Dementors, Thanatos and Black Bean Corn Salad

A mealy seasoned center

Bursts out of blackened skin

Onto tongue

Dressed in pungent protection

Garlic and salt weaving forcefields

Into and around nostrils

Down my throat

Mashing, knashing

Through crisp white skin

Bursting sweet corn juice

Rolling, crunching, mealy crispness

Finally descending

I think back to that day

As I sit here, my own voices still protesting

Of the temporary profession

I wore for them, with them

I remember their faces, sweet and rebellious

Looking to me for guidance

Likening their struggle to Dementors

Soul sucking

Child self

No more

Helping them

Once I felt confident

That I was to battle

That there was this enemy

That I’d overcome

And would help them too

But sitting here, mashing and knashing

It’s still all been measured

No matter how much I try to alchemize

The fact remains the same:

If I look into the void

The void still stares back at me

Alive and well

Waiting, overtaking

After journeys into underworlds

And far off lands

I’ve found the complexity

Of not an “enemy”

But a shadow

The Unforgotten

Lurking

Banished and condemned

And simply rising in another form

To try, to try to get its message across

A message rarely heard

This garlic bean mash

Stringy kale strips stuck in crevices

And toasted avocado smothered denseness

Mix together in me

Like the complexity of the real journey

Unable to truly be separated

Into its

Clean

Distiguishable

Measureable

Elements

I once thought comprised answers

Before

Now

I sit here

With my own caudre of inner figures

Fearing, questioning, rebelling

And although my gnosis attends

Still I’m left with the pungent aftertaste

Of question marks

And the persistent

Harrowing

Drive

A return to inorganic substance

Thanatos, my love

The Void

Staring back at me

Waiting, overtaking.

This week’s food memory re-enactment is named “Dementors.” In my memoir, Food Memories, I name the chapter this way due to the fact that it centered on a memory I have of me sitting at a table with a bunch of young eating disorder sufferers. In this memory, I was a “staff” helping them through their meal fears, and although I did feel mostly “healed” from my struggle, my journey at that point had only begun.

At the table, one of the clients mentioned how the eating disorder felt to them like the Dementors from Harry Potter–something that sucked them empty of all desire, happiness, joy. Something that basically left them with a feeling of having no real reason to live.

I of course, being on the “good side” at the time, encouraged them to fight back against this energy, like Harry did with his Patronus conjure, seeing this other part as the enemy that they had to overcome, like I had.

But mixed into this memory was my budding confusion on the black and whiteness of the matter, that while I told these amazing kids these things, I was beginning to doubt the certainty of such statements. I had just started studying Animism, at one time called Shamanism, which held a much broader and deeper understanding on the nature of illness. That on the one hand it is something to strive for health, but on the other it is also wise to understand why the illness, or “demon,” has come. These concepts were blowing my mind and making it difficult to totally work with confidence in a system that didn’t address this complexity in some way.

In my re-enactment, I decided to make the same salad as I made for them, and myself, to eat together that day. I measured it this time like I measured it for them. Only the most advanced client would not freak out if they noticed their portions hadn’t been exactly measured. In an effort to get food into them, we made it as safe as possible.

At first I was going to tune into an online chat support group while I ate to mimic being surrounded by the clients, but the timing didn’t work out. I decided instead to turn on a video describing the “History of Dementors” while I ate. While I chewed and savored the meal, I learned of JK Rowling’s real life experience of depression and how she created these characters to embody the heavy, soul sucking feeling of going through this process (I’m much more of a Lord of The Rings fan, so that was new news to me :}).

As I listened, I thought of how this woman, instead of letting herself be swallowed by these energies, chose instead to bring them to life in her story. To give them a place, to give the darkness a place. I thought of how many countless others were affected by this depiction, how they felt seen and understood by this characterization of their experience. And I thought that, hmm, if this depression was ignored by Rowling, battled and not really spoken of, how so many people may have never had that feeling of being seen, of being given a way to let these energies “have a home” in some creative way too.

Using art to honor and allow dark energies to live outside of us has been a very helpful way for me to deal with the complexity of understanding the shadow, not just “battling” it.

JK Rowling’s choice to honor these energies and express them artistically gave them another place to be, and a “voice” in a sort of way. Even though they were depicted as evil, the very fact they were created in many ways actually honored them.

This in turn helped many people. If it weren’t for these energies, would the Dementor characters…or even the entire Harry Potter series for that fact, would it have ever been created? Do we thank these dark energies for inspiring such a character? Do we owe these dark energies for this fantastical work of creation? Hard to say, but maybe.

Today as I sit with my own inner circle of voices, self-counseling them through anxieties around this meal, I think back to how simple the black and white perspective was and how it made it easy for me to have words to help these young ones. They simply must just battle.

Today, I use much more complex words with my own inner parts, helping them be both with the complexity and yet still strive for life more than letting the Dementors consume them. I encourage them to create art, through writings like this, to give these darknesses a home. I encourage them to savor the tastes of the black bean corn salad and avocado toast whilst the Void sits next to them, always staring back, filing its fingernails.

I pick up the pen to give it, too, a place at the table.

*Thanks for reading. Please join me next week as I re-create the food memory, “The Apple.”

**If you’d like to learn more about the Food Memories book I am referencing for these posts, you can support a small bookstore by purchasing it here:

https://www.ebookwoman.com/book/9781689839075

or by searching for Food Memories by Reagan Lakins on any major book selling website.

