We are gentle beings
A few nights ago we took part in the wonderful event Ambiens - Il Festival Verde della Bassa, two days of initiatives related to sustainability and together with other speakers we gave a speech at the opening of the Festival on the occasion of "Parole libere al Parco"
The title of our speech was:
We are gentle beings - experiencing the connection between kindness and nurturing
Nourishment is an act of kindness.
Kindness is an act of nurturing.
Gentle nourishment is an experience of connection with oneself, with one's food, with the awareness that it is also the food we choose that makes us who we are.
It is a connection with the earth, the kingdoms of nature, the cosmos; food is in fact the meeting point between the earth, the cosmos and man and in this sense it can become a profound experience of kindness towards oneself and the entire cosmos with all its kingdoms.
We are kind beings also because we can choose with conscience
Knowledge and awareness are gestures of kindness towards ourselves, because they make us free, free also to be kind and not to suffer the choices of others.
Every time we eat we can therefore know ourselves and what we need. Where does the food we choose come from? From a land that has been loved and cared for? From animals that have been respected and treated with kindness?
How was this food produced? What does it contain? Kind ingredients also for our health and well-being?
All this is an experience of profound freedom!
Being the protagonist of your own nourishment is extremely precious.
Being kind to yourself and trying to be kind to the earth are gestures that absolutely pass through the experience of nourishment.
There are so many of us on this planet! And every action, even the smallest, has its reaction, it is a cosmic law.
The symbol of this Festival is a hummingbird and we know a beautiful Amerindian legend that tells the following story:
One day, legend has it, there was a huge fire in the forest.
All the animals, terrified and dismayed, watched helplessly as the disaster unfolded. Only the little hummingbird took action, went to look for a few drops of water and threw them on the fire with his beak. After a moment, the armadillo, irritated by his irrelevant movements, said to him: "Hummingbird, are you crazy?! Do you really think that with a few drops of water you will put out the fire?" "I know," replied the hummingbird, "but I DO MY PART !" (Taken from the book "The Hummingbird's Part - The Human Species and Its Future" by Pierre Rabhi)
An act of kindness can have tremendous power and resonance.
What does this mean in practice? What does it mean to choose gentle nourishment?
In my life it means knowing myself and my needs related to nourishment, not only for the raw materials I choose, I need to be calm, I don't tolerate discussions at the table, I need to be present to myself when I eat and to have people around me who make me feel good, who are kind to me, with whom I can be kind, and I also need beauty and harmony, I need my nourishment to be cooked with love, I need to cook with love for others, and above all I need to know and understand that this food is born from love, comes from a certain type of agriculture and from the hand of man, which does not have with it the suffering of the earth and the animals.
Everyone can and must find their own gentle nourishment, knowing their own needs and possibilities.
There are no ingredients of animal origin in my diet, but to do this I had to discover what I am, what I am without meat, cheese, eggs, fish... what I am in my essence as a human being.
This is an act of kindness towards myself that has allowed me not to live an experience of lack and deprivation but of great wealth.
Everyone can and must find their own gentle nourishment, which cannot be an imposition, a dogma, a rigidity and for this reason it does not mean that everyone must do what I do or choose what I choose.
But for example, that you can choose ingredients of organic or biodynamic origin, or in any case that come from a beloved and respected land and not plundered or poisoned, or even better, when possible, grow at least part of your own food, experiment with self-production (food transformation and conservation techniques such as fermentation are extremely virtuous for man and for the earth), even cooking is an act of kindness, now delegated to the food industry, which takes care of everything except man and the earth. Or choose animal products that do not come from intensive farming or choose to limit their consumption or live peacefully without eating them.
The idea that Love, Compassion and Kindness concern only human beings and not the other kingdoms of nature, is a very limited vision, even from a spiritual and religious point of view, it is a limitation that especially in the West has been placed by someone, other philosophies contemplate these human and divine values in a much broader way because they are necessary for our deepest happiness, because in the absence of those there is suffering. And violence is violence regardless of who practices it and who receives it. There is no second-rate violence!
There are many acts of kindness that can change our daily life and the life of the planet, that can make us more loving, because what we eat also affects our temperament and our personality, by nourishing ourselves in a kind way we can also change the quality of our relationships, with ourselves first of all, with others, with the earth, its kingdoms, with our animal friends, and the entire cosmos.
Through the experience of nourishment, which today has strongly lost its deepest meaning, we can therefore be, truly be, manifest ourselves, we can be and become gentle beings living on a gentle planet.
Which is also the profound meaning of our existence! 