Sacred Foods
As I journey deeper onto this path of ancestral ways of eating, my relationship with food is slowly and steadily shifting. I am beginning to see each food I eat as a tool to build and nourish my body, a medicine to ease an ache, a sacred sacrament to my longevity, and a spiritual practice for my ancient soul. With each meal, I can see the tapestry that weaves each morsel of food to a specific organ or function in my earth-bound, human body. There is a depth to the symbiotic and synergistic relationship between humans, plants, and animals that our untrained eyes miss in the fast-paced modern world. It is the mystery, the unseen, the intimate way in which humans have always been fed physically and spiritually by our beloved earth.
A wild animal spends its days in in harmony with creation. It feasts on the forage of the seasons, cares for it's health with the medicines of the forest, and wakes and sleeps with the natural cycles of the sun and moon. When we eat these animals we are ingesting all of the energy that guides this natural memory - as well as all of the medicinal and nutritive plants that kept this animal healthy and alive. The animals have never broken from their wild way of being, and therefore are our guides as we remember how to come back into balance with our ancient ways of living on the earth.
"For the Aborigines, eating is a sacred act; it represents humanity's deepest communication and kinship with the life-giving forces of the earth...Hunting and Gathering are considered the basis of the developing the physical and spiritual potential of human nature. The great hunt is the means by which the spiritual powers of the earth and sky educate humanity. Animals and plants nourish the body, and the process of hunting, foraging, and preparing imparts dexterity, physical skills and intellectual and spiritual knowledge."
- Excerpt from Voices of the First Day
All of our ancestors recognized specific foods as sacred. There was no food science, or FDA, or nutritional pyramid that indicated why these foods were sacred - this was wisdom of experience garnered through thousands of years of living in reciprocity with the natural world. All of the sacred foods, at least that I have come across in my research thus far, were animal foods. It was understood in traditional culture, that eating animals was necessary for optimal health, longevity, producing healthy babies, and spiritual development.
This list of sacred foods in native cultures was catalogued by Weston A. Price in his research on global traditional diets:
SEAFOOD: whole small fish, fish livers, fish liver oil, fish heads and shellfish RAW DAIRY: whole milk, fermented milk, cream and butter from pastured animals EGGS: especially egg yolks, from poultry; eggs of insects and fish ORGAN MEATS: liver, brain, tongue, marrow, kidney, lungs, stomach lining, intestines and reproductive organs ANIMAL FAT: from cows, lamb, game, pig, poultry and sea mammals INSECTS: Worms, caterpillars, larvae, grasshoppers, etc
As I journey with ancestral foods, I am noticing the way in which my body signals to me which foods are meant to be held as sacred. There is a relationship between our bodies and these foods that has endured the passing through time and space to whisper their secrets into our ears today. When I encounter these foods there is a knowing that wells up from the depths of my being. An understanding that not only do I desire to eat this...but I must.
I believe that something truly magical is happening to me as I slow down and learn to fully respect my food. I am learning through an experience of the mundane what it means to hold all things as sacred. The process of cooking a meal now connects me deeply to my ancestors as I remember that these are the foods that they too would have been nourished by. Their ancient voices speak through my hands as I knead a buckwheat dough, bake a fish, or pull apart a fresh local fruit...guiding me on the slow journey home.