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The most comforting forms of trust we need beyond political rhetoric

Humanity thrives on trust, and crumbles into ashes of burning violence when our security is breached.

We must build more certainty in innocent, well-intended, harmless behaviour through the bridge between vulnerable, influenceable, even traumatised memory and future-oriented hope. We associate past experiences with present occurrences to simplify thinking, to organise our perception of the world into clearly defined shelves. Unfortunately, this can skew the reality as it is now in this very moment. Judgement based on distant past, on someone’s family or racial background is fundamentally unfair. Expectation corrupts thinking and behaviour, therefore we better shed the weight of prejudice, high hopes, any skewed preconceived ideas to open our minds.

contemporary photography Lee Ufan art Arles, France

Trust means that you open the gate of your confidence towards the outside world

By joining forces we accelerate, reciprocating success in an inclusive, equal measure that espouses a more sustainable success. Within a trusting environment we feel good. Mutual aid benefits not just the needy but the world as a whole. I do not promote freebees like unlimited social support on the disproportionate and demotivating account of some hard working fortunate few. While greed is bad, stripping one’s wealth involuntarily more often than we like to admit seeds in anger and not much gratitude from the beneficiaries who expect to be given without effort. Look at the tensions within the US today. Mutual means cooperative, either side working towards a common goal, prosperity, progress, learning, inventing, existing together in a more fruitful environment as well as inner comfort. Utopia it is not, it works in Switzerland. Everybody is motivated to work.

Swiss nature

It seems to me that religiously inspired charity has more beneficial effect on the believer’s psyche than socially enforced giving away. Further, the recipient of voluntary support may be more motivated to contribute, to grow personally when they know that the alms were given intently to stir creativity, industriousness and reciprocity. Of course, some level of checks and balances is useful in building any trusteeship. Naivety does not pay off.

To whom will you give your mandate? Not politically, even though one of the dirty tricks of politics is stirring dissent by cutting off the tightrope of trust in anyone/thing that competes against ambitious authoritarian leadership. Yet, collaboration, working together openly rather than undercutting each other is what advances society in a more balanced way. As if some of us did not share the same body, mind and fate in meeting death at some point in our life curve, scavenging for victory over the weak people at any cost. Humanity can be as cruel as it can be loving. Yet, in synergy we thrive as a genuine, beautiful joy is only free to expand through our chests when we feel trust.

Mao and Lenin

American art

Through random recent occasions I faced the delicate question of trust. In a high altitude yoga room with other mindful beings, during an intimate sauna conversation, all the while witnessing contemporary distrust in those in power as well as in the media, I realised that our relationship with others can be cracked into an open leak if we do not address openly our feelings of confusion, even betrayal. We need to talk, as individuals, as well as a society.

While humanity does not come short of flaws and vanities, one does not need to have high expectations of others and oneself to value trust. It is an assurance of allegiance, of good hearted manners and integrity.

interfaith wedding

True love is trust

To me trust is connected with commitment, faith and fidelity, all active components of a grown up, mature adult living in a healthy human society. This form of security in relationships is dependent on behavioural history, current signals of dispersed interest in others than the person in the mutually trusting relationship, and on clearly communicated boundaries of what telling truth means to you individually and how seriously lying disrupts trust in the liar. I just read a praised debut novel by a playwright Julia May Jonas that touches upon trust. Her Vladimir is about a more complex relationship and desire, and I recommend anyone intrigued by today’s wokeness and perhaps excessive caution, even discouragement from trusting others, read it. Trust features in many best-selling stories. Verity by Colleen Hoover topped the fiction charts for months for a reason, it topples trust in a most shocking way.

It is not just a cultural phenomenon or a religious cliche, but faith is important to humans in close-knit relationships. Usually, we trust more those we know well, for long enough than a random stranger hyping you to bungee jump off the cliff. Relationships are constructed of solid building blocks of small events that in their total sum make a strong foundation for stable edifice of certainty. Who likes uncertainty in relationships? Only extreme adrenalin lovers, perhaps.

Caring about other person is a display of safe-keeping. We are protective of our kin and those we love. They can count on us when in need. An independent and strong adult does not need a guardian, but cooperation is a binder that makes us feel that we are not alone in all what we do. It makes us stronger together.

How does the one who was being lied to feel? Betrayed.

A friend who always promises but rarely sticks by their word is not a genuine friend.

A parent shall consider being being the most trusting example to their offspring.

black artist

The mental safety belt of trust

Insecure people hardly let anybody else into their inner life. Safety concerns can uproot trust in strangers. This attitude stirs enmities, discord, racism, violence, wars. In fighting more than one side are involved, so mistrust rusts on either line of unsafe existence. Therefore to prevent conflict we must focus on ensuring safety of all parts. Nobody should be left out when personal security is concerned. Anxiety rises in our mental state of distrust.

Individual insecurity can fog one’s perception of others, trustworthiness including. Past behaviour and experience gauge our trust sensors either to a more open, allowing attitude or a wary state of constant alert. Relay on yourself, yet do not refuse others care if you really need help.

Trust is like the winter road, it can be snowed in, but deep under we know it is there as the map and signs above the ground show.

light

Beyond hope and assumptions: trust your healthy gut

Trust in others is something quite different from trust in oneself, otherwise known as confidence. Beyond skewed ideas about others, insecurity is a complicated symptom of something deeper, like self love. If you value yourself you are free of self-harming. Relate to your emotions with warmth, not incessant self-criticism, as well as try your best so perfectionism does not swallow your heart but encourages you to improve upon previous achievements.

Gratitude never harmed anyone. Trust in oneself is believing in your capabilities and conviction of the value of your existence by contributing somehow to the greater whole.

A wise mind once said: “What you focus on grows, what you think about expands, and what you dwell upon determines your destiny.” In the context of trust this rings bright and sharp. If you are suspicious, afraid of losing someone, the anxiety will nest in the dark corners of your mind and rust into the remaining light inner space. If you judge yourself unworthy of others’ attention, your self-worth won’t expand. Flipped, if you demand too much, nobody can sustain that pressure. Selfishness never built happy relationships.

Life symbols

Trust is more than the Self

Intuition can become an adventurous guide in our life. Trusting it as a companion to reason, a complementary force to a more whole truth. Something beyond the puzzle just fitting together. Memory often helps us to solve puzzles, but there are also riddles requiring a different kind of intellect. That type we call imagination. As the poet and renowned engraver William Blake wrote: “Man by reasoning can only compare & judge of what he has already perceived. From a perception of only 3 senses or 3 elements none could deduce a fourth or fifth.” Indeed, the next, the new, the invented was beyond our common knowledge, until it was created or discovered it was hidden from our awareness. Blake concluded: “If it were not for the Poetic or Prophetic Character, the Philosophic & Experimental would soon be at the ratio of all things & stand still, unable to do other than repeat the same dull round over again.” We need imagination as its span expands beyond rational science. The spiritual element deepens the meaning of human life. Without creativity, science cannot progress. Reason alone is stale. Art can assume indefinite forms of expression and reality, and in so lifting the marine layer of ignorance.

French sculpture

These various forms of trust can be related and do not have to be. What is important though is that one is aware of one’s own shortcomings in terms of self-love and clear about others’ intentions. The later is perhaps the most challenging aspect of any committed relationship. An open discussion is healthy. However intense, honesty shall not harm a worthwhile relationship because if you really care about the other person you listen to them and accept their breadth. Good and bad.

“Let’s talk” is the most direct remedy for clarifying potential misunderstandings. Uncovering emotionally immature personality unaware of the effect their behaviour has on others, discussion allows for getting to know the other more and deeper.

