Change your context to wake up new (or old) appetites
My dog Henry whose life has been defined by his lust for food no longer has an appetite. Failing kidneys and other health complications have made food something he still comes hobbling for but then is unable to eat. This has led to a great deal of innovation on my part to make food concoctions that are irresistible, with varying degrees of success.
I noticed one day that despite the fact that Henry’s relationship with his food bowl had been severely compromised, he still sat at attention beside the table where my son and I eat, dragging himself eagerly around to gobble up any food scraps that fell. This led to an experiment.
I filled Henry’s bowl with turkey and rice. And I filled another bowl with the exact same food and sat with it at my place a the table. Henry left the turkey in his bowl untouched. Yet, when I pretended to drop spoonful after spoonful of it from my seat, he went to a great deal of effort to consume every morsel.
This has been going on for weeks now. At each meal, my son and I each sit with food alongside our own and drop it to Henry as we eat. The reversal of the rules is a source of delight for my son. And Henry thinks he’s getting away with something quite spectacular that has always been forbidden: being fed from the table.
As we were going through this ritual at breakfast a few days ago, I asked myself: How might I use this principle in my own life to wake up appetites that have long been dormant or shift patterns that seem immutable? What context would bring me running to my own table? How can I shift the context ever so slightly such that my computer is magnetic and I sit down eagerly to write, even when I am too tired, I have written for nine hours already, my son is awake until my own bedtime, I have a house to maintain, or [whatever the greatest challenge/resistance might be today]?
I experiment: On the day I intended to write the lecture and prepare the workshop I would soon be presenting, I cook all morning and garden all afternoon instead. The lecture and workshop are with me, but they are not being approached directly. An idea sprays dirt every now and then as a giant root releases from the earth. A bubble of insight rises up from its secondary simmer alongside the chicken casserole. Holding my intention and doing other work is a gentler way of engaging with my material. I ruminate instead of produce. I allow instead of force. I skip the food bowl altogether and eat with my hands from the garden, from the stove.
The flow of idea and story starts humming inside of me, until eventually I recognize the song. I scrawl down what I can, but don’t worry to much about what I capture and what I miss. I have tuned into something that I know how to return to. I have left the food bowl to enter the feast.
