Taste the Sun by Frank Crocitto

Sometimes I think my youth was misspent in a headlong living-out of the metaphors that I would need in later life to get across my message. So here we go: at the center of a lot of what we did on the streets and in the schoolyards was a pink ball called a spaldeen. Spaldeen, with an accent on the second syllable, was a corruption of the brand name printed on the ball: Spalding. And a fresh, powdery, high-bouncing Spaldeen so lifted our hearts it was as if life, out of its illimitable cornucopia of abundance, was giving us yet another second chance. With that bright ball sailing from hand to hand the day held promise and zest and unforeseen possibilities of glory.

Once we got the ball, usually from Krause's Candy Store, (where Mr. And Mrs. Krause, steeped in an invincible sourness that only genuine kosher pickles know, kept eternal vigilance over their penny candies) the first thing we did was test it. We took turns slamming it down onto the sidewalk to see how high it could bounce. Now that’s my metaphor! The more intimate and intense the ball's contact with the earth was the higher into heaven it would bounce. The sight of it against the baby blue sky of Brooklyn enthralled us. It spoke to us too, some of us in the heart-talk that images speak. Deep and stirring, it mentioned: aspiration, striving from the lower levels to the higher, achievement.

The secret of the Spaldeen’s bounce was the fullness of its contact with the earth. "Come down to earth!" was the way I remember my father putting it, usually when I was hovering around the house in one of my collegiate fantasies.) When we come to earth we make the contact that can send us up to another level. To another medium fertile with new and grander possibilities.

Though we were born to come to earth, floating in the womb-waters, struggling down the canal, at last: gasping in a chilly world—there are influences that try to keep us from a deep, ultimate contact with the Earth. These influences are so persistently pernicious that most of us never arrive. We actually never come to be here. We're never present on the earth, and therefore never make the connection that could propel from this lovely, temporary place to another place, more lovely and more fitting that awaits us.

Graciously, the means for this salutary connection to be made are always spread out before us. Each day, many times a day, food appears on our plates. And we eat. This food we eat, in all its amazing variety, is it not the body of the Earth? But to make that contact with the earth we have to do more than merely feed like animals. We humans are obliged to eat like humans. Our senses must be attuned to what we are doing. Most particularly, our taste buds must be awake to what we are eating, for it is through the portal of taste that we make the most intimate contact with the Earth. All our glorious sciences, all religion, all philosophy amount to nothing if we do not taste our food.

Food and the human act of eating is meant to nourish our whole being-body, mind, and feelings. If we just pop food into our mouths mindlessly-talking, dreaming or even reading when we should be tasting—we treat ourselves like fuel-guzzling machines. But by connecting to our sense of taste, being there as we eat, tasting every morsel as we eat it, we feed our very essence which is the source of all our possibilities.

It is not by accident that food has a taste, nor, that its taste is remembered, moves us to eat that food again, nor that the savor of certain foods lingers on our palate long after the bill has been paid and forgotten. Taste draws us into meaningful contact with the earth. Taste transmits the meaning of food.

From the surface level to the most profound, the way you know about food is by tasting it. Through tasting you know if you want it, if you like it, if it’s good for you, if it’s gone bad, if it’s poison. At a deeper level if the food gets by your palate unnoticed (due to haste, heedlessness or inattention) you’ve missed a crucial moment of knowing. Your palate is your sentry, your watchman, guarding what you are allowing into the most intimate chemistry of your body. Out of this chemical wedding arises the being of tomorrow.

Taste is the contact point that enables the ball to bounce high. By actually being present at the moment of tasting we are not merely exercising our capacity—we are refining it. Within our ordinary taste we are awakening to a higher taste. By tasting we come to realize how mere earthbound foods do not fully satisfy; then a hunger arises in us for a finer food, a food from another level that can lift us up. The food of earth keeps us earthly; it keeps us mortal. The finer food sends us heavenward, making us immortal.

This finer food is all about us, permeating everything on the earth. Shocked into increased presence by our new-found hunger we will find that finer food. Its taste is the taste of the sun.

Frank Crocitto is the founder and director of the Discovery Institute, A school for self-development in the tradition of G.I.Gurdjieff based in New Paltz, New York. For additional information call Esoterica Books at 914-255-5777. n