Chelsea galleries

Trust may feel like vulnerability, so does love. Are all the great things doomed to make us feel unsafe? They do not have to if you are not attached to them. Rather, open your arms when you are offered theirs. At he same time focus on building your inner strength independently on the giver of pleasure. On your own, you are able to generate joy. You are your only sustainable well of happiness. Coexisting means equality, thus do not ever devalue yourself through the wand of a selfish lover not worth loving.

Like sun playing music through its light on the surface of the land, caressing warmly even the steepest mountains and deep gorges, move the hearts of others. Stand by them genuinely, so they can trust to embrace you with the bright comforting blanket that feels good. Your liability is up to your faith in trust.

Liberating guided meditation to release tension

Daily, we need to release the emotions we have accumulated from the first seconds since the awakened awareness collects in the mind and the body everything we experience. Psychic emotions often translate in the body into physical tensions. Fortunately, humanity has been around for some ages and we learned through suffering and pleasure that there are different ways to recuperate balance.

rejuvenate

Once you were a cub, then a lion and later respected leader of the pack

For each of us something else works in different periods of our changing life. What helped a teenage you, most likely does not work as well for a forty-something or septuagenarian you. Yet, acceptance of change in our reality is not easy to swallow. Yet, once it is in, you will digest it anyway. So chew on!

connect with nature

One can run it out, box away the stress from others and work, torture oneself during a HIIT or CrossFit, sweat it into the water while swimming laps as if it was a race, in short actively channel the negativity out. If you don’t injure yourself from these physically intense activities, and you feel that at night you sleep peacefully freed from whatever you needed to shed, that is wonderful.

I must add, not just in my experience, more body stress in the long way does not release mental stress. How more tension can reduce tension? By bursting. Physical laws are such.

Swiss summer

Remember one of the rules of all life: Wear and tear. Runners knees, tennis elbows, footballers ankles. Look at the top athletes. Most of them are forced to retire in their 30s. That is young. Despite all the progress in athletic performance enhancements and tools, their bodies cannot handle the pressure for much longer. Even the greatest must retire. While some rare bulldozers make professional competition into their 40s, most ballet dancers, tennis pros, soccer stars, need to slow the pace, the wearing down of their bodies. Roger Federer is still a history making, incredible player, but the daily intensity he forced upon his body to perform finally coughed with him. He had to admit that if he is to enjoy the rest of his life and his family while doing what he loves, he must take a step back.

Como Lake inspiration Engadine winter sports

We need to move and maintain our body’s strength, yet when emotions are involved we can mindlessly and permanently harm ourselves while angrily boxing though emotional pain. The great news is that there is a more sustainable, ancient practice that is risk-free (unless you do it in the wrong place like driving or doing something else, you cannot do anything else when practicing this form of release).

A deeper release happens through calm, rest, soft focus, patient attention, when you connect with your breath, inhale, exhale fully, slow it down. Shortly, through meditation. It is about getting to know the unknown inside of you. While slow-paced, meditation is an adventure of self-discovery.

melancholy

Now, many of you may find this super simple tool challenging. Still, you can do it almost anywhere once you know through experience the path to it. Like a missing key that slides easily into the lock. It is indeed not easy for the always thinking, running, monkey mind to stop and just flow. I have been practicing yoga for a quarter of a century (ha, that makes me feel like a well rooted tree), still meditation was the next step. I had not achieved the real flow state of oneness. While I mastered all the asanas to advanced head stands and impossible twists I injured myself when I let my ego controlling the competitive side of me.

All bad is for something good, I say when life’s hurdles present themselves in plain pain. Let’s turn to the positives.

Become water, a gentle stream, rippling glacier lake in meditation

I learned that one best starts with breathing control, known as pranayama. Breath is our always available friend, alive, always here to guide you, to connect your mind with your body.

Further, a great teacher with vipasana (silent retreat) meditation experience is your ideal guide. I was lucky to find one just when I need her most. My Indian teacher is constantly reminding me of the simple truths like discipline – you must stick to meditation daily, no matter for how long, just pacify your mind every single day. It is like running in terms of habit creation. Also, her experience is so profoundly part of her expression, that she almost feels what I feel. We mainly meditate over phone since an ocean separates our physical co-presence, and this does not disrupt the depth of the freeing vibrations we share.

From her well of wisdom and my own practice, I am sharing 12 minutes short, daily doable and enjoyable meditation. Ideally, wear loose fitting clothes and situate yourself in a quiet, warm room. Outdoors sounds wonderful, but not for beginners since there are too many uncontrollable distractions possible – from insects to uninvited loud hikers. Once you settle yourself in the regular practice, do challenge yourself by meditating outdoors or in noisier environment such as airplane.

mirror

You do not have to sit crosslegged if it creates more tension or if you have bad blood circulation. In any case it’s better to elevate your sit bones, so use meditation cushion or any medium to hard pillow for support under your pelvis. You can lean on a wall or a chair, it is important though to have your spine erect. Bolster your knees with pillows or blanket if it makes it more comfortable. Do this at least once the day you meditate. If you do it twice then, especially before sleeping, either put your legs up against your bed or cosy under your sheets comfortably warm in the savasana pose (simply lying on your back with your arms softly stretched alongside your body. This assist rest, but will not elevate your consciousness.

This mindful release can help with managing pain, blood pressure, anxiety, restlessness, anger and any negative emotion that is about to swallow you. Watch the darkness coming, but do not let it control you. Stop, sit down comfortably and start:

I recorded it this Sunday morning in silence without any background music or sound. I prefer to leave the additional ambience up to you since each of us has not just different music preferences but also a different level of sensitivity to sound. Most advanced meditators prefer silence. If your neighbours are just too loud or the street noise, ambulances et al are difficult to manage, play some ambient music without lyrics. I like the 528 hz frequency of the so called Alpha waves. On YouTube find a wide choice.

Light a candle if that helps to centre you before you start. Close your eyes during the entire meditation though. A blanket next to you can help in case you feel cold not moving.

NOTE: I did not edit the recording, there are no major disruptions anyway (besides gentle faraway birds and church bells), but I wanted to simulate a natural guidance by a real person. Excuse my signature accent, imperfections, I rather show them than faking it. My pace is slow, but not too much as I am aware that the length of your breath is shorter in the early practice. Any time I say inhale and exhale do not follow it forcefully, just do it at your pace, but follow the guidance in terms of visualisation and the movement of attention as I am taking you on this fairy journey of your inner self.Be kind and true with yourself! That is what meditation is about.

A beggar wanting to be a star: on pain

Can I switch a button

To rid me of my pain

To grow wings that

Take the body weight

Above gravity’s reign

Becoming an avatar

Smiling despite struggle

Always in the perfect form

Disconnected, not a who or what

Doomed human facing night

Created to feel and waggle

Love – hurt – joy – pressure on

A beggar wanting to be a star

Desiring some warmth of light

In the midst of each storm

Take me away pull the thorn

Of living — make me a flower

Shed my flesh too long worn

~RB

spiritual art I wrote this poem on pain during a few tough months in 2022 when my body and mind ached with relentless suffering. Old pain can reawaken with a greater vigour than is tolerable.

In those moments, one only desires to rid oneself of the pain, yet by wish alone nothing gets ever done. Yet, switching the mindset to clear the vicious circuit of pain is the first step to liberation. When your body tells you something is wrong, it keeps at doing so when any cue presents itself in assumed reality even when nothing is directly affecting you. This reality is not just objective but includes the subjective perception and feelings about what we experience. So for example if you had an injury on bicycle, your pain comes back each time while or after cycling years after the accident. This is what complicates stuff. To put it simple, pain is a stark reminder of the body-mind connection. It is the memory that stores pain. And memory can play us.

spiritualism

I always thought that pain comes from hurting oneself, an accident, incorrect posture, disease, all physical symptoms of something just physically wrong. Heartache cannot cause real organ troubles, that is just the old poets’ imagination, I thought. But I was wrong. Years of physical therapy, osteopathic and chiropractors’ adjustments, dry needling, acupuncture, stopping doing sports that I love, having a glass of wine to forget that a stabbing backache taught me that some pain cannot be fixed by physical manoeuvres alone.

