tasting the future

i find myself part of some incredible work in the United Kingdom ~ an initiative called Tasting the Future is being called by some brave souls within the WWF-UK and is attracting all sorts of people to it. i say they are brave because in fact what they are calling in is a way of working on systemic and intractable issues that works with the real context in which humanity currently finds itself.  in human systems dynamics, this context is called "dynamical" ~ it is characterized by high levels of complexity, inter-connectivity, non-linearity, emergence.  this simply means that with the way things are working right now, we are on the edge of what we know and what we know how to do.  it means we need to brave enough to not-know, and yet to step in and say yes, i am here, join me.

Tasting the Future is less a "project" and more like a movement because it is about collectively finding a new way of living with the planet and with each other, through the portal of our food. currently, the UK alone consumes as if it had 3 planets to feed itself from.  factor in north america, europe, and the massive consumer cultures emerging in asia and it is almost too much to bear.  so we are asking, what would a food system actually look like if we produced and consumed in a way that sustained, rather than depleted, people and the planet?

the answer is actually that nobody knows what our new systems can and will look like because we are currently in a world in transition.  we have a sense of the new ways forward and we have a sense of the massiveness of our current systems' dysfunction.  our damage to the planet and to our humanity has lead to unprecedented depletion of both our biosphere and ethnosphere, while our economic and governance systems show signs of stress and distress, irrelevance, and an incapacity to respond to the real needs of this time.

there are various pathways forward. we can adapt to the current context as we imagine and innovate our way into completely new ways of being a human ecology on this planet.  we can consume better and create higher standards and regulations for our current industries.  we can consume differently by creating entirely industries, like electric cars and up-cycled product lines.  or we can consume less and in so doing, shift industries and behaviours radically: car-free cities and everything non-privatized open-source. this last way is a fundamental shift in our values, behaviours, artifacts, and assumptions about what ecology and economy and humanity are and can be...

what we are seeing in Tasting the Future is that these are happening all at once in the food sector.  there is already so much innovation happening in local and regional ways, in civil society and in the market, all around the UK.  they are, however, not connected, and they do not reach a critical mass of citizens.  so the invitation with Tasting the Future is to convene these projects and people, illuminate the work that is happening, connect them in meaningful ways and from this, scale up the work and begin to co-create the new together.  in other words, create an intentional learning ecology to support the catalysts, grow the impact, and together seed new innovations from what we learn collectively.  it is time to innovate and prototype, but the trick is to do it collectively, and learn with each step as we tread - or tumble - towards a fundamental change.

it is to begin to BE the new system that we want to cultivate more widely.

the edge in this work is around calling out a new culture, one that learns and grows together through actually being in profound relationship with each other and with the earth.  why is this edgy?  because the norm is to work with cause and effect and to see the system as outside of ourselves: to see problems and find solutions, to bring together experts or power brokers and get them to create strategies that will be implemented by us, or to create lists of recommendations that others should follow.  what we don't have as a sophisticated human capacity is to be learners together regardless of our status, to be the "us" that leads and the "them" that follows, learners who access a collective intelligence from the whole - from our diversity, differences and inter-connectivity, from what the Earth is asking of and teaching us, and from our wholeness as human beings, as opposed to from our "titles", positions, these fragmented aspects of our selves.

as margaret wheatley says, "whatever the problem, community is the answer" and "the leaders we need are already here."  those that are showing up are "paradigm pioneers" who hold a sense of purpose so strongly that others gather around, bring their beauty, and live their way courageously into the unknown, yet tangible, future.  we can already taste it...

we are risen, tangled

it is a strange thing to ask...
but when you eat something fresh, something you picked or caught or

gathered with your very own hands
something that had its own life and has now become your sustenance
when that miracle touches the softcells of your mouth
and its particles become
scent
flavour
texture
when you let them wash into your body, through your systems,
and they become your blood, your energy, your life ~
do you think about your own death?

i thought about this when i read Mary Oliver's poem, the Fish... the miracle of the tangled life we lead with all that is around us, all that sustains us and the incredible amount of Life that goes so completely unoticed every day. ingested, yet not fully digested.  but what happens when we notice how life leads into life, and notice those little deaths that offer us life each day?  would we live differently, die differently? is the light somehow different, the taste that much sweeter?  the mysteries more wondrous....

The Fish 

The first fish

I ever caught

would not lie down

quiet in the pail

but flailed and sucked

at the burning

amazement of the air

and died

in the slow pouring off

of rainbows. Later

I opened his body and separated

the flesh from the bones

and ate him. Now the sea

is in me: I am the fish, the fish

glitters in me; we are

risen, tangled together, certain to fall

back to the sea. Out of pain,

and pain, and more pain

we feed this feverish plot, we are nourished

by the mystery.

~ by Mary Oliver

amuse-bouches (& the fire of transformation)

.....an "amuse-bouche" is a whimsical appetizer offered before the meal, invented by the chefs to please, tease and invite the taste buds to a kind of ecstacy....

what new can we create from the seemingly useless? how can we utilize as much of our food sources as possible?  

in the Conscious Kitchen, we work with creativity, resourcefulness and awareness in many different ways.  this is a recipe for a once-in-a-lifetime “amuse bouche” called Jeanne D’Arc.  the idea was hatched as a result of the sheer wonder evoked by very naked, vulnerable oranges whose skin had been "zested" and whose juice had been squeezed for other recipes and dishes already...coupled with our desire to create as little waste as possible.  our "collective chefs" worked with sheer inspiration with the parts of the orange that are FULL of nutrients, yet often overlooked as a potential ingredient.  

we transformed a seemingly useless skin into a fiery taste sensation.