Food Memory #19: Trail Mix, The Medicine Walk and Crow

Fingers dip

Into textured bowlful

Wrinkled edges crusted

Smooth crescent ridges

Papery brown skins

Flaking

Crushed between molars

A piece

Gets gnarled into chunky mass

Salty

Creamy

Chewy

Tart sweetness bursting

I waited for the sun

But it didn’t come

Not like that day in the desert

When Fly met me

And the glistening boulder quartz

Pierced the morning dawn

This time

Drums beating

Crows

Crows seem to meet me

But can’t be sure

The rays evade

Unlike that day

When I knew Fly was the one

Fibrous chewy raisin flesh

Sticks between teeth

They lodge

Lingering in corners

Drumming

Breathing

Waiting

The light hides behind

Thick grey covers

But I waited

I ate as Bear ate

Where is my teacher now?

Sifting through the halves and broken pieces

Searching for the whole

This ritual

I’ve carried you

This bag of you

For years

Waiting

~~**~~

This week’s memory brings me to re-create the Medicine Walk* I went on in 2004, as a part of a group teaching by a local medicine person. On that walk, I was taught that while traditional Vision Quests* involved fasting from food and water to receive guidance from spirit, a Medicine Walk proposed the same outcome without needing to put oneself through such a harsh experience. Having struggled with Anorexia, I already had much experience of fasting (although I did not do it with purposeful sacred intention) and was glad to hear of a ceremonial way to connect with the Great Mystery that didn’t involve fasting. Trail mix was the food that I chose to sustain me, forgoing the varying tastes of different meals for the whole day as my sacrifice instead.

~~**~~

This time I chose to venture out in my local mountain town before sunrise, to sit somewhere and watch for the sun to break through. On the medicine walk of decades ago, it was suggested that we wait to eat anything until the sunrise touched our skin. Also at this point, whatever animal was around in a prominent way would be our “medicine animal” for the day, one we would learn from while out on the land in silence.

Unfortunately, the sun was not out on this morning as it was very cloudy. I was a bit perplexed in how to move forward if I couldn’t follow that guidance in the re-creation, so instead decided to sit out until the exact time of sunrise was reached. At that time I would eat my trail mix and look for what animal was around.

This made me think of how mechanical my food intake is sometimes, run by time, rather than the wisdom of my animal body. It made me think of how I add trail mix to my salads pretty regularly, and whether that is somehow an attempt to stay connected to the magic of that Medicine Walk of yore. It made me think of how much I wanted to be led by something sacred and clear and bigger than myself in my eating.

I waited for the sun, I waited for the clear signs, but they didn’t come. Crow was around, cawing, so I thanked him for showing up as my guide. But not entirely sure like I was that day, with the sun brilliant and skies clear. It was so clear back then, when I had beliefs and rights and wrongs and no idea of the complexity of reality. How interesting that “Crow Medicine*” often relates to living in the void between worlds, having no sense of time, seeing simultaneously the three Fates, Past, Present, and Future. How Crow merges light and darkness, seeing both inner and outer realities, beyond human law. How very interesting.

These days, just like that morning’s sky, I often sit, unclear about what it all means. Whether there’s something bigger that is meeting me, or if there’s really nothing listening, responding. I sit on the fence, waiting, waiting for the sun.

At least I’ve got trail mix, and perhaps Crow, to sustain me.

*These terms are used with respect to the first peoples, the indigenous peoples of this land and their ceremonies. I use them as they were the words used by the native person in the ceremonies of that day long ago. It is not my intent to culturally appropriate them.

**Thanks for reading. Please join me next week as I re-create the food memory, “Dementors.”

***If you’d like to learn more about the Food Memories book I am referencing for these posts, you can support a small bookstore by purchasing it here:

https://www.ebookwoman.com/book/9781689839075

or by searching for Food Memories by Reagan Lakins on any major book selling website.

Food Memory #18: The Restaurant, Sacred Beer and The Masked Italian

Frothy, ancient fermentation

Marking lips with evidence

A cool amber effervescence trickling

Over parched tongue

I give a nod

To that long ago goddess Ninkasi

As the heavy glass stein clunks

Onto splintering wooden table

Around me plates jangle

Families bicker

And lovers laugh superficial

Tall redwoods tower

In this outdoor dining paradise

Offering some sort of deeper company

With dusty boots and weary body

I have passed through gauntlet

Of judging eyes

Watching solo female diners

Nerves settling

I forge ahead into purpose

Sipping this malty brew

Borne on Mesopotamian plain

Fumbling to entertain myself

This solo female diner

I flip through pages

I scribble nonsense

Anything to seem occupied

Encased from wondering eyes

Until they arrive

Like a masked avenger

With Italian heart

The plate is delivered

Bella bella bella

Ringing through my mind

The glistening golden strips

Of french fried potatoes

And the empty chair beyond

I reach out my fingers

Tactile surveying of crispness

And choose fry #3

Bringing into mouth

A blast of perfect savor

Protective, cleansing saltiness

And garlic’s pungent flesh

Allows itself inside

Attending

Crunchy layers breaking through

To a

Soft

Starchy

Center

Showing me what’s real

There, on my tongue

With another swig of sacred brew

Together again

It is rare

These tastes cross my lips

But today I lift my stein to Ninkasi

And the alewives of yore

Allowing the memory of me

And him

To swirl in between

The plates jangling

The families bickering

The lovers laughing

And the sound of “Bella!”

