Food for the soul

What an amazing amount of advice we are given these days about what food we should or should not eat. There are the different major food groups – carbohydrates, fats and proteins – with limits on how much of each of them we should have on a daily basis.

There are the fruits and vegetables and how many portions we should eat each day. There are the vitamins and minerals and whether we should take supplements or not. And then there are recommendations about meat, poultry, fish, eggs, beans, nuts and milk. Should we be carnivores, meat reducers, vegetarians, fruitarians or vegans?

Sometimes all of this information about food and nutrition is a little too much to absorb: food for your health, food for energy, food for your children, food for living a better life! But, dear reader, I would like to share with you something that might be, at certain times, more important than all of these foods. That is, food for the soul.

We all of us live a life full of highs and lows, both emotionally and spiritually speaking. When I am feeling low I go outside and look at something beautiful. It might be a winter pansy with a blue and gold face. It might be the convoluted trunk of an ancient tree. Or it might be the old bird’s nest that I found the other day: grass on the outside, sheep’s wool on the inside. If you know how to look, this has some sort of ’lightening’ effect. My body loses its weight, as in dancing or skipping. I’m hardly there any more, and when I go back inside, I feel enlightened.

I’ve had food for the soul. Dear reader, why not try it too?