Further, I learned that emotional pain and psychological pain that comes from repression, negative thinking, exhaustion, and even from the unconscious depths of the mind all affect the body. Your wellbeing cannot be complete without daily balancing your mind. Having both parents seriously ill at risk of losing them both too close in their due time in 2021 affected me so profoundly that the pain stored eventually had to come into my awareness.

Meditation is wellness My cure eventually came in the form of daily release. The light shone once again above my head. Not just by doing physical stretching, although I did that too, but also mental cleansing. By meditating twice a day I learned to control better my bodily sensations. Not as far as a fire walker in India yet (I smile), but I can now understand how their zeroing of pain sensation works. Yoga is a practice of control and meditation is an inherent tool to achieve mastery over one’s monkey mind. I did not feel pain when the mind blocked the thinking of it. Countless placebo cures are based on such a strong belief in a tool that works. Placebo is statistically decisive in science which is forced by nature to deal with the mind in holistic therapy that remedies the problem.

Meditation both soothes the nervous system and assists with controling the mind. Breath is your personal present guide to whom you can always turn when lost. It is yours until death sets you apart.

Try it, it is painless and you do not even need to sit. Just be still, comfortably in a quiet and warm place and get deep into your happiness. As you progress even noise and temperature shifts won’t shake you. Meditating is a wonderful additional tool for your wellbeing, we all can profit from its balancing calm.

Art beyond the aesthetic: why we need art in this seismic, disrupted time with trust eroded

Art is the journalism of the past century. In the public interest some artists took role in activism. Through their unique individual lens as well as together in the often invisible collective creative cooperation, they speak to society with truth and integrity. Working with clarity and one’s open heart is what our society needs in this globally disrupted time. Chaos, too much change cannot be easily digested. Too many of us are confused about our shared values. The old guardians of open conversation struggle to keep relevant. While the press is not dead, the time’s pressure of fast media and unsustainable amount of eyes grabbing competition challenge their commitment to portraying truth. Now, art has the timeless potential to engage us on a deeper level.

spiritual art

street art Milan, Italy

Art as non-violent freedom fighter, moral & spiritual guide

As trust in formerly respected authorities — the church and the media — was eroded, the open gap in our justice and truth seeking mind needs to be filled. There is a spiritual dimension to it (Kandinski wrote an excellent essay on that; The Spiritual in Art), but also the basic need to talk, to open up about what we do not know and what concerns us. Survival, safety, ethics, violence, injustice, inequality, personal insecurity, shame, oppression, all themes calling for honesty.

Notes by Etel Adnan

Art can connect with these existential, philosophical, even practical questions. The late Lebanese artist and poet Etel Adnan wrote honestly on the need for global peace in 2016: “The world needs togetherness, not separation. Love, not suspicion. A common future, not isolation.” How can a sensible human being not be touched by her wise words? Peace is freedom, as equality is justice. Art can be a mirror of our society. Through theater, cartoons, digital videos, installations, all in the same way novels are in written form.

‘The conveyor belt of life’ reflection in Meditation by Jean-Michel Basquiat

Art also became more political in the 20th century. Not that calling up the villains and highlighting social issues is something new, Francisco Goya drew and etched to print the homeless and poor in his social series as much as he portrayed human vice in the high society. More recently, the young African-American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat alerted us to police violence, racial inequality, the harm that materialism and marketing do to our society, pain, struggle with our bodies, and more. Turning to biology, mythology and poetry, Basquiat reinforced his contemporary messages. His work echoes beyond the late 1980s America. Two current retrospectives (Vienna, New York) document that not much has changed since then, but the urgency ballooned. The ongoing struggles need to be expressed, heart and acted upon for positive change to grow from its deeply aware roots.

Jean Michel Basquiat

The late Portuguese multi-disciplinary artist and photographer Helena Almeida addressed dictatorship on the Iberian peninsula but also cast light on women’s struggles. Almeida’s art represented Portugal at the Venice Biennale twice, and most recently I was touched by her black and white photos shown at the hangars by LUMA Arles during the annual photography show.

Portuguese artist Helena Almeida

There are countless creatives who echoed society’s broad and specific aches to name. We shall be grateful for their daring.

Art as activism: climate action, refugee crises, war and displacement

On a grand scale now, great artists like Anselm Kiefer, Ai Weiwei, between others channel our attention towards contemporary issues. From climate (Kiefer’s Miami exhibit in 2021), political, poverty and war migration (Ai Wei Wei: The Law of the Journey reporting visually on the influx of refugees to Europe shown in Prague in 2017), existential threats (in Zurich, I was smitten by the French photographer’s Julian Charriere impactful series of nuclear tests and weapons annihilating effect on the Earth) to universal questions like our purpose (LA-based Cleon Peterson‘s “chaotic and violent paintings show clashing figures symbolizing a struggle between power and submission in the fluctuating architecture of contemporary society” currently showing at Mindy Solomon gallery in Miami), fate, life after death, mental struggles, gender, the body. Alone or with their teams, they work resonantly in larger than life effort composing vast canvases, installations, films, photographs and live performances (you probably heart of Marina Abramovic who is amongst the most resonant performing artists, she is also worth listening to).

Fondation Carmignac Porquerolles, France

Some of the most profound art connects old struggles with the present, it is just dressed differently, perhaps expressed though a more contemporary medium. Anyway, mythology and symbolism are timeless tools. Anselm Kiefer retells the Biblical story of Exodus in gasps evoking, powerful visual tale in his two exhibitions with Gagosian gallery in Los Angeles and New York this year.

Ai Wei Wei took the stone bricks discarded from an old bridge in the violent and racially tense Marseille, France to create a new path in the art-themed park of Chateau La Coste in Provence.

Ai Weiwei connects the old and the recent at Vila La Coste in Provence, France

The octogenarian Korean Lee Ufan has for most of his long career addressed relationships between things. Through positioning of rocks, metal and sometimes glass in the changing natural or stale unnatural light he illustrates the reality of our world. Nothing exists just on its own, it always relates to something and thus affects the other. Oneness, change and space are some of the philosophical concepts he brings our attention to. If you do not make it to Naoshima island in Japan, just this spring his Arles Fondation Lee Ufan finally opened after a reconstruction by his Japanese friend architect Tadao Ando.

Naoshima, Lee Ufan Relatum Lee Ufan

Art as authority

Once art commissioned by affluent religious authorities underscored the scriptures as well as the non-canonical tales and perhaps gave hope to the believers. Its potency was known to the church. Yet there was that other spiritual, the tribal art on the more grassroots level long before any established religion.

With the dawn of psychology, a Western science that connects the intellectual side of brain with the emotional, the rational with the irrational, the Eastern ancient philosophy with Western measured approach, art assumed redefined role. It can heal the wounded psyche. Its reach is individual but also collective if presented clearly.

Ai Wei Wei at Prague National Gallery

Further, as wealth spread beyond royalty and the church in the West, art became the status symbol. Tinted with the foul smell of money, there is a lot of junk in the artistic output these day. Yet, human creative urge and the desire to go beyond oneself still resonate in some art works that are just on another level, they are universal and timeless in their reach.

