Connecting With My Ancestors Through Food and the Spice Girls
Connecting With My Ancestors Through Food and the Spice Girls
pop songs & shadow work
Believe it or not, pop songs have a magical ability to take us into deep introspective head spaces. I’ll be starting a series “Pop Songs and Shadow Work” within my newsletter where I link pop songs to spiritual awakenings.
We begin with the Spice Girls.
The movie “Spice World” opens with a dreamy pop synth sequence before the guitar and bass join. The song is “too much”.
Each character is introduced with bright and lovely overlayed colors like floating angelic auras.
Hearing the song reminds me of warmth and melancholy.
Too much of something is bad enough. But something's coming over me to make me wonder (ooh) Too much of nothing is just as tough. I need to know the way to keep me satisfied.
I feel the song in my gut, right above my belly button in the Manipura/Solar Plexus Chakra where our connection with willpower and self confidence are formed.
I immediately think about my relationship to food.
Before I continue I want to mention that I will be talking about my relationship to eating. You can pause here or continue reading.
Recently, I connected with two of my guides with the intention of unpacking my relationship to food. They encouraged me to pay close attention to what I was digesting. I wondered what I would uncover if I started to pay more attention, especially when I was hungry.
I became aware of how my current eating habits were related to my childhood. At what point did I begin disconnecting from the food I was putting in my mouth? How old was I and why did this become normalized?
When I unconsciously ate, “my gut” feelings disappeared. My disconnection led me to feel doubtful, fearful, and far from my intuitive gut.
I wanted to know why I had this urge to uncontrollably eat, where did it stem from and what emotion I was subconsciously feeding myself with? Is this an intergenerational habit amongst the womxn in my family? Is it tied to control or misogyny? At what point did eating become a way for me to gain control?
I began to wonder what information would be revealed when I connected mindfully to my food.
The first time I cooked garlic, cumin, coriander, cayenne, and haldi together I nearly cried from the familiarity in scent, bringing me back to my first memory of food being prepared for me.
I guess I never realized that examining my relationship to food was a form of shadow work. Taking an unconscious thought, bringing into light is shadow work.
Finding ways to reconnect with the food on my plate is how I’m connecting to my needs, my inner voice, and my ancestors (especially when I eat the ingredients they ate).
The act of eating is a practice of inviting abundance into my life.
I've been trying my best to pray for my food. Reminding myself that there are several individuals involved in bringing the ingredient to me, like farmers, truck drivers, grocery clerks etc. I like to imagine the person who picked the fruits and vegetables, the person who put them into the packaging, holding them all in prayer.
So let’s go back to the Spice Girls. The song leaves me with a message, one about balance, and discovering the middle ground. What is too much and what is not enough? What questions can I continue asking myself to reconnect with the knowledge in my gut?
Food can truly be used as medicine, as a way to connect with self control, self knowing and will power.
I’m signing off with a few resources that have helped me in connecting with my ancestors through food:
Until next time.
xx
Jakari Wing
venmo: @jakariwing