Peace be with you my friends! I hope that you had a wonderful Easter season, for all those who celebrate it and that you are enjoying the onset of Spring, or Autumn to my friends in the Southern Hemisphere. As I’ve mentioned before, during this festive time of year I spent a lot of time cooking for friends and acquaintances and it dawned on me that the act of cooking, something that most people do every day, is overloaded with magical and spiritual significance.
Cooking for friends and family is also a wonderful way to transmit love and foster closeness.
Most of the ingredients and products that we buy at the grocery store have spiritual connotations: apples, cinnamon, cloves, honey, nutmeg, pumpkins, sugar are all commonly used in love magic. Rice, oatmeal, raisins, grapes, oranges can all be used in prosperity magic. Not only are the ingredients themselves magical, but the act of cooking is a type of alchemy or culinary sorcery in which you combine ingredients in a type of potion, or ritual to create something totally different and wonderful. This theme is really explored in magical circles except for in several books by Lexa Roséan, a Wiccan priestess (one of her many talents and callings) who has written expensively of how to make magical rituals with readily available natural ingredients.
Cooking for friends and family is also a wonderful way to transmit love and foster closeness. Eating together as a family or group of friends does create stronger bonds and there is psychological and sociological research to back this up. Families who prepare food and eat together tend to be more functional than those who do not. I dare to make the argument that cooking can be seen as a communal ritual that brings a group of people closer together, much like performing a spell within a Wiccan coven or a dance in Afro-Caribbean spiritual house. Only recently has this connection clicked for me and remembering back to my childhood, I used to love watching Julia Child and Jeff Smith cook on TV and read cookbooks as much as I loved watching shows and reading books about the supernatural. I went to university and studied literature, but I’ve also always wanted to go to culinary school and open a restaurant or catering service.
Well, anyway, that is my thought of the day. In the future I plan to post some recipes and share their spiritual connotations and association with any saint or spirit, as there are many recipes that are made under the patronage of saints and spirits.
Until next time I wish you success in all that you do and an abundance of blessings!