In her ambitious book The Last Authority, the German art critic Mokka Müller, casts “art as the New Religion”. While her assumption is quite far reaching, her observant essays connect the role of democratised art as a shifting element in our culture. From music, through visual and performative arts she observes how Western society was moved by art since its 20th century liberation. Defying censorship, art is a potent voice in our open society. With power though comes responsibility, but only some artists understand this. Beyond narcistic or selfish quest to sell artwork, there is that hunger to express inhumane reality and the urge to help others or a cause in need of our attention.

As with those inflated rulers becoming authoritarian despots and dictators, inflated egos do not benefit this world. Also artists need to face their own strengths and weaknesses, their pride morphing into I am only human humbleness inspiring others to awaken to our blind vanities.

Ai Wei Wei at Prague National Gallery

Art as a medium: healing through art

Through expressing our inner concerns, observations and feelings we share our common fate as mortal, struggling humans. Art is public and by making it accessible to all, not just for specific, limited groups of people like followers of certain faith, ideology, social circle or class, beyond one’s material wealth we open the world’s citizens to understanding each other.

The skilled artist can connect with the person experiencing their work if something universal and personal at the same time radiates though. In doing so their work can alleviate suffering, the feelings of being alone in this shit. By knowing that there were others going though this change, the awakened fear gets voice. Thus showing that we all want to live well and feel well, the artist becomes a therapist.

Pumpkins by the Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama

Sound is used as therapy. Also painting, photography, sculpture, installations or performative art at their very best have the potential to alleviate the physical and mental burdens of passing time. Immersing oneself in the art’s other dimension — the liberated space — momentarily disconnects one from the pain of living. Frida Kahlo portrayed her debilitating pain in her diminutive smallness on her fantastical, inner feelings displaying canvases. The Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama alleviates her mental struggle through colour, especially her recurring and popular theme of dots and pumpkins. She channels attention to mental health and the open door of creativity to all. Joy radiates from her sculptural and painted works. Millions of people can feel its power and the artist’s longing for true happiness.

female artists

Collective force ignited by individual creation

The composer Richard Wagner, the founder of psychoanalysis Carl Gustav Jung, the Catalan architect and painter Antoni Gaudi as well as the aware contemporary influencers I mentioned here, share a common knowledge of art having potential to reshape and awaken humanity. Revolutionary zeal, injustice, censorship, inequality, violence, as much as our seeking of beauty, joy, love, peace.

The space art takes in our limited time experiencing it is relative to our individual perception. If I do not judge art, but rather open myself to the message it tries humanely convey, I can use my perception to connect with the other, to empathise with humanity going through another age of tumultuous change. We are in it together.

Why are we happier at home than in a house: the difference between a mental and physical abode

I want to challenge your concept of a home. Home is a soulful feeling, an expansion of one’s heart in place and time, beyond the doors, walls and anything that separates. Being at home is to be with yourself, connected and open. The fireplace flames cosily deep inside you at home. A house is the physical place where we register our ‘home’ address, it is functional. A home is how we feel about that place. Do I belong here, am I safe, nurtured, and able to do what I love and need to do here? Ultimately, to be at home is about you and whether you allow yourself to feel happy where you are. It is a sense of belonging somewhere. That place may be forever the same or it may change as life sails you around the far seas to new lands of discovery.

Home at Golden-Door-spa-California

London townhouse gender equality

Placing one’s home: rooting in

A home can also be a place in the public area. Many writers spent more time in their favourite café or a library that this public space became more of a home for them than the place they slept, showered and brushed their teeth. In most poor countries, a house is exactly that, a place to sleep, well and to cook for yourself and the family. There are no spare rooms, so if a child needs to do a homework for school, they might have to set up a table on the street in front of the house. Like this pony-tailed girl in Luang Prabang, Laos. I wonder where she felt more at home? With her parents, at her makeshift desk or out in the wild hills playing with other kids? It would all depend on how she felt — abusive or arguing parents do not make a happy home, noisy disruptions on the street can unnerve one, and while nature nurtures, perhaps she would prefer the kitchen hearth.

If I must insist on a geographical location, and we all ned to for practical reality, my home is near the Mediterranean sea. Surrounded by its mood-lifting colour palette that calms and invigorates me at once, where sunshine embalms my skin in a comforting, somewhat familiar care, as if I were born there once in some previous life. My home would be in a blooming garden, with magnolias and olive trees, maybe some citrus, so splendid that I forget to breathe. I sit in my home on a remote sandy beach, only birds survey my whereabouts. Like a plant that grows in the right environment, I am able to grow my roots deep in the ground there. Home is where your roots thrive, taking as many nutrients as they need to grow. It is a feeling.

Japanese wabi sabi

Beyond purpose: why are we happier at home than in a house or apartment?

I have always been my happiest out in nature. My parents had to herd me back into the house before the night fell. Only when the weather became unfavourable, I sheltered in for the entire day, anxious about the next intermezzo of sunshine teasing me out into the snow, across slippery paths and splashy roads. If only once each day, under the umbrella of an open sky on crisp, fragrant, fresh air, be it a garden or a park in a city, I was at home. Otherwise, I am just a vagabond sleeping in some bed, safe from the predating insects and men. Comfort is one of the main reasons we live indoors. Flimsy weather, unwanted animal intrusions and other people potentially threatening us lock us away from the wild world outside. Survival calls up.

Yet, are comfort, safety and survival enough for us to be happy? Any negative emotion casts us far away from home into the ghastly dessert of suffering.

Attachment is another hindrance to happiness, and some of us cling to our house like leeches, unable to ease into holidays worrying about all that can go wrong with our home, far away. Thus vulnerable any incident affects us more profoundly as if confirming our preocuppation.

We are unique creatures with different wants and needs. Fulfilled desires temporarily spark joy, but as I wrote in my musing on happiness it is ultimately the mind that decides to be happy.

Home is a soulful feeling, an expansion of one’s heart in place and time, beyond the doors, walls and anything that separates. Being at home is to be with yourself, connected and open — united with the present moment. Negative emotions cast you far away from home into the ghastly dessert of suffering.

Moroccan house divan draem bathroom

Invaders of privacy and fear

The homeless in sunny California, hanging out with their friends in Santa Monica or the Venice beach enjoy stunning hikes in the vast Canyons spread across LA. Yet, meeting a dishevelled man slurring over my legs in tight leggings, broke my sense of home in nature. When being invaded by a life threatening animal we need to be brave, unafraid and able to fight if we want to feel still at home outside. No-one to police or protect me either that one early morning savouring my favourite beach alone. I felt uneasy about the two refugees hiding in the sand dunes, but I decided ignoring them, kept reading my book and in a few minutes there was no trace of their presence. While this Mediterranean beach is perhaps my favourite place in this world to dwell, that very morning I was very uncomfortable. Ever since I arrive later so I am not being there alone, but the magic was lost. Do you feel more at home just by yourself or do you prefer many people surrounding you? Our sense of comfort and safety differ with character. One keeps the heavy door shut at all times, while another is happier to lounge on one’s open lawn welcoming passers by.

Portuguese architecture

The symbol of the House

In archetypal terms, the symbol of the house includes your body. When you breathe with awareness or meditate, do you feel at home with yourself?

You must take care of either to function properly. Yet your home is also your spirit, and that is why countless superstitions emerged with ensuing protective rituals such as blessing the door or burning sage to ward off bad spirits. People can be so sensitive at their house that they use feng-shuei or crystals to balance the energy in each room. The first objects I brought to my latest rental apartment were my soul crystals. I placed celestite and clear quartz exactly where the caring landlady had her own precious rocks previously installed. My gesture of respect for her home she claimed left unwillingly.

The self is the house protecting the ego. A child constructs its own house of his/her self. Later, through our own room if we are lucky to have one or as adults we express ourselves through the house we create and share. It is an entire realm. In astrology birth charts are divided into 12 houses bound to the time you were born in.

