on a superhero bicycle ride we live in service of creation. all of creation, of which we are a part. how do we do this? we are still experimenting, sometimes finding that magic and flow of spontaneous service that transforms... other times just not quite getting it. i've gotten some ideas from talking to Laughing Moon, of Superhero Training Academy, the Zing, founder of the superhero bicycle ride, and also from my own life experience as a daily vipassana meditator, superhero traveler, and experimenter in generative community.
eating in service:
if we think of such an activity as eating to be a service, how does that change the way we eat? would i eat more than i need if i were doing it in service of myself and others? no. i would eat just the amount that allows me the energy and strength of body to do the best work i can. if i eat too much i have noticed it affects my body, mind, and spirit negatively. i sometimes eat to comfort myself when i don't have what i need in other areas. on a superhero bicycle ride we practice identifying our basic needs and making sure they are taken care of by ourselves or our community so that we can come out of habits that may have been formed in a society of separation and avoidance.
there are many levels of eating in service we can play with. one idea from the book "The Kin of Ata are Waiting For You" is that when we feed each other and not ourselves we will always have enough food, even if it is very little. there is magic in the act of feeding another and receiving food from another. this touches on two great capacities that open hearts: generosity and gratitude. so i would like to try this on the Freedom Ride and see how it feels.
somewhere between the way we commonly eat together, serving ourselves and feeding ourselves, and this other extreme of serving others and feeding others, is to serve others and then feed ourselves. on the Michigan ride in 2012 i offered this as i had learned it at the rainbow gathering i attended in Sicily. there is a tradition in rainbow gatherings to have servers retrieve the bowl of each in the circle and serve them from the food that is placed in the center. then the server has a friend serve them, so nobody serves themselves. i found this to be very profound and helpful in dissolving ego and changing eating habits. on the Salish Sea Freedom Ride this will be the way we eat every meal, when possible. if we choose to we can also feed each other, but we will avoid serving AND feeding ourselves.
besides the consideration of HOW we eat, there is then WHAT we eat. oh what a big and often contentious subject. i will try to find a middle path and we can certainly engage each other around this topic during the ride to some degree to help everyones needs to be met.
i believe we can look at each food we consume and, depending on the amount of information we have about where it comes from and the way it was produced, honestly say how it is harmful or helpful. to what degree is it a service to creation to support this kind of food by eating it? also we can, information depending, see clearly how it affects our body. if we know how to listen to our body it will tell us a lot. then there is proper science and the wisdom of our ancestors to inform us. i think it is when we get into science when most of the conflict and confusion proliferates...
i've wondered... how could we live in a place, why would we live in a place, where the food we need to support us through generations is not available? humanity's way of agriculture is largely responsible for destroying and displacing many of the best food sources we previously had available in abundance. salmon for example in the Salish Sea region. there are still some salmon thankfully that can be harvested sustainably from the wild. there are also seaweed, nettles, mushrooms, berries, shellfish, deer, and other wild plants and animals that can be harvested in a way that is complementary to these populations and therefor, i believe serves creation. there are forms of agriculture that are less detrimental, or even in rare cases offer benefit to the land they draw from. permaculture is one example and so is biodynamic farming. another is holistic management;. there is a video here; that is quite informative on that practice. so if we choose food produced by these means rather than more exploitative, extractive agricultural methods we can see that it makes a difference.
another important aspect of eating in service that feel i must illuminate here is that connection with the people we engage sometimes will override the importance of sticking to the above eating practices.
using gadgets in service: too busy living in service
traveling in service: too busy living in service
sleeping in service: too busy living in service
playing in service: too busy living in service
working in service: too busy living in service
