Tonight, for the first time in a long time, I cooked myself dinner. I left the microwave entrees resting in the freezer, ignored the siren song of the delivery apps, and pulled together a handful of simple ingredients. The meal was simple yet satisfying; the smell of crushed garlic hitting the pan was enough to start my mouth watering.
As I inhaled the steam from the cooking pot, gently stirring in a counterclockwise direction, a sense of peace and purpose washed over me. Taking in the flavors that mingled in each breath, I thought about the practices that ground us: the way simple yet controlled motions, combined with setting clear intentions, can connect our spiritual selves with the world around us, helping us to be present in the moment and manifest our inner desires with earthly outcomes.
With cooking, the desired outcome is fairly consistent amongst its practitioners: nourishment. We prepare a meal for our loved ones, imbuing it with the care and depth of feeling we have for the people close to us. A lover might make something decadent and sensual to entice their intended partner. A parent might make something hearty and filling to nurture their children. Friends might share their favorite dish or make an evening of learning to cook together.
In many traditional cooking practices, prayers are used to help measure time for things like kneading a dough or whipping a batter. These prayers are more than timekeeping, though; they are a manifestation of intention, of feeling, of culture and religion. When we speak while cooking, we imbue energy into the meal. With sensitive Cancer taking its place at the forefront of our skies, it brings into focus that we are subject to more than our practical realities. As the moon pulls the waves with its invisible gravitational force, we too are being pushed and pulled by energies that we cannot fully perceive. We practice ritual in order to connect and harness those energies. We burn herbs, speak words, and quiet our superficial narratives in pursuit of an invisible, inscrutable pattern that brings us closer to the unseen, to the divine.
Cooking is a combination of ritual practice and pragmatic advantage. Cooked meats and plants allows for improved absorption of nutrients and protects our digestive systems from some of the more harmful bacteria present in nature. The invention of cooking gave us the means to better sustain ourselves in harsh climates or times of scarcity. With each generation, we were able to pass down the knowledge crucial to our survival: what plants to forage or grow, what parts of the animal were edible, and how to cook them all. In a pre-industrial world, teaching loved ones to cook was equal parts imparting tradition and providing the necessary skills to survive.
In the book Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human, British primatologist Richard Wrangham theorizes that cooking is the key that allowed us to evolve larger brains, providing room in our minds for things like existential awareness and the formation of more complex societies and technology. (Wrangham, 2009) According to Wrangham’s theory, we are only able to ask the larger questions of the universe because we first learned to cook.
Cooking is one of the simplest and purest forms of ritual magic. We follow the guidance provided by our ancestors, not always necessarily knowing why it works, but simply that it does. We set our intentions, channel the wisdom of generations before us, take the raw materials from nature and turn them into something healing, comforting, and satisfying.
If you are looking for ways to impart more spiritual elements into your cooking, the first step is to remember that you are already partway there. Every technique connects you with the countless others that discovered, tested, and perfected it. You could practice gratitude to those ancient predecessors who first harnessed fire and those who learned to use it to provide better nourishment for themselves and their community. You could also practice setting specific intentions and speaking words or chants into the food as you cook it, giving it the energy you wish to manifest for yourself or whoever you are serving it to.
As I write this with a full stomach and the smell of a freshly cooked meal wafting through my living room, I feel myself become one with the energy of the meal; the sense of peace that washed over me as I stirred the simmering pot is now completely intertwined with my sense of self in the present moment. There is an age old saying, “You are what you eat,” and it is in moments like these when I realize how imperative it is to look at not just the content of our food or the content of our spiritual practices, but whether or not those elements are in alignment with each other. Do we feed ourselves with good intentions? Do we give positive energy and ascriptions to our sustinence? Do we nourish our physical selves with the same energy we wish to embody in our spiritual beings?