Ovid brought the charity aspect of hospitality to our attention, when in his Metamorphosis a cottage turns into a temple caring for the needy, offering them drinks and food, a genuinely open house.

Home is a place welcoming friends and family. The Greek goddess Hestia kept the home hearth warm. Hospitality includes comfort. The temperature must be pleasant, so floor heating is the one luxury I find the most enjoyable and useful in any house with cool climate, particularly in bathroom.

home sanctuary contemporary bathroom

Stereotypes and homes

Domesticity used to be more a female urge as men mingled in the public spheres of clubs, jobs and pubs. Girls and then women dream about their own house. As girls we built our first homes in the sand, the trees, even in the wardrobes of our parents bedroom — I did it all. Creating one’s own home as the physical place seems something so deeply embedded in us that once we get it built or reconstructed, we become so attached to its flesh, the tender limbs and firm core that we cannot leave it for too long. Our rituals, daily schedules, our oxygen-sharing indoor plants, pets, the garden, all call our attention. Yet, do we have time for all this today? With the rising equality, women spend more of their life building their careers and social connections outside their abode, and they need help. Busy, without a family or a partner, the same old truth knocks on our soul:

Our home becomes our lover. It is necessary sometimes to be apart, yet never for too long.

Do you think much about the function of a lover? While, there is a certain practicality of the other sex (or same gender for that purpose), we can exchange much more magic with our lover, we can grow together and bring more joy into our lives. Still, a house shall suit our particular lifestyle and daily routines. A bath makes a difference for me, for another a vast loving room does wonders.

I was inspired by Happy Interior Blog, books like Taschen’s Homes for our Time, Axel Vervoord’s Wabi Inspirations and How to Make a House a Home by Ariel Kaye dedicated to the design and functionality of our houses. Still, In never copied anything, it was just the air of it, the particular fragrance of light, colour and materials used.

bedroom

None of the above photos are my houses. While I would not refuse settling in either, near a beach surrounded by lush garden or jungle, I imagine, yet someone has to take care of them. I know people who have three houses, but they feel more like burdens. Like a harem, one has to give up privacy to own more than one, and naturally high expenditure. I prefer things simple. A small apartment in a city and house by the sea, let’s dream.

Isn’t it a marvellous game to imagine what would your dream house look like? A drawing of your dream house tells you plenty about your needs and your attitude with your family. For example a chimney symbolises the affective life and if smoke from it comes out then there is an internal tension, a very large door means you are very dependent, sidewalks open access to the outer world and if you add a tree — that is your deepest self not shown to others.

home

Once during a shinrin yoku practice at the Los Angeles Arboretum, we were tasked to find ourselves an ideal home right there in the forest. Later, we were to explain to another person why we chose that location, which teased out our needs, truly revealing!

You can take a step closer to that dream by bringing one chosen aspect of it to reality. Change something in your apartment or house to make it feel more like home. Add fragrant candles, a vinyl player, a fluffy carpet to spread across like on a sofa. Remember, while your house shines like from a design magazine, it will never be your home if it does not inhabit the right people, light, reflect who you are, including your past and also support your mind-body rituals.

My favorite letter is a sky… which is yours?

My favorite letter is not in the Latin alphabet, and as much as I adore the Arabic painterly abjad, it is the roots of the Chinese calligraphy that won over my heart. That letter means sky, but also many other things, and perhaps it is that flexibility what fascinates me about the Chinese characters (called hanzi in China). I love that one symbol means so much, an entire universe. Timeless language transcends borders.

Baroque ceiling in the sky

天 encompasses day dimmed at night

天 is God and heavens

天 wakes nature up and puts most to sleep

天 can be bright blue, cloudy or sparkling with stars like a night dress

天 is nature herself, moody as the weather

A letter that is a word and so mightily broad. Endless, universal. Only the spiritually blind cannot grasp the expansive meaning in its lines. Like a teepee spiking and centred high, the Chinese have captured the ideogram brilliantly from its ancient pictorial art from which their contemporary calligraphy evolved.

Free space is the sky

天 ( tiān )

A sky is a nest

Belonging to all

Connecting us from East to West

Deity and the universe

Elastic space

Far and near

Grounded bellow, yet

High above

Incandescent delight

Janus’s door

Keen on mystery

Limitless potential

Marvellous sight

Never ending

Open day and night

Peace and war

Quantum field

Roaming free

Sky stirs wonder

Tramping stars on

Unknown paths

Vast and wide

Wandering far

Xanadu of the kings

Yellow sash like suns

Zodiac’s belt of passing time

~RB~

The poem above is 天 tiān from my East-meets-West perspective. I lived in Asia for many years and annually revisit China and Japan, but my roots are European. Janus mentioned in my poem was a two-faced Roman gatekeeper of the door to heaven. At his temple in Rome these were symbolically left open in time of war and closed in peace.

My poetic expression will always balance with an integrity in the past that formed my present. All I write is a blend of experience, conversations, what I read and how I played creatively with meaning and words. There is often music in my mind and it chimes words as its guiding notes.

I took a Chinese calligraphy lesson with a master in Beijing, visited the Southern regions where its predecessor, a pictorial alphabet is still being sporadically used, and further learned how simplified a Japanese kanji is during a temple calligraphy lesson in Kyoto. Those experiences culminated in my fascination with my favorite letter, the 天. These four strokes have the same meaning in China, Japan and Korea, thus culturally unifying these now again diverse countries.

Reflecting on my history with 天, why do you think that your favorite letter is what it is?

Letters are revered in Japan, where each year they select a favourite kanji that later is painted by a famous calligrapher or an artist. The kanji of the year is then exhibited at the Kanji Museum in Kyoto.

Kanji of the Year Japanese alphabet

I employed a poetic method called Abecedarian, which is a poem where the first letter of each line or stanza follows sequentially through the alphabet. Contemporary poets who used the abecedarian across entire published collections include Mary Jo Bang in The Bride of E, and Harryette Mullen in her fifth book Sleeping with the Dictionary.

On the notes of tiān, my favorite letter is also the name of one my most beloved vegetarian restaurants — Tian in Vienna. Sometimes meaning stretches into unexpected lengths. C.G. Jung captured that in his term synchronicity, which can eerily seem almost magical.

Sound, a comforting poem on vibrations

I wrote a few poems on slow life, mindful encounters with the everyday, and touched on the emotional challenges of relationships and being with others socializing. Our world has reversed for some weeks now as social distancing became the new habitat for the human form in this pandemic.

We have an opportunity now to go deeper inside, to organise our lives and to accept this challenge of staying at home for a long time.

@Salvador Dali

Even though silence is important for our wellbeing, we naturally crave direct encounters with other human beings. For now, live internet Zooms, Face Time and other video chats can supplement hanging out with your family or friends, but do not get too distracted by this. There is a room for your own existence in space. Aware of the gentlest nuances of life geared into slow pace, we become richer than when speeding through the traffic to meet someone or to and from work. I wonder how many of you miss that, often stressful, commute? Perhaps you just miss the habit, that sense of communal sharing, rather than the moving yourself in either a crowded or boring (in a car) transport from home to elsewhere.

sound sheep on pasture

Sound, the pleasant form of it, has always been a great comfort to me. Whether deepening and enlivening my solitude, lifting me above the motorised city noise, injecting my run with energy and zest, or helping me to focus when reading or working, sound shifts my mood. The vibrations are so powerful that chanting, gong, and other resonating instruments of beautiful sound were invented to focus and calm our mind.

Professor Michael Trimble explains how chanting benefits your health. It can change the rhythm of your heart, your emotional response, and more.

