Recipes for Healing

The Mindful Kitchen with Heidi Barr

Some of this piece originates in the 2020 special print edition of Wayfarer Magazine—you can order a copy of that special food-focused Home & Hearth edition in our online shop.

As we move as a planetary collective into the final months of 2024 and beyond, the invitation is this: Use your agency in ways that add beauty to the world. Do at least one thing that brings a bit of peace to each uncertain day. Remember to breathe. Light a candle with dinner. Prepare and eat beautiful food in a way that makes you feel good.  Listen to the geese that honk overhead as they head south. Give yourself and your neighbor and the local wildlife some grace. Look at a hard thing from another’s perspective. Keep moving, even if it has to look different than usual. People (and all living things) all over the world are facing challenges: that much is certain.  But there’s also beauty being uncovered—from how folks are stepping up to help one another to the way the stars sparkle on a clear night.  As Frederick Buechner wrote, “This is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid.”  

Beautiful and terrible things happen every day, and it's always been that way. Fear and anxiety are normal, and you are allowed to feel what you are feeling—but don't let fear drive. Feel it, and then turn to your support network, get some fresh air, and pay attention to the things in your immediate physical space. Look all the way up, and nourish yourself with the recipe for healing that you most need right now.

Here’s one version—add and omit as needed for your particular life situation.

Ingredients

(in no particular order) 

Open minds

Abundant willingness to change perspective

Righteous rage

Grief

Ownership of wrongdoing

Celebration of rightdoing

Humility

Deep listening

Informed, consistent action

Community participation

Reparations

Acceptance

Commitment to being a good ancestor

Joy (to taste)

Directions

Prepare a container of Love.

Combine in applicable amounts for each individual situation, always leaving room for mistakes and beginning again. Sprinkle desired amounts of Joy on top.  Continue for a lifetime.  Pass on to others, including future generations, as needed.  

Teaching the World to Survive

When your healing is imperfect 
it’s easy to beat yourself up
or knock yourself down
but beating yourself up
is a fight you can’t win
and knocking yourself down
is a sure way to stay there.
Instead, take your imperfect healing
and hold it softly, cradled
like a delicate speckled egg—beautiful yet breakable, 
powerful because of that vulnerability.
Hold it gently, offer a safe place,
a place it can live inside you
nestled as only imperfect things can nestle,
just there, against your heart, keeping time
with the pulse, life-force reminding you
healing isn’t something you’re graded on.
Healing is any wound, stitched and tended 
becoming a scar equipped to share stories
intent on teaching the world to survive.

How to Satisfy One Kind of Hunger

Sip tea - hot tea
on a cold night, contrast
waking you up in new ways.

Move slow enough
to pay attention—real attention
to the curve of your hand holding the cup.

Let attentiveness
to one thing at a time
be a beacon in the dark.

*from Cold Spring Hallelujah

While you pay attention, here’s a nourishing soup to add to your rotation.

Winter Squash Soup

Ingredients

1 small winter squash (butternut or buttercup work best), halved lengthwise, seeded
1 tablespoon butter
1/2 cup onion, diced
2 garlic cloves diced
2 cups chicken or vegetable broth
2 medium potatoes, chopped
3/4 cup heavy cream, divided
Thyme, salt, and pepper to taste 

(Pumpkin seeds and gouda cheese—optional)

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Oil a baking dish or cookie sheet. Place squash cut side down in prepared dish. Pierce with a knife several times. Bake until tender, approximately 35-40 minutes. Remove from the oven, scrape the butternut pulp into a bowl; discard the peel. In a large saucepan melt butter over medium high heat, sauté the onion for 5 minutes. Add the garlic, stirring constantly for another minute or two. Add the potatoes, broth, roasted butternut pulp, salt, and pepper. Bring to a boil then reduce heat to a simmer for 30 minutes (or until potatoes are tender). Add 1/2 cup cream, transfer to a blender, and puree until smooth. Return mixture to the saucepan stirring constantly over medium heat (do not boil) until heated through and serve. Garnish if desired with the remaining 1/4 cup cream and some toasted pumpkin seeds or gouda cheese. Serves 6.

May attentiveness to healing be one way to satisfy our hunger, and may peace become our only way forward.