Delivered with mysterious eyes

Under masked law

This week’s adventure took me to a local Italian restaurant under the redwoods. Here I aimed to re-create the memory of boyfriend #2 and I sharing a meal of fries and beer during joyous college years. As I have in the past posts, I will begin with the magical qualities of these food gifts.

Beer: Earth, home, family, prosperity, protection. Often noted as being used in ancient ritual offerings.

Potatoes: Grounding, survival, protection, stability, root chakra

Salt: Protection, cleansing

Garlic: Protection, banishing, warding.

How interesting that these foods/drink go so well together…it is like the perfect protection spell ritual! And as an agnostic, one I’m much more drawn to than chanting over laden altars and such :}

I remember the original experience, having another person to focus my energies on and enjoy with…made for a magical thing. We had no idea about magical uses of food at the time, nor the ritual uses and origins of the foods we were eating—but riding high on the fumes of love and carefree college life, mixed together with a noisy brewery were magic enough.

But even though I was alone this time, I found myself oddly at home and enjoying nonetheless. After the initial anxiety of fending off psychic question marks of others for being solitary in my dining, I settled into a corner table with my book and journal. I had just been on an epic hike full of glorious spring plant friend relating, and imagined myself a lone herbal healer having come upon a dusky tavern at the end of her travels for the day. It didn’t take long for a server to arrive with my frosty brew and with a few sips I let myself be in the moment of sounds, tastes, and the gift of being alive and able to enjoy such pleasures. The kindness and unexpected repeated greeting of “Bella!” made me feel as if the whole restaurant was alive with intimacy of which with I was intermingled. I imagined the old, knarled roots of the redwoods surrounding the dining area to be part of that.

At home after the experience, I went to my journal and drew. While the feelings of anxiety and the recognition of the empty seat across from me in this re-creation showed up, so did the joy and connectedness I felt in the atmosphere. I also noted my sense of grounding, and perhaps protectedness, that was felt during the meal. I did have some frustration appear in red marks, around my dislike of this lingering wondering about whether my stomach would be hurting as a result of veering into beer and fries land. The jagged marks of the frustration of still caring, after all this work and all these years…of not wanting to care so much about food’s effect on me.

I decided to set myself up with a documentary to whittle the next few hours away, to occupy my brain that was trying to use precious space to fret about these things. Somehow I ended up on a Metallica documentary, and for many reasons found myself feeling like this was a perfect end to a perfect day, a Bella giornata :}

*Thanks for reading! Join me next week as I re-create the next food memory, “Trail Mix.”

**If you’d like to learn more about the Food Memories book I am referencing for these posts, you can support a small bookstore by purchasing it here:

https://www.ebookwoman.com/book/9781689839075

or by searching for Food Memories by Reagan Lakins on any major book selling website.

Food Memory #17: Diet Yogurt, Wrathchild (1981) and Sacred Anger

Sunrays glint

Off of silvery tines

As they pierce

The grey-pink gellish substance

I am warmed

By the schoolhouse stucco

And watch while being watched

Grateful for my life

Holding precious time

I take the saccharine gloop

To my lips

And place the lightly coated tines

Onto my tongue

A grimace instinctively forms

As I force the fork to stay

Hints of…strawberry?

A memory of what milk is supposed to be?

Fake sweetness, sweetness reached for

I let it stay

And think back to her

I see her pacing

Back and forth like wilderness

Trapped in a life

She surely didn’t ask for

Pacing feverishly

Pushing against

The terrifying bars

Pacing feverishly, growling

To the angry vibrations

The only connection

She still had

To love

I see her in the sun

Shivering

Pre-pubescent life cheering on around her

As she, aimed at descending

Her HELL NO

Her way out

The only way she knew

I see her holding

The silvery tines before her open mouth

I feel her nausea

I see her turn away

Her skeletal arm dropping the fake sweetness

Still full

Into the trash

HELL NO

Of course she’s starving

This ain’t no place for a little girl

***~~***

This week’s memory is an attempt to recreate “eating” diet yogurt during a lunch break at high school. This was another challenging foodstuff to imagine magically, but I did my bestest:

Original ingredients: Cultured Grade A Nonfat Milk, Strawberries, Water, Modified Corn Starch, Sugar, Kosher Gelatin, Citric Acid, Natural Flavor, Tricalcium Phosphate, Potassium Sorbate Added to Maintain Freshness, Acesulfame Potassium, Sucralose, Red #40, Vitamin A Acetate, Vitamin D₃.

**~~**

Hack, hack, pffffthht! Which I managed to turn into:

Milk: Fertility, nourishment, mother

Strawberries: Fertility, sensuality, feminine

Corn: Sacred to many indigenous people, as the first mother

Sugar: Sweetness, attraction

Beef: Strength, assertiveness, grounding

Earth/Soil/Minerals: Grounding, mother

After researching these ingredients, I found it interesting to notice that all of them (although in this diet form offer weak substitutions) are somehow connected to fertility, femininity, the mother, being grounded in the physical form, enjoying sensuality. And in seeing this pattern, I began to think on the girl that chose to eat only a forkful or two that day, and upon doing so, how she became nauseous. How she threw that mother-full substance, that grounding, feminine, life sustaining substance straight into the trash after only experiencing a bite or two. How her aim to make her way back into the safe treatment center, away from the grief she was drowning in, away from the psychotic breakdowns of the group home residents around her, away from the fact that her family left her, away from the fact that she no longer could see a reason for living……how this aim was so much stronger than her desire to eat, and thrive.

