I too, am food. That thought hit me hard while sitting on my deck in front of a wooden bowl. It was filled with fresh greens, sliced scallions, avocado wedges, Greek olives, roasted red pepper slices, pistachios, and bits of smoked salmon. I had just visualized each of these as vibrant life forms hanging from trees, anchored in soil, or swimming up a mountain brook.
And I too, am food. Just as these salad items contain the energy of life and impart that to me, I also am a life form. My flesh is full of energy which imparts that — to something.
What’s Eating Me?
So, what am I food for besides the mosquitos, I mean. For starters, just like my food scraps, my corporeal body will decompose and become part of earth’s compost heap. Hopefully that alone will go to nourish the soil and the plants that grow from it.
The thing is, with this Gurdjieff work there are other possibilities as well. The tenet that “the lower feeds the higher to actualize the middle” speaks to these possibilities. In Making a New World, Bennett gives the example that microbes feed on matter which breaks it down to soil. Soil grows plants which feed animals. Plants feed the animals that humans eat. So what eats us?
Or am I the end of the chain and just end up food for microbes to break down into soil? I don’t mind that thought, at least for my human body parts. Gurdjieff spoke of other bodies though. A second being body and a third being body. Those bodies are not made of compostable material, at least in this world.
Food For Thought
Some people believe in a Kesdjan or spiritual body. Gurdjieff believed that body is “fed” by finer elements in the air, which science did not know about (at least in his time and maybe still).
There are exercises that teach how to “eat” those finer substances to feed our Kesdjan, or higher-being, body. Likewise with impressions, the food for our third-being body.
However, these are bodies that we must develop and grow by our inner work. Work that involves conscious labor and intentional suffering, among other efforts. When I sit in front of food I am about to eat, I appreciate the life-force it comes from and gives to me. I see that I too, am food. In that moment of recognition, I am just like these other life-forms.
What makes me different, is that I wish to be food for something beyond this physical world. I wish to cultivate higher bodies so that they feed something that is outside my known world. Like the cosmos, or God, or whatever name you care to give what is beyond comprehension.
If I too, am food, then let my physical body feed the worms. But let my Work feed the universe.
Hi Roberta, We’ve had some discussions about this, but based on the pentad of food, I want to point out that humans are not meant to eat animals. We are meant to eat germ or invertebrate. I call it the germinal essence, nuts, seeds, beans, grains, and fruits including mushrooms and squash. I could go on with this as I’ve thought about it a bit, but I thought you’d like to know that oysters are invertebrates, so your love of oysters is AOK. I know you have access to the pentad diagram, but I’m going to send it to you in an email. I can’t post it in the comments, otherwise I would.
HI Dennis, thank you. As a veteran vegetarian, I know you have that view point. There is also Mrs. Popoff, who relayed the notion that when we eat consciously we also help the life-forms (vegetable or animal) evolve. She was a strong believer in that. It would be nice to be able to post your pentad food diagram in the comments here.
I believed Mrs. Popoff to be a wonderful teacher, with knowledge that took her beyond the Gurdjieff Work itself. Nevertheless, I was never quite satisfied with this explanation. Without the inhumane practices of factory animal farming, there would be no need to help an animal evolve as there would be no animal to eat. If we were discussing a family farm that raised an animal lovingly, consciously recognizing its place in providing sustenance for the family, I would think differently about it (and do) or even hunting for food. The pentad explains very well my contention that humans, not the animals that walk around asleep dreaming they are human, have no need or reason to eat animals. Combine that with the effect factory farming of animals has on the planet through CO2 production and I think it is time to end this practice.