I offer a poem on sound that I wrote as this winter shifted to spring. I hope, it will show you a new angle. These new horizons of sound can help you navigate this anxious times more pleasantly. At least they did it for me. If you want, play this healing music on Youtube while reading my poem.

Sound waving though my soul

vibrates calm strands of peace

Weaving the gentle ease

of my thoughts, heart beating slow

Sound healing an injured soul

An ancient remedy of malice

spinning away worry, prejudice

immersed in this song that penetrates all

Sound filling my lungs full

with nourishing nectar of dance

its wholesome breath lifts me to trance

Life silenced would be dull

Sound touching my time in full

sets me entirely in its presence

minutes penetrate my skull

As I embrace this lively essence

Sound living in all, and not at all

Revealed to those patient for its resonance

sharing its secrets with nature’s nuance —

you feel life’s richness through its call

∼

There is a shift in my mind that I feel when listening to calming sound. I hope that tranquil emotions penetrate from the lyrics of my poem to your heart and mind. Savour the slower pace of life that we were given in these challenging times. I always try to see the good in the dark.

Full Moon Alive

A sleepless night during my second full moon quarantined on Miami Beach, stirred this poetic outpour. My bedroom has a panoramic view of the Atlantic ocean (I’m blessed and grateful), which every morning treats me with the only live public spectacle now allowed to me here to see safely – the sunrise. The open sky is too close to the city so I cannot glimpse any stars, save for the largest one to our Earthly eyes — the moon.

full moon

That night gusts of open ocean winds flagged my silk nightgown in a coup de force of enthralment. I was standing on the terrace, magnetised by the giant lightbulb of the moon glaring full or in some gasp of the changing moment, partly shaded by the fast paced clouds. In that moment I knew I would not sleep easily if I do not chanel some of that energy speaking to me in its commanding voice.

Reading for hours, midnight approaching. I was still afflush with vitality, and I was glad that the usual cradle of the book did not tame my sprinting mind. Lifting my gaze up to the moon, the whispering potency of the night, suddenly, I had to grab paper and pen. On my night table, aside other piled up literature, set face up a small collection of brief poems by the female Pakistani artist Noor Unnahar. Its moon-gray cover titled YESTERDAY I WAS THE MOON nodded to the occasion. It was not about the moon light though.

Miami skyline Pink moon Mysterious moon female poet

Now I am the morning

Yesterday I was the moon

Sleepless

My soul glaring

A fool

I did not know who I was

Back then, but now I know

A reflection is not a unique creation

Never say “but”, she said

The past is over, yet

Deep down I knew that

Strength

was a posture covering doubts

Eloquence

overshadowed innate sensuality

Speed

floundered calm mind

Carelessness

veiled a deep concern

Still, I surprise myself — will I?

Some day get to know

Who I am

Despite these flops of mind

Being alive, sensing

Perhaps I shall

Dwell

In a faraway cave

To be pure me

Not a doll

To be played with

But longing to fully be

Yesterday I was the moon

— But now I am the morning

~ Joy

stunning sunrise Steinway piano

Whatever happened in the past, yesterday does not define who you are today. It only says what you decided, experienced, felt. The past mistakes are not finite dead holes. Deep down, if you connect with yourself is the true you — in the past, present and future — become love. This authentic you can resolve to come back to the purest self, unhinged yet still kind, the balancing scale of inter-human co-existence.

I thought, as most of us did when I was in my late teens, early 20s even, that I totally expressed who I am, independent, unconventional, but I did not know in spite of my authenticity. There are so many layers to peel off, I wrote a poem on this in my late 30s (will certainly publish it in my adventuresome memoir one day).

I learned that I can only glimpse into my own self when I totally shut down emotions as in a deep meditation, when totally giving myself to nature, or when I allow them out off my chest. The wild beasts bursting into the open space are tamed by being let free from the inner cage I put them into. By recognising that these emotions are just a human part of me that passes soon, I feel more alive! And, the full moon reminded me.

romantic moon

This poem by Noor Unnahar resonates:

do not worry

about people

they’re wearing the same flesh

breathing the same chemicals

walking on the same solid earth

as you

so why should it matter

when

you are them and they are you

This empowers me, gives me courage to go forward without being burdened by others’ opinions. I purely am and create what I love. While I hope it connects, inspires and elevates others, I am not attached to my writing work. I hope you are empowered or more connected through our liberal female voices.

What we are other than one human race. We are animals profiting from the bounty of this Earth co-existing with plants in a reciprocal ecosystem conditioned by natural laws we cannot easily change. If you want to get more, you’ll have to give more. This is sustainability, but that goes far beyond the above poems, and I address this need for mutual thriving elsewhere here on La Muse Blue.

NOTE: There is no mutual agreement or online support exchange between Noor and myself. I purely chose to highlight her work because I bought her poetry book and like it. I prefer to support other creative people in an organic way. No push, but pure admiration and sharing what I feel we need more of either though collaboration or by recommending their creations.

LETTING JOY IN

This poem was subconsciously in creation phase of my mind for years, perhaps decades. Then, one winter morning as the sunlight entered my Mediterranean bedroom, I gasped and grasped a pen in LETTING JOY IN. The mirage of light was trespassing through the double glass of my windows and was further filtered by pure linen curtains, and I was smitten. That wholesome moment of awe poets feel so intimately nurtures curiosity and joy.

My soul was connected to the source of this marvellous incandescence, but the LETTING JOY IN poem did not feel complete, not yet.

I abandoned it for a few weeks. The vicious Covid19 virus spreading, ousted me from Europe and aerial hopping Southwest to the hyper-charged Miami Beach, creatively blocked me. While I am a well-heeled vagabond, the stunting boulders of fear and that utterly discomforting feeling of not knowing what will happen next, uprooted my mind. Almost a week had passed until I reconciled with this potent and disruptive energy. Aware that mindfulness is a mighty cure for a distracted spirit, deep meditations above my emotions settled the chaos, I was mentally flowing again.

Then, one ocean-front morning the light came back to me, LETTING JOY IN, knocking on my creative consciousness and teasing my mind to imagination. Again it appeared with the dawn of a new day. It was back, on a different twilight, continent and room. The rays sneaked through the gap of the curtains, letting the Atlantic briskness in and onto the surreal, moon-like, rugged surface of my room’s ceiling. Fascinating, this theatre of light was a Sunday morning brightened by its starry presence. The poem in waiting was ready for its completion.

LETTING JOY IN

When today’s light crosses the porous borders of my room

Beyond the walls nature enters my conscious zoom

I impart the vast horizon, we merge

Two lovers united in a lustful surge

Drawn inside the geometric art

Part by Part

— Until —

Nothingness becomes whole

Abstracted entirely from all

Yet concrete like the sun, touched

Traveling into my arms, kissed

Allow whispers not halted by walls

Seduce me to answer his soulful calls

Gasping in ecstasy, eternity in contemporary art

A few moments bathing in that magic light

The presence in moving, metasensual canvases behind

Illuminating openness to awareness roaring in my mind

Create, become the light, he said, for it is me and we are one.

Light poem light in poetry

The geometric quality of light was observed not just by the astronomers or physicists, quantified by mathematicians, but also in art. As much as my Light poem, its visual shape inspired the flow of creative imagination.

Kandinsky wrote that with the emergence of the “structural treatment of nature, representation disappears. Starting from a single natural object, Picasso and the Cubists produce lines and project angles till their canvases are covered with intricate and often very beautiful series of balanced lines and curves. They persist, however, in giving them picture titles which recall the natural object from which their minds first took flight”. Read his famous essay Concerning the Spiritual in Art to learn more.