Of course I also thought of the literal wisdom of such a reaction to this gross gellish goop–that while she was leaving it behind for other reasons, the distaste for such a foodstuff made sense. And of course there might of been a reason she chose to eat something she wouldn’t have a hard time leaving behind. What might have happened, were she in an environment that provided her with real food, with real elders, with real care? Might she not have chosen her fateful path of descent? Or was it necessary either way? Was it, as James Hillman might say, her acorn arranging?

Ultimately, there’s no way to really know these things. It is my preference to re-imagine all of this as a sacred journey, and that that little girl’s soul knew just what it was doing. That murder, abandonment, group homes, starvation, psych wards and abuse were part of her invisible initiators. As perhaps was the Diet Yogurt, staring back at her, as she left the most of it sweltering in the sun atop a mound of the empty wrappings of teenage fast-food trash.

Later, after my re-experiencing, I went into the art. So much anger arose as I drew and let myself express. It was as if I was feeling what she couldn’t allow herself to feel, that her starvation was enacting inwardly. I let myself pace and growl whilst listening to Iron Maiden’s Wrathchild, like she did. I let her anger rise and flow through me, into the pacing, into the flames and jagged etchings drawn. I let myself be with her, this Wrathchild, honoring her choices, her possibly sacred choices, and held her broken heart with a hope she’d take decades to find.

*Thanks for reading. I hope you’ll join me for next week’s food memory, “The Restaurant.”

**If you’d like to learn more about the Food Memories book I am referencing for these posts, you can support a small bookstore by purchasing it here:

https://www.ebookwoman.com/book/9781689839075

or by searching for Food Memories by Reagan Lakins on any major book selling website.

Food Memory #16: Vanilla Ensure

Over frosty cubes

A thick, creamy liquid

Cascades into glass

Bobbing to the milky surface

The tip of the straw hovers

Over the icy dancers

Preparing

I bring my lips to take it in

This silky, sweet substance

Of so long ago

Slowly slurping

I wonder if this is what breast milk tastes like

Never having had the chance

I wonder if Abbot Laboratories

Had us, formula fed,

In mind

Slowly slurping

I remember

How glorious this taste

As I sat in the bleached sheets

On that cold fall morning

Now

I make the sips

Turn into bubbles

Infusing air into vanilla creamness

To make it last

To fill my mouth entirely with its essence

Just like she did

Stretching out the moments

Of satiated senses

After years of dessication

And parched

Hollow

Grief

This time

Two crystal blue feline orbs watch me

Instead of the indifferent professional

The graves of my ancestors close

Are the eyes that see me now

Beside me

A fire crackles, dwindling

Unlike that sterile, hospital air

I felt so comforted by

Safe

Its clock ticking

Its solid Saturnine structure

Holding

Holding me together

Now

A warmth envelops

As I choose to take this liquid inside

Hints of oak, and pine

Waft delicately through nostril

Merging with savoring of tongue

Now

I do my best not to think of

The several inch long ingredient list

As I imagine the mother feeding

And how all of this is illusion

Comparing not to what is really needed

Now

I choose to take this liquid

Cool and sweet

Over my senses

Down into my throat

Opening

Thinking

Of that girl

So starved

For the mama

And how

But a few hours north

As I let this milky sustenance in

By my own hand

Slowly slurping

She

Dying.

The list of ingredients in this “food” is a challenge for any witchy person to re-imagine as sacred. But I aimed to find hints of it within for this experience, to create some sort of sustenance energy as I swallowed. Here’s the original ingredient list:

Water

Corn maltodextrin

Sugar

Milk Protein Concentrate

Corn, Canola Oil

Soy Protein Isolate

Soy Lecithin

Carrageenan

Cellulose Gel

Cellulose Gum

Salt

Vitamins and minerals

Natural and Artificial Flavors

Of which I turned into:

Water: Necessary for all life. Element of flow, feminine, cleansing.

Sugar: Bringing sweetness, attraction energy.

Corn: Sacred to Demeter, Dionysis, Adonis, the indigenous peoples, Corn Mother

Milk: Feminine, sustenance, fertility, new growth

Soybean: Feminine, sacred to Eastern peoples, cooling, nourishing

Seaweed: Gods and goddesses of the sea, lubricating, moistening, connecting us to the great waters

Salt: Earth element, grounding, protective.

Vanilla: Love, lust, passion and restoring lost energy

This feat was not entirely without snorts of ridiculousness, but still it was accomplished. It didn’t help that I knew this particular supplement, Ensure, has been used to force feed prisoners of Guantanamo Bay. Did the company provide it to them for free? Ugh. But still I persisted.

I was not entirely able to set up the re-enactment portion of this exercise to match the original memory. Then, I was in a hospital. Now, I can’t enter a hospital without very good, life threatening reason. Then, there were bleached sheets around me. Now, the circumstances of my weekend did not allow me to arrange for some sort of bleach laced fabric to accompany. The scent of bleached towels and sheets still brings me back there, unfortunate I couldn’t procure.

