I’d like to share a lovely practice which I do (almost) every day: When I sit down to eat I do not dig right in, or even open my phone. I look at my food.

I look at what it’s made of, and where those elements come from. I bought that carrot at the store, for example (or maybe a Farmer’s Market). How did it get there? It came on a truck. Someone drove that truck, someone who has a family. The truck came from a farm, where people planted and cared for and harvested that carrot. All of those people worked to bring me this carrot.

How did the carrot get to the farm? It came from another carrot, from a seed. The seed grew in soil, soil full of living, interacting microbes. Sunshine grew it. Water grew it, water which came from rain clouds, which came from evaporated rivers, which came from rain run-off––a never-ending cycle. All of these came together to make a carrot.

What happens when I eat that carrot? I chew it in my mouth, where I am fortunate to have teeth and spit and a tongue––all the beginning of my digestive system. It continues through my body where an amazing interplay of processes removes the nutrients I need and sends the rest on its way. The parts I can’t use are removed from my body. In most people’s homes, that part of the carrot magically goes away with a whoosh of water and is then treated at a far-away plant, a plant where real people with families and ancestors work.

These are all amazing cycles, collections of connections with other people and the Earth, all bundled together when I eat a carrot. In an offering of celebration and thanks, I ring a bell over my meal and over my body. The vibration of the bell reminds me of the inter-being of everything.

We can do the same exercise by looking at……the bowl my food is in, the fork or chopsticks I eat with, the napkin I wipe my mouth with. It’s in the house I live in and the car I drive. This inter-being is everywhere, even in every breath we take. There is nothing you can use or do that is not made of these inter-related relationships.

Go outside and look at Nature. See how everything exists, not as a single organism, but as part of an entire ecosystem that works together every minute of every day. That includes our own bodies and the energy of our consciousness.

Celebrate and be grateful. Ring your bell and feel the vibration of Life Force!