LETTING JOY IN awakened some old memories of meaningful journeys taken, deep feelings lived out and an adult’s imagination stirred. Focus is a spotlight and mine has shifted from the catwalk and the photographers’ object into the solitary backstage of a journalist, later a creative writer and poet. My life has become a vast source of light in my work by seeking beauty in the mundane. I am aware that change abound, darkness can dim our character with disruptive chaos in uncertain times. Light cannot be taken for granted, but you and me through our can do attitude and behaviour can be the source of hope. Read my recent musing on light to understand better.

Future of food: seeking connections

The year 2015 will, hopefully, like a meteorite falling from the Universe divert the attention of humanity to our plates. The Expo in Milan heralded its theme “Feeding the Planet, energy for life” to the worldly audience, so Italy has become the epicentre of the quake for the global food movement. The World Expo highlighted the issues with feeding healthfully the growing global population. If possible sustainably, so food for the future generations is safeguarded.
When talking about future, we must consider the present situation.
There are two billion malnourished people, while one billion is overweight, and about a third of the food produced in the developed countries gets wasted. In the current situation it seems that all we need to do for an almost perfectly fed world is to fix this calculation so it equals ZERO. The UN ‘Zero Hunger Challenge’ alerted the visitors of the Expo in Milan by making sustainability the focus of the new millennium – promoting breed and plant biodiversity, reducing food waste, and balancing the ecosystem that through our activity has been miscalibrated by the profit and quick fix driven troop of multinational heavyweights (McDonalds, Coca-Cola, Burger King, Danone, Kraft, Nestle, …).

Corn-fed landscape of monocultures

Did you know that the most widely planted crop in the world is corn? Not grown for us, but for the animals and even fish, that do not have their digestive systems suited to this grainy feed. As a result of feeding the cows grains they suffer tremendous digestive discomfort and pain. What is unethical is that we may eat some of this corn-fed flesh, but a large proportion of it gets wasted in the process from slaughtering, storage or transportation, to throwing away unfashionable cuts.
Since corn is cheep, all possible derivatives from this often genetically altered crop are used in manufactured foods to sweeten, homogenise, thicken or otherwise manipulate the heavily processed product. That is one of the major factors of the drastic food price drops over the past half century. The manufacturers feed us with vastly unnatural colourings, fillers, and stabilisers, while the real food content is minimal, as if it were just a seasoning on the long ingredients list. The US food corporations are still the food processing gurus, and Europe with Japan did not linger behind. Recently joined by developing countries, the development’s magic mantra seduces to such irresponsible misleading shortcuts.

Nature vs “Frankenstein” science

The future challenges us with concerns about food safety and its availability to the ever increasing global population. Yet, the volume of the voices demanding ‘clean, real’ food is higher than ever, enforced by the bass-booster of the information age.
Does the future of food nest in the so called “Frankenstein” science (better performing GMOs, lab meat)? On the contrary, will we flip back to the ancient, self-sustaining, low-scale farming methods, organic agriculture, seasonal eating (for the affluent, while preserving foods for the poor with time to spare) and pastured animals?
Echoing the environmentalists, sustainability-seeking and animal rights-fighting groups, the popular culture now seems to forge a global movement alerting the established multinational companies and corrupt governments towards more fair, nature and animal-friendly approaches to feed humanity. The increased popularity of organic groceries, local farmers markets, vegetarian and entirely plant-based diets, and the calls for transparency hint towards the new-old directions of our food system. This anti-homogeneity movement (such as the Italy-born Slow Food) could balance the excesses of modern mass production that pollutes the environment and is often detrimental to our health. As ironic as it may sound, after a century of limitless exploitation, for our own benefit we start to crave what our great grandparents had – seasonal & homemade food. Is this though a realistic path to the global food stability?

Learning from recent history: global solutions to stability

Power struggles combined with scarcity of food lead to unrest, wars and deaths. This ultimate survival assuring phenomenon still holds true despite the deceptive changes in improved fertility and thus availability of food since the past century.
Post-wars industrialisation and the mass exodus of people from the countryside to big cities created the need for food produced by someone else and conveniently delivered to one’s work or home. In swelling cities the soaring popularity of convenient frozen ready-meals, quickly microwaved and even faster consumed, set the foundation for serious health problems such as CHD we face today. The homogenous processed flab of a meat patty tastes like a cardboard, but is cheap and accessible to most diners with no spare time to cook in the fast-paced “developed” world.
Technology progressed, and with the “Individually Quick Frozen” procedure in the late 1990s the energy consumption was reduced mainly due to this minimally processed technology. The innovative bug never sleeps, while it ushers both positive and negative changes to our everyday lives. Therefore, we must be vigilant and critically assess all novelty.

Omnivore paradox: Acceptance vs familiarity

Ingrained cultural values and tendencies oscillate between traditional ingredients and dishes and the ‘omnivore paradox’. While Italians more likely stick to pasta, Chinese to pork and the Argentines to a beef assado, the natural diversity introduces new foods into our diet and we can either accept or reject them. Yet, the access to a wide range of ingredients consumed in a rotation of seasons should interest the growing population if better quality is to be secured.
Tasting the sweet white asparagus in spring, honey-reeking cantaloupe in July, ripe figs in August, salivating from the aromas of the fresh porcini in the fall, and marvelling at the weirdest shapes of heirloom tomatoes, are some of the pleasures we were missing at the endless supermarket rows. Ironically, filled with often very similarly tasting produce (salt, sugar, water), they do not offer much. We should reconnect to the web of food relations including respecting the nature’s seasonality.
Challenging our survival instinct in the near future might be: rapidly growing global population, disrupted climate, more frequent natural disasters such as floods, droughts, wild fires, earthquakes, and other calamities.
Our survival is ultimately our responsibility, and food-wise it depends on:

how we affect our climate, but also how climate changes naturally itself and how we can adapt to it

how do we affect our landscape and how the animals and crops respond to it not just in terms of their growth but also the nutritional availability and density of their meat, milk, eggs, …

cleanliness and temperature of our seas and oceans and how it shifts the food chain in water’s realm; but also how sustainable are our fishing techniques (trailing leading to by-catch, antibiotics or unnatural feed introduced through fish farming)

how do we directly affect the animals that we consume – grass-fed beef contains healthier fats than grain-fed, etc.

Climate is a whimsy shaker of our already quite unpredictable life. Whether our terrestrial activities further volatilise it (for example leading to more droughts and consequently less water to grow and farm our food) or its moody behaviour is a natural cycle we cannot influence, we need to find solutions to secure our food supply. Water demanding crops like rice, and higher in the food chain – meat fed with plants like corn, need to to be reduced in favour of the less ‘thirsty’ ingredients. Seasonal eating could also minimise the impact of the greenhouse gases in excess generated through production, transportation and the longevity extending packaging of supermarket foods.
Landscape and soil are sowed green with the magic drops of water that nourishes the plants. If we deplete the sources of our ground water, then any “green revolution” (introducing sprawling monocultures and water-intensive planting) as it happened in the 1960s Punjab, India, will turn into a natural disaster. Concentrated chemical residues not just burden the soil, but they ultimately lead to less of total food produced from an acre of land. Closer to our fork, a third of total food produced globally is wasted. We need to rethink how we treat leftovers so we can feed the hungry.
Pollution of our soil, waters and the air undeniably worsens quality and safety of natural produce. Eating fish was promoted as essential in a healthy diet, but the level of mercury in predatory fish is so high today that pregnant women and small children are strongly advised to avoid their consumption. Arsenic in the soil poisons rice, and nuclear plant disasters pollute tea leaves and other crops grown in the proximity of places like Fukushima in Japan. What seems to be healthy on the superficial level, can be sickening when consumed regularly in large quantities.
Food could be a medicine as the ancient Chinese and Greek sages observed, but as the dose casts its spell, the once curative food turns into a poison. Some progressive chefs, between them the most influential chefs in the world, study the effects of pollution on our ecosystems, and ponder over the future plans for their restaurants. The three Michelin stared Italian chef Massimo Bottura created a murky plate of bait fish, squid, oysters in a calamari broth titled ‘Pollution‘ as a “meditation on the transition between what we know today as seafood and what seafood will someday be.” As he demonstrated, the chefs will find a way to create tasty food from anything that remains.
An increased demand for certain popular seafood and industrial fishing has reached the limits of the oceans’ natural reproduction capacity. Read more about the state of our oceans in Dan Barber’s book The Third Plate.
Our popular source of protein, meat, had been altered from its natural form through chemistry. Feeding animals with growth hormones and antibiotics is not just unnatural for them but we ingest all of that through our meals. The consequences may be an antibiotic resistance, alterations in our immunity, and perhaps even of our DNA. Eating much less meat and animal produce will be necessary for the future. Considering that during the past 50 years, the global meat consumption increased fivefold, and that protein hungry population is growing, we will need to cut down. A side benefit for health perhaps reversing the obesity epidemics and reducing CHD are complementary.
Sustainability, organic agriculture and keeping the growing population in balance is costly, but as the world is getting richer at the same time we can speed up our return back to nature.