But what was available was ice cubes, which for some reason also felt very necessary, as I remember the tip of my straw that day using the ice cube to titrate the amount of liquid entering its tube to a slow trickle. I managed to recreate that, as well as the time I remember taking to finish the 12 oz glass of liquid.

I remember that young woman, not even realizing the metaphorical nature of her self-starvation, just to get into a hospital, a safe environment, away from her mother. As I look back, there was so much wisdom in the crazy that she felt possessed by.

I also remember her confusion, and shame, at liking the hospital so much, of liking this Ensure so much, when the other girls on the ward snickered and protested at its grossness. She wondered what was wrong with her. She pretended not to like it, feigning sighs every few minutes as the nurses “tortured” her to drink it under supervision.

Now, I attempt to re-imagine this liquid as sacred just for the moments I take it in. It is surprising again how metaphorical my enjoyment of this substance is…milky and sweet and probably as close to the mother I hadn’t experienced. Looking at the list of re-imagined ingredients, perhaps it was to these energies I may have been yearning to be connected to at the time? Reaching for anything with any semblance to these energies, even if it was a chemically laced imitation?

It just so happens that a few hours later I would find out my dear auntie was crossing over into the Great Beyond whilst I was sipping this imitation. She was the closest thing to an emotionally available mother I had in our family…I don’t know how to describe the significance to this timing, of me sipping on this artificial mother milk as she began her descent/ascent, but it feels pertinent.

Ensure. It is a weird thing to have such powerful somatic memories attached to a laboratory created substance. But as an adult sharing about all things weird that I am, cracked open first by the memoir and here on the blog, I admit that even now, I savor Ensure. Slowly, slurping.

*Join me next week for the continuing food memory adventure: “Yogurt.”

**If you’d like to learn more about the Food Memories book I am referencing for these posts, you can support a small bookstore by purchasing it here:

https://www.ebookwoman.com/book/9781689839075

or by searching for Food Memories by Reagan Lakins on any major book selling website.

Food Memory #15: Cinnamon Apple Oatmeal, Owls and Offerings at The Gate of Death

it is the dead of night

and stomach wakes

screaming
unlike that day

so many years ago

whilst cinnamon spices

and dessicated apple chunks

rehydrate

this stomach hungers.

a lone owl

hoots into the blackness

and i sit here

slurping

skimming gruel surface

hovering spoon hollow

pooling watery sweetness.

stirring, slurping

fruity chunks now sponging

between thoughts

laced with the spice of death

and

the descent

that

young

girl

held

headed for destruction

her unconscious Nigredo

filling and consuming

the dark master’s strings

lifting

limbs up from

seated

leaving precious sustenance

behind

but this time

i let the earth fill me

i let the warm groats

rest in my center

i stay

until the end.

the owl has gone silent

but this time

i feed her

this time

i love her

amazed how we’ve made it

through fire and ash

she’s come back hungry

and grateful to be alive.

This week’s memory brings me back to part of my original intention of these food memory re-enactments…to introduce magickal correspondences into the meals that once were laced with trauma, and to re-experience them with a new energy. I’ve been a bit lax in my last few posts on this point, and I’m glad to be back to it.

First, let us jump to the supposed magickal/ceremonial qualities of this re-imagined gruel:

Owl: The traditional meaning of the owl spirit animal is the announcer of death, most likely symbolic like a life transition, change

Oatmeal: Used to invoke or worship Brighid. Brighid’s invention of keening, a lament for the dead, reflected her status as a goddess of life and death. Brigid also protected cemeteries, which can be found at many of her holy sites

Apples: Considered the food of the dead, use as an offering to appease the Gods of ancestors, the Underworld, and life/death crossroad guards. Also called “Fruit of the Underworld.”

Cinnamon: Use to raise spiritual and protective vibrations, draw money, and stimulate psychic powers.

Sugar: Use to attract object of desire…even if it is death. Skulls made of sugar are said to attract the souls of the dead to eat them in Dia De Los Muertes ceremonies.

Water: Cleansing, clearing.

This was a different way to view Quaker oats for sure!

What brought me back to wondering about the magickal properties of the meal? It was the experience of being woken up by hunger in the middle of the night, choosing to make and eat this meal to follow that hunger, and upon sitting down to take it in, realizing that not only was I eating under a full moon but also a loud hooting Owl outside my window. The setting was so haunting, so quiet and deep, it made me wonder about the significance of the items of this meal I restricted so long ago, as well as why the owl decided to show up so powerfully during my experience.

What I found, and thought about whilst eating, was very interesting. As I tried to recreate the slurping, agonizingly slow pace of eating that once I undertook, I was lulled by the Owl. This sound, this animal, was my deepener.

Its presence reminded me of its reputation as the gatekeeper to the death realms, the Underworld, the psychic realms. Its hooting drew me into reminiscence of the cold fall morning where I sat in front of the heater, shivering, body shrinking from my sad aims of chasing Thanatos over the summer. I remember sitting in front of that bowl of overly watered-down oatmeal, battling myself, wondering what the hell I was doing on the planet anymore, of my aims to leave. I remember battling with that oatmeal, and my waning appetite, pushing it away after a few feeble attempts to reverse my trajectory.