"Jeanne D'Arc gave her life for something new to be born. There will be a fire of flavor exploding in your mouth"

in giving our recipes and dishes a unique name that captures the experience of creating the dish, we create a kind of wholeness, an invitation to remember not only the taste of the food, but its personality.  it is a way of saying "i hear you!" since the name is inspired from the ingredients, the process, and the context in which we find ourselves cooking so consciously together. 

the power of naming also brings to life a story.  and this story is a way to introduce our eaters to the food that is offering itself to us, and the light of inspiration from which it was created.  and that all of this - the food, the ingredients, the process, the love and inspiration - will be nourishing their bodies and souls....

food ingredients

2 oranges, using leftover peel 
     ...naked, wounded, surrendering with unexpected shining beauty and softness...

zested orange and lemon peel, 
     ....mixed with bit of freshly squeezed orange-juice and the leftover pulp from squeezing the orange

date-water 
       ...the soak water from dried Axladitsa dates creates a sweet water that can be used as a  sweetener...

greek honey

2 bananas, sliced

1 dark chocolate bar, cut into squares

wild fennel, freshly harvested from the walk on the wildside

       ....for extra-taste and decoration (a little Tree of Life on each island of fire)

preparation:

mash the orange peel and zests together. add some date water and honey, as needed and then roll them into balls. to arrange each amuse bouche, take a square of chocolate, add a slice of banana, the ball of orange and add a dash of wild fennel.

magic ingredients

the conditions for creating such amuses for our bouches is really about the kind of space we create together in order to be fully responsive to that which wants to be created.  it certainly helps to have a beautiful, spacious, sunny, windy kitchen, with life blowing through, in all its forms…this kind of vitality and life shows up in the spirit of teamwork that evokes fun, joy, laughter, reciprocity and trust ~ in one's own creativity and giving trust to each other to create;  spontaneity and improvisation that surprises oneself and others; wonder, details and beauty as essential ingredients;  resourcefulness that leads to surprisingly new and refreshing things born out of what we think is rubbish/ left overs/ compost/the old skin.... 

....is really a kind of hosting Life in all its potential....

thank you to Katrin Kohlbecher for her generous harvest of this recipe and experience

and to Richard Moreham and Julie Arts for their gleeful photos 

eating Light

...it seems we've lost a sense of wonder in the food we eat.  we have forgotten that our food is actually Light manifest. in the interplay of sun, earth, and elements is a magical alchemy creating the plants that give their bodies to us so we can receive energy. we are what we eat.  Light. Energy. Life. it is pure potential - how do we process this Light?  how do we give back with the energy we receive?...

in the joy of hosting a conscious kitchen as part of the Axladitsa Immersion, we really played with the idea of eating Light.  

rather than thinking about "lite" diets or cutting down on foods, we invited in what it really means to eat Light.  we consume the nourishment that Light provides in every fruit and vegetable that we eat.  the vibration of Light is transformed into the uniqueness of carrot, a cabbage, thyme, aubergines...  Light becomes manifest through complex and incredible processes of photosynthesis and creates, well, our food.  


when we consume it, it becomes us....
so imagine with every bite, you are eating Light!

the first paragraph is a quote from an introduction i wrote for the "eating Light" section of ascent magazine's sustainability issue.   

eating Light profiles 3 young people who are bringing their light to their lives and work with community. you might want to check them out ~  gayla trail cultivates rich soil for plants and relationships as a pioneering urban gardener, and founder of you grow girl.    bryant terry is an eco-chef and author of Grub who feeds his african-american southern lineage through educating young people in healthy eating and preserving tradition. and jill boadway was the chef the radha yoga & eatery in vancouver's downtown eastside, and is the co-founder of the Conscious Table which shares a practice of conscious eating to cultivate gratitude and awareness. 

to read the entire intro and article which profiles these 3 inspirational people & their projects, click here.

the whole process of collectively imagining and then manifesting the sustainability issue of ascent magazine deeply influenced the way i think about sustainability as the union of our inner light and outer action.  when our editorial team first met to begin to think about the "core" of the issue, how we would approach sustainability in a way that was unique to ascent magazine and that offered a spiritual approach to this issue, we were inspired by the core teachings of swami radha, the founder of ascent, timeless books, and the yasodhara ashram.  in particular, the mantra,

"i am created by divine light, i am sustained by divine light, i am protected by divine light, i am surrounded by divine light, i am ever growing into divine light." 

to find out more about swami radha's work, her contribution to yoga in the west, and her teachings about Light (Light and Vibration and The Divine Light Invocation), visit the ashram's website at www.yasodhara.org.  

her own story is incredible and inspiring, radha, a diary of a woman's search.

walk on the wild side into edible landscapes

it's a evening of radical amazement.... 
and what if we practiced this everyday, and together? seeing and sensing the wonder of the world in every moment.  what would our food taste like and offer us if we ingested that amazement, the miracle of light transmuted into form, which becomes our food?

well, we did a little experiment in that regard, with the Conscious Kitchen we we hosted on the 3rd evening of the Axladitsa Immersion. we visited the edible landscape to see what She would offer... edible flowers, wild herbs to inspire our menu, fresh lettuce from the garden and luscious conversations all the while.  our little troupe came back filled with offerings of taste and beauty to make the food & space sparkle with wild welcome.

remarkable patterns of light in the food - the Tree of Life in the cabbage, the perfection of peas in a pod... and the scents and tastes of wild thyme inspired the Take Thyme Salad, wild fennel splashed on the Jeanne D'Arc orange-peel-banana-chocolate Amuses-bouches, the edible flowers on the Sunbeam Salad. and the look of sweet rapture on the faces of the radical chefs and eaters.

this little shift, this little invitation to eat Light and be amazed by the miracles that become of our food, inspired our blessings on the food.  no words, just look, see, smell and taste with reverence, in silence.

then dig in!

photos by richard moreham and julie arts