Meet the influencers

The human loudspeakers raising awareness and spurring trends in our eating behaviour are:
Media. Not any more limited to publications with large circulations, the internet with popular blogs are more open to discussion and self-publishing has never been easier. Fashions in diets such as raw-foodism, vegetarianism and vegan eating are widespread, and the increased amount of literature including cookbooks and specialist lifestyle magazines, offers better alternatives and endless options. The rule number one for most media is to publish regularly and to grab readers (viewers) attention. They nourish the users curiosity about novelties.
The media also reflect the popular voices and the past decade saw the launch hundreds of magazines devoted to sustainable lifestyle. Healthy eating is now not just the concern of mothers raising children, but also of many childless professionals and the ageing population. Having more years to live healthily requires better nutrition and this trend will probably increase in the coming decades. Even fast food is turning into an expensive healthy liquid nutrition with juice detox and liquids only energy source for many city dwellers.
The most influential individual authors in the English speaking world remain Michael Pollan, F.M Lappé, Marion Nestle and Alice Waters, all of whom call for better quality, transparence and local food sourcing. Vandana Shiva alerted India on unsustainable exploitation of its vast land and dangers for the farmers in frequent contact with chemicals. That pesticides have been linked to poisoning not just the pests, but also our soil and our bodies should not surprise you, but it shocks.
Politics involve lobbies of powerful food companies and the systems’ dependence on money makes transparency in the food chain and honesty in labelling an issue to circumnavigate rather than to deal with. The post-war chemical agriculture that rocketed up the synthetic fertilisers and pesticides, would hardly stop, unless the voters constantly and loudly call for it. Further, oil dependence in agriculture is dangerous for most countries without direct access to it, therefore self-sufficiency is the best solution to avoid conflicts.
The 20th century was also the beacon of cheep food revolution. The average family budget reserved for food dropped drastically in most Western countries. In France as much as almost 30%. As efficiency stuffed more our pockets, we have more left to spend on dining out. Eating at restaurants is growing and chefs now wield more power over what we eat than ever before. This socio-economic shift, together with the ageing global population will define the future of political actions. Obesity and its consequences became a high burden on our healthcare systems.

Grassroots organisations like the Slow Food movement established by Carlo Petrini in Italy in 1989 also spread globally. Many restaurants now seek their “snail” of approval sticking on their doors. At the Expo the organization has a large presence putting an accent on biodiversity. Displaying how our corn, wheat and other crops have been artificially modified and how limited the natural bounty has become.
Slow Food was founded to:
“prevent the disappearance of local food cultures and traditions, counteract the raise of fast food and fast life, and combat people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from and how our food choices affect the world around us.” What slow food also supports the ancient system of crop rotation that naturally fertilizes the soil.
NGOs and charitable trusts like the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) in the interest of ourselves and our habitat advices to adopt these sustainable practices when buying food.

Science steps in

How much has changed since Petrini’s desperate cry up from the Piedmontese hills! Through its University of Gastronomic Science in Pollenzo, where the world’s most distinguished chefs such as Ferran Adria give regular lectures, the interest in food surpassed its mere feeding aspect. Culture, community, landscape, quality, animal and producer’s welfare are on the forefront of its curriculum.
Science can be also confusing. One study can uproot another. As it happened with the hyped-up results released last year by the Cambridge University, that made headlines and even the cover of the Time magazine. Slab butter on your slowly-fermented bread and do not worry about your heart (saturated fats did not worsen the heart’s health in the study) was the massage that “butter is good, sugar is evil” pointing at the black and white limitations of our thinking. Open your mind and use consciously your intelligence when assessing research like this. By using reason you may well conclude that balance is best for our health and our society.
Nutraceuticals like dietary supplements and ‘functional foods’ are taking the Hippocrates’ alleged recommendation “Let food be your medicine” further. Creating the perfectly nutritionally balanced, by science backed healthy foods for everyday consumption sounds like a no-brainer. Long life seems within our reach. The well researched ‘Blue Zones’ confirm the possibility of extended lifespan through proper nutrition, but also by adapting a certain health-promoting lifestyle, so the magic pill is yet to come!
Through the above influencers the meaning of food is also changing. The family meal is being replaced by eating out or individual consumption of ready-made packaged edibles.

Decoding the future of food is like suggesting that there will be one way of transport between places. There are endless options for what catches on and what will not assimilate. Ultimately, we decide what we eat.
Some might be attracted to the made-to-measure feeding covering all of your nutritional needs, but not these foodies emotionally involved with food. Food is for many more than just a fuel, it feeds our emotions, improves our social outings, asserts our social status or wealth and stimulates creativity and joy from everyday life.
A futuristic nugget for technology users. My sibyllic prophecies on the food’s future contemplated the phenomena of sharing salivation-stirring food images on the social media. As the 3D print technology evolves, are we going to, in a decade or two, print our lunch in the office from a highly sustainable virtual menu consisting of anything imaginable for our taste buds? With a magician’s whip, a plate of delicious meal comes out of your 3D printing machine. I have no idea how they would make it tasting amazing, but one thing is sure, if it is affordable enough chefs will be out of work, kitchens become redundant in our homes, and any global food crises will be solved for eternity.
Forecasting anything is a risky business, which can be made more precise if current attitudes, behaviors and activism are included in the calculation. Our current actions will affect our children and their offsprings, and if you are not too selfish, you will try to do best to secure their and their peers’ access to the best quality and diversity of food possible. Unless we grow plants under the sea as they already do in Italy in the Nemo’s garden in the depths of the Mediterranean, cultivate our food in the space or on other planets, which is in a tiny volume already happening under the NASA supervision, we need to adapt to the fact that we have “just one Earth to feed the entire planet”.
NOTE: I’m not attempting to solve this complex survival-pressing agenda in one musing. If you seek more information from authorities in their respective fields, then consider some of my resources bellow.

FURTHER RESOURCES:
WWF – World Wide Fund for Nature
World Expo 2015 Milan: ‘Feeding the Planet, energy for life’
Food: the history of taste edited by Paul Freedman
Conspicuous Consumption by Thorstein Veblen – social satire on capitalism and the rise of the “leisure class”
The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan
Inside the California Food Revolution by Joyce Goldstein
Diet for a Small Planet by Frances Moore Lappé
What to Eat by Marion Nestle
The Guardian’s Sustainable Business food hub online