So Owl showing up now, here in the blackness, so many years later, and my hunger, roaring, was very curious. My meaning making mind wanted to understand the layers of things I was experiencing as I ate this similarly watered-down oatmeal under its echoing call, under the light of the bright orb in the sky. But I couldn’t, I just let it move me, feeling into the depths of this recreated grief-laced memory.

As in the last few posts, in the original memory I was grieving the loss of him, this tragic death of a friend. But I was also grieving the loss of my youth, the loss of my hope for any kind of consciousness to come through my mother, drowning as she was in her own loneliness, sorrow and gin. I was grieving at the sorry state of the world and what lie before me, with no role models to show me the way, with no elders to help me understand the intensity of what I was feeling, and doing to myself. What was this something, so much more powerful than I, pulling me under, drowning me, too? Why did I want nothing more than to die?

This time, I finished the oatmeal, pondering these deep thoughts. I lifted a hefty dollop of glistening almond butter to my mouth, allowing its savory nutty goodness to disperse across my senses and to provide more sustenance than that day. I let the experience simmer within me.

That evening, I did some art–of the Owl, of the emotions of that adolescent. And then I went into the research, finding that much of the things that made up this meal were in some way or form used as offerings to appease the dead, as you saw in the above descriptions.

And that cold fall, I was headed into the last serious stages of restriction, before I’d shortly be admitted to the hospital. I was headed…into death. And there was part of me that wondered, if on some mythological, soul level, if I left that bowl filled with these ancient ceremonial items…for the lords of the Death realms I was about to enter. I imagined myself pushing the bowl not away from myself, but towards Her, that Dark Goddess I was in some way courting. I think this same thing for a lot of shadowy, shame-laced behavior…is it really an attempt by the soul at some sense of the sacred? I let that possibility exist, re-imagining her, on that day, making a sacred offering for the hell of what she was about to enter.

So all of this came forward with that seemingly simple bowl of gruel. These food memory re-creations continue to amaze me in what they bring forward. I am so grateful to have a place to play and share about them here, and also…for your eyes. I realize I am making a hell of a lot out of a bowl of oatmeal, but such is my right in the realms of imagination and writing. I do hope you enjoyed this week’s ponderings :}

*Join me next week for the next food memory: “Ensure.”

**If you’d like to learn more about the Food Memories book I am referencing for these posts, you can support a small bookstore by purchasing it here:

https://www.ebookwoman.com/book/9781689839075

or by searching for Food Memories by Reagan Lakins on any major book selling website.

Food Memory #14: BBQ Chicken Sandwich aka Wish You Were Here (Pink Floyd,1975)

I remember that summer

In the shimmering heat of the valley

Crouched at that splintering table

Under electric blue skies

Flies buzzing round me

Seeking the spicy

Sweet globs of BBQ sauce

Ooozing out of the meal

I pretty much left untouched

I remember the scents

Of rosemary and coyotebush

Hovering

Wafting into my nostrils

On those shimmering heat waves

Warming my cold and grieving heart

I remember my struggle

Of whether to eat

Of whether to care

Of whether to

Die

I remember the hollow

Carving me out

In the back seat

Winding through Monterey Pines

Apathetic vocalizations of Floyd in the mix

I remember

Feeling the intensity

Of not feeling

Anything

At all

This time, although alone

The same blue skies crowned me

And although too crisp a day to transmit

A wall of rosemary also cradled

My eating experience

And although this time, alone

And feeling somewhat empty

This time

I ate anyway

And thought about the determination of life

And the years gone by

This week’s food memory reenactment took me to my own mountain town’s deli, as it was too much to make the drive to the actual location of the original memory. As in past weeks, my attempt to recreate the memory brought forth some synchronicity. As mentioned above, fresh starts of rosemary plants were lining the entire outside patio, similar to the rosemary of the original scene…the starts never having been there until this day, I thought it was interesting, as if something was meeting me, playing with me, as I attempt these re-creations. Perhaps.

What wasn’t there was someone to help me get the deli staff to make a decent sandwich. He knew how to make something taste good, and I still have the propensity for lack. The option of a BBQ Chicken sandwich was not on their specialty list, so I had to fill out a build-it-yourself list. What came out the other end was pretty disappointing–minimal BBQ sauce, dry chicken, stale bread. So eating it was not exactly exciting nor did it remind me of the deliciousness of that day so long ago. The deliciousness I was paradoxically contending with as I was so very deep in grief that day.

The sourdough roll I remember being fresh, toasted…the BBQ sauce overflowing…the tomatoes ripe and juicy. This time, that was not there. But my determination, my knowing I needed to eat anyway, was. Granted, I could have marched back into the deli and demanded a re-do, or purchased something else entirely, but feeling not really motivated to enter into drama I chose to just eat the damn sandwich and call it a day.

While I was eating, I did manage to notice some interesting emotional spaces of which I noted in my art process later in the evening, with Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here playing in the background. I noticed that instead of feeling shame at having people see me eat, I rather felt kind of badass. Interesting transformation–to have that shame not be such an issue anymore, and that I don’t even notice sometimes how much I have changed in my relationship with food even though there are still struggles. I also noticed a certain sense of determination. Synchronistically, I seem to be dealing with some emotional emptiness like that day, and instead of the choice to quell that feeling with the choice of not eating, I chose to eat anyway. Hmm. Another transformed behavior. Having frustration at not being able to get what I wanted to taste was also a very different emotional state than that victim-y despondent place I was in.

