Satellite

Dear OCer,

Today at market, a women stopped by the stand. Surveying the stand overflowing with freshly baked breads, she sinks into her hip, gives a relieving sigh and says: "Thank God for earth".

Thank God for earth. I love that! So simple, yet so encompassing. The word "earth" instantly calls to mind that big, overwhelming (yet somehow understated) satellite picture of earth in space. Surrounded by dark universe, the globes' insides swirl like a marble’s.

But zoom in... Look at the green expanding, the blue become more deep. Go through the white of the atmosphere and towards structured grid of that land. Is it becoming more defined? It's a city. Keep going... keep going... stop! You see it? That’s you! Sitting down for dinner. Fork in hand, mouth already salivating, eyes scanning your plate like you've been hungry for days. You need sustenance and your body knows it.

But we are craving more than sustenance when we eat at a meal. We crave what the image of the earth makes us feel. We crave to lose ourselves in a bigger picture- to let go yet strangely feel connected at the same time. When we eat we relax. We indulge our senses and ease our minds. Though eating is a personal activity, we paradoxically release our “self” in the process.

This weekend was the trip to True Food Ecostere Farm. Three of us set out to help Berhanu in his busiest season of the year! In my next post I will talk ALL about the trials and tribulations of hoeing and raking for two days, but right now, I want to focus on the idea of encompassing. The idea that when we get to a place where there is everything, we find ourselves forgetting our ego so that we become part of it too. At

the farm, working with the large oval potato leaves and the delicate garlic greens, my two friends and I found ourselves at the center our living planet. Not only in the ecological sense of cultivating crops, not only in the biological sense of nourishing our own bodies, not only in the global sense of supporting a healthy environment, but also in a human sense of experiencing each other in a way was so

simple, yet so involved.

The weekend was a real bonding experience for us all. As three people coming together for the first time, I am amazed at how much our stories resemble each others’. Whether it was the great Canadian outdoors, Berhanu’s ethiopian enjeras or the tangy citronella bug spray, I think we all let ourselves go to the big picture so that we could interweave.

Although like in any good meal, anxiety flashes between forkfuls of pasta or excess thought interferes in that sweet spoonful of pie, my weekend certainly had ego. But I was more inclined to give it away. I wanted to release myself because it was only then that I was encompassed.

So: Thank God for Earth. Mhm sista.

And thank God for satellites- because with them we can remind ourselves that not even existing as a pixel in our planet's massive expanse of green is when we are most alive.