as an act of faith. Of joyful cooking as practical evidence of the synchronicity embracing Love, prayer, kindness, skill, and gratitude. Foraging blackberries for childhood’s bottling shelves, their plenty preserved way out of reach in the highest kitchen wall cupboard, and small, stretched arms, longing to become sticky purpled fingers, and grateful, dripping mouthfuls.

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In his eighth decade, Chris Wardle (Hamza) works at being happy and grateful, while writing through his second childhood with an eye for wonder, a taste for questions, and a growing sense of proximity to the Sacred. Currently experiencing un-social-media-aversity, you can (old school) email him at: TheHealingCup@protonmail.com

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Artist Statement: My hope is that readers may reflect on the slow, ancient roots of nourishment to be found in the simple dietary practices of earlier generations, and value them over the “inconvenience” of growing, preserving, and preparing healthy meals.

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Featured image: Photo by Skyler Ewing, 2022.