While not full of bells and whistles, this eating experience showed me some of the ways I have transformed in my life, as well as the obstacles I have chosen to stick around to overcome. I spent some time thinking of all the things I’d been through since that day, how intense life has been, and how in some way I have managed to come out fighting, or at least determined to keep trying.

I took myself on a long hike after the meal, letting the sandy hills and the Ponderosa Pines hold me in my process. I let the wind caress my cheek, and marvelled at the awakening of spring blossoms and wildlife around me. I let my relationship be with nature, as I’ve learned to do, whenever I feel alone. That day, so long ago, I did not yet have this awareness, and almost chose to leave the planet to find love on the other side.

I’m so glad I chose otherwise, even if it results every once in a while in having to eat a shitty BBQ Chicken sandwich.

*Join me next week for “Oatmeal.”

**If you’d like to learn more about the Food Memories book I am referencing for these posts, you can support a small bookstore by purchasing it here:

https://www.ebookwoman.com/book/9781689839075

or by searching for Food Memories by Reagan Lakins on any major book selling website.

Intermission: Loving The Void Podcast!

Howdy, peeples :} I’ve been podcasted!

Decided to take a break from food memories this week and instead am sharing this podcast, where I talk about my memoir Food Memories and much more. I am joined by fellow empath and artist, Jamiel Alkhaja. You can find the episode with me and many others here: https://anchor.fm/jamiel-alkhaja/episodes/Food-Memories–Tools-for-Empaths–the-Sacred-Illness-w-raVen-Lakins-er2i2o

I hope you enjoy, and see you next week for Food Memory #14: BBQ Chicken Sandwich.

**If you’d like to learn more about the Food Memories book I am referencing for these posts, you can support a small bookstore by purchasing it here:

https://www.ebookwoman.com/book/9781689839075

or by searching for Food Memories by Reagan Lakins on any major book selling website.

Food Memory #13: Deli Sandwich, Cannery Row and Grief

It was the deli he’d have chosen

Away from all the sparkles

Hidden beneath ratty palms

And well worn bicycle path.

A funky tropical theme

Eyes of love take my order

And deliver over railing to my seat in the sun

I take in my micro adventure

And start to walk

Walking, to the place

Where we sat together

Where we watched the albatross loons

Perched in the warmth

Crumbling abalone

And ghosts of weathered immigrant workers

Beneath our footsteps

We nestled in the skeletons

Of far gone canneries

We nestled in the sun

Today he was not here

But the waves were

And the orange billed sandpipers

Making cyclic ruckus

I hiked my way under

Five star buildovers to get here

Breathing in laundry dust and toxic runoff

Listening to laughing, clinking glasses above

Trespassing

Emerging as if out from underworld

And into light.

Ocean crashing below my

Sparkling boulder perch

High above

Trespassing

I remember his rebellious spirit

And open the sandwich casing.

Thinly sliced turkey

Flapping out crusty bread edges

Creamy mayonnaise dollops

Oozing from between

Crumpling potato chip bag

I hear the seagulls salivating

Inserting crispy golden wafers

Into layers of meats and cheeses

And finally, assembled

In my mouth, I let in the striations

Bread, then mayo, then vinegary pepperocini

And crunch of chip

Collapsing all together

A savory, creamy tartness

Dissolving into senses

But it was just okay

He would’ve chosen better

His unfettered ability

To eat and choose with passion

Today it’s only me

And just a beginner

I did my best

And dealt with the finish

Like a good girl should

As the

Orange billed sandpipers

Squeaking

Those same albatross loons

Hovering

In the sun, I sit here without him

Eating.

*Join me next week for my next food memory, “BBQ Chicken Sandwich.”

**If you’d like to learn more about the Food Memories book I am referencing for these posts, you can support a small bookstore by purchasing it here:

https://www.ebookwoman.com/book/9781689839075

or by searching for Food Memories by Reagan Lakins on any major book selling website.

Food Memory #12: McDonald’s, Ghettos and Iron Maiden (1990)

I set out on foot

Aimed at taking in

The late morning glow off the river

Turning the corner

I see the pastoral riverside park

Has been taken over by tents

Tents of all sizes, some ripped and some dirty

Beaming metal and wafting smoke

Emanating defensive fight

Against an utter hopeless condition

I could not turn away

The river thick with them

And I, a seeming naive passerby.

Thirty years ago

I walked through similar ghettos

On my way to McDonald’s

But unlike that day

I was not alone.

I was with him

And his promise of hope

And his arms wrapped around me

And his direction

Infusing my own.

I did not see

The tragedies of capitalism

Of deep underworlds of addictive pain

All I saw was him.

But today I am alone

As I take in all of it

Eyes total and wide open

No wonder unlike that day

I am nauseous and full.

This week, after that long stretch of torturous memories, I was glad to have the assignment of re-living a memory of eating at McDonalds. I decided to go to a particular McDonald’s near a river as I was feeling the need to walk before, to get into a contemplative state to re-experience this deep memory. Little did I know that I would be met by the real situation going on in our downtown homeless population, as when I got to the river I saw that the governmental building lawns and the riverside park was completely taken over by homeless people in tents. All varieties, some raucous and immersed in a hazy drug dream, some just hanging on hoping to get out, some just emotionally dead in between. As I walked through this tent-city, I heard sounds of metal playing, which of course took me back to the memory I was aiming to recreate.

