Imán de mano

Mountainscape

Image of the Stellenbosch Mountains on !Xam land.

Spices, herbs, medicines. 

My hand scans the shelves of the spice cabinet. Pulled by a magnet in the center of my palm. The mind observes my hand’s journey.

The mind, like an intrigued bystander, observes my hand’s conversations. Narrating, in a way, as it remembers the journey each of the ingredients has taken. How they entered onto this shelf; the path they took to arrive onto this pallet. 

The conversation with the dried Rosemary

grown from seed along the river that flows in both directions, harvested last summer and stored in an old pickle jar with the label removed. 

The conversation with the Blackseed that has many names

Kalonji, Nigella, Black Cumin…foraged beneath the great Fig tree on that tender morning in the Valley of the Moon, cloaked in the coastal mist that rolls in off the Pacific. 

The conversation with the Cardamom

pods brought back from the South West coast of India, stored in the old honey jar and labeled with cryptic handwriting. 

The conversation with the Ashwagandha

hand scooped at the infamous co-op up in Albany, on one of those bi-monthly pilgrimages up North to the package free Mecca. 

The conversation with the vibrant Turmeric

whose rhizomes were dried and ground by hand in Morocco where they call it kharkoum beldi and they process it just like their elders did. 

The conversation with the local honey

that we prayed over as we knelt on the Earth before sunset on that late summers day, infusing the sweet nectar with rose petals, sage leaves and our love. 

The conversation with the dried Artichoke

leaves, mighty and impressive, reserved for tummy aches and digestive woes. 

Humbled in knowing that each meal is a culmination of the souls journey…that the grains and the greens are peppered with brush strokes of experience. 

That there are ingredients I cannot name.

Flavors I cannot classify.

Constituents I cannot measure.

And depths of nourishment I cannot even begin to comprehend.