Thirty years ago, I had met a man who introduced me to the worlds of heavy metal, and it was after my first Iron Maiden concert in the bowels of Daly City with him and his crew that I had this meal at McDonald’s. I remember walking with him through the dilapidated neighborhoods on the way to the restaurant, and so this occurrence that I had not planned felt oddly like that day so long ago. But this time, I was not lost in the love-induced fog of romance to see what was happening around me. As I walked through this tent town, my heart sank for the reality and my utter powerlessness to do anything to change it.

At some point, I was past this tent-city and at the door of the McDonald’s, and like my past memory, the door was opened for me. Not by him, but by a sanitized automated door opener. I stepped inside and looked around for the booths I remember from that day, plastic red and yellow ones with little children running and screaming in the aisles. I looked for the semi-creepy Ronald McDonald statue that greeted me that day, but all of these elements were not there.

The seating was roped off, and as per the ways of these days, there were plexiglass shields covering everything, including the poorly paid workers standing by for my order. I had to almost yell to be heard through the mask and the thick plastic barrier between me and the register person, but that’s just old news by now.

All so unlike that day, so many years ago. There was no plexiglass, and I remember sunshine beaming in the windows and lighting up the entire place…it felt so warm and happy inside. But today, it was cool, dark…the colors of the restaurant literally changed to a black/slate and green inside to presumably appear more sophisticated. Although I couldn’t really verbalize how, it all felt so metaphorical, symbolic. Of the changes in the external world, of the changes in my inner world.

I ordered a Bacon, Cheese and Egg McGriddle through said plexiglass, paid without touching anything, or anyone and in seconds a bag was in my hands and I was walking out the door. I had hoped for some sort of seating to be available, outside at least, but there was none, probably to discourage the nearby tent residents from sleeping on them. So I had to take this McGriddle to my car.

So much for the universe arranging my reality to totally match the memory I was trying to re-create, but it was close. And after the sights I’d seen that morning, I felt pretty damn lucky to have a car. To have the money to pay for this “play food” challenge. I felt grateful.

But sitting there alone in my car, I was still…alone. The sun was beaming in, and I let that warmth balance out this emotionally dead place I felt into. No one ever said re-living these memories would be easy.

On this day I sat there alone, no one but myself feeding this food to me. Then, he had opened the box for me, he had encouraged me to enjoy it, he had eaten with me (which was still such an amazing thing to have after years of having no one to eat with in my childhood). This time, it was just me. Although sad, and amazed that I still miss him after decades, I thought that maybe I’d integrated his positive, encouraging energy into my being, that maybe he was still with me in a way.

But as I bit into the maple infused cakes, through the crispy salted bacon and finally the billowy egg folds, all I could think about was death. Of him, of these creatures I was taking into my body who had probably lived a very tortured existence before being whacked for my eventual perfectly wrapped meal. I thought of the people involved in the processing of the food, of their wage and living standards, of shit on the fur and feathers of the animals crammed in with each other. I thought of the wheat, manipulated and chemically enhanced soil that it grew from, how different this plant treated from eons ago when it was held in such high respect, in ceremony. And of course I thought of the tent people, how this meal kind of supported that whole scene, and how many people were dead or dying in those tents. This is where my mind went as the sweet, pseudo maple savory flavors congealed on my tastebuds.

The first bite, as I took that all in, was amazing, as I’m sure it was crafted to bedazzle. But after the downloads of all of these images and thoughts and heavy heavy realities that it also held in between it’s perfectly stamped cakes….of course my appetite started to wane. My stomach started to gurgle, and everything inside me wanted to put it down, this meal.

And of course, it makes sense, doesn’t it? That this whole situation of reality, eyes now wide open and unencumbered by the haze of love, would make one lose their appetite? The fact that I must turn away from this reality at every corner is somewhat deadening. And for someone who hadn’t struggled with a restrictive eating disorder, it would be simple…just put it down. Don’t even go there, these fast food places of hollowness. But for me, it is a challenge, and there are so many layers of confusing complexity within such challenges.

Of course I pushed myself to eat Mister McGriddle, allowing the horror and the illusion of nourishment to mingle together in my senses. To not eat it would be “disordered,” right? To eat it shows “recovery,” doesn’t it? I wish it were so simple.

Regardless, this wasn’t my main point of doing this challenge, nor is it for any of these challenges. It is simply to re-experience these long held memories and to see what comes forward. I am not doing this to prove to anyone how “recovered” or not “recovered” I am. It is for different reasons, ones I don’t even really fully know.

So I fed myself, encouraged myself, and validated myself of the confusion and complexity of emotions I was having in eating this meal. I validated my nausea at the situation, and I sat in gratitude for all I have. I also sat with the shape of the loss of him, so many years later, that still hangs within me.

My process art later that evening included tears, and tent towns, a broken heart and the once sacred image of the wheat plant, Triticum aestivum, that has given us so much. With the sounds of that 1991 Iron Maiden concert playing behind it all, I remembered him and McDonald’s and the world the way it used to be.

*Join me next week for my next food memory, “Deli Sandwich.”

**If you’d like to learn more about the Food Memories book I am referencing for these posts, you can support a small bookstore by purchasing it here:

https://www.ebookwoman.com/book/9781689839075

or by searching for Food Memories by Reagan Lakins on any major book selling website.