Secrets from My Macrobiotic Kitchen with Julie S. Ong

Eat better. Live better. Love better.

Tag Archives: nature


by

How do I love thee?

A loving heart is the beginning of all knowledge.
~Thomas Carlyle

Do all things with love.
~Og Mandino

Want to find love fast and keep love forever? Because expressions of love and gratitude are so important in a long term relationship, one way to jump start your love life is by reconnecting with Love. Preparing food from your heart is an ideal way to connect with loving energy, so the best time to do this is when you are washing your whole grains. To enhance your connection with Love, remember to open up your heart to joyful experiences.

The process of washing brown rice is an ideal opportunity to harmonize with Nature and revitalize loving energy. The more you cultivate Love, the more you will experience it. The love you add to your food is the secret ingredient to a long lasting, loving relationship.


Learn how to wash brown rice in this video. As you caress the grains of rice, feel love and gratitude for your food. Take a few moments to do these exercises to help you notice a shift in your energy:

  1. What sensations do you notice in your body? Is there tightness in your shoulder muscles? Or are you relaxed and at ease?
  2. What emotions are coming up for you? Are you feeling fearful or anxious? Or do you feel peaceful and loving?
  3. What thoughts are you having? Are you distracted by the past? Or are you focused on the present moment?

Remember, Love attracts Love. So, the more you express love and gratitude, the more your relationship will evolve into a deeper, richer experience, even an exciting eternal love affair.

Healthy Relationship Tip

In some languages, the word love can be expressed in many ways. For example, in Greek, there are many words for different kinds of love:

  • Eros means “passionate, romantic love” with sensuous longing, such as in dating or marriage.
  • Philia means “friendship” between family or friends.
  • Agapē means “love” in reference to general affection, such as for a good meal, one’s offspring, or one’s spouse.
  • Storge means “natural affection” used exclusively for one’s children or family.
  • Thelema means “desire,” such as to be occupied with something.

Love is the universal language that transcends time. So, to find love fast and keep love forever, start by finding how many ways you can say “I love you” to your Beloved.


by 1 Comment

Are you ready to awaken the healer within?

Nothing is more memorable than a smell. One scent can be unexpected, momentary and fleeting, yet conjure up a childhood summer beside a lake in the mountains.
~Diane Ackerman

You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover is yourself.
~Alan Alda

Ah, morning! The fresh smell of dew on the grass and the musky odor that comes out of the earth when the sun comes up! What smells entice you into nature? Cultivating mindful awareness of your sense of smell helps you strengthen your relationship with nature and universal forces. These universal forces are also known as intuition or inner guidance. Your sense of smell is a profound resource you can use to awaken your intuition for healing from the inside out.

Connecting with inner guidance may be new for you. You may have learned to shut your body down, instead of savoring what your body is doing and being guided by it. Mindfully focusing on your sense of smell can help you notice your energy shifting. This process can help you awaken your intuition.

  1. While seated, ground yourself by placing your hands on your abdomen. Scan your body for areas of tension. Tension may appear as tightness in shoulder muscles.
  2. If your body is holding tension, your mind and emotions will reflect this. What emotions are you feeling (for example, sadness, oppression, anxiety)?
  3. What thoughts are you having?

For contrast, smell your favorite herb while you focus on your body, thoughts, and emotions. Finally, do the exercise again, but this time without smelling the herb. What did you notice in your energy as you did the exercise before, during, and after smelling the herb?

Practice awakening your intuition through your sense of smell and notice how your energy shifts. As you begin to listen to your inner guidance, universal energy will flow through you as the natural healing process unfolds.


by

Nourishing the Spirit

This pleasure, appears as poison in the beginning but is like nectar in the end, comes by the grace of Self-knowledge.
~ Bhagavad Gita

Love is the energizing elixir of the universe, the cause and effect of all harmonies.
~Djalal ad-Din Rumi

How would you like to transform ordinary food into healing elixir Ambrosia? Like Greek gods and goddesses, you have the power to transform everyday food into nourishing nectar through the healing power of intention. More than its biological effects on the body, food contains divine essence, your source. A loving, meditative awareness of food, when consciously cultivated, becomes a bridge to Mother Nature, the Divine, the mystery that is life itself.

Spiritually imbued food is food that has been transmuted with loving, healing energy. Your thoughts and state of mind directly influence other living beings, such as soil, plants, and animals. Likewise, you can transfer energy within your own system into your food, changing it from one form to another.

Spiritual ceremonies (chanting, rituals, prayers, cooking) initiate this transformation of energy from one form to another. By viewing food preparation as a sacred ritual, you can use loving intention to improve the quality of food for healing. In his book Messages from Water, Japanese scientist Masuru Emoto had amazing results in his experiments on water. He discovered that water exposed to limiting thoughts deformed crystals, while water exposed to loving thoughts created beautiful crystals. Does this inspire you to set your loving intention before cooking?

Like a divine offering to the gods, food transformed by love provides nourishment for the spirit. So, when you sit down to eat, say a prayer to acknowledge the contribution of all living beings to the food: sun, wind, rain, soil, plants, farmers, animals, friends and family. After all, much love went into transforming your food into Ambrosia!


by

Embracing the Beloved

There comes a time in the seeker’s life when he discovers that he is at once the lover and the beloved.
~Sri Chinmoy

Are you ready to kindle your soul and embrace the sacredness of life on all levels of your being? Any time you spend in the wild is an opportunity to develop an intimate relationship with nature. As you begin to trust the relationship, the healing energy of nature merges with your being, and you become more open to receiving universal energy.

A relationship with nature is no different than a relationship with a person. If you have a lover, then you want to spend time with him or her. The more time you spend together, the closer you two become until, eventually, you begin to trust the relationship. You begin to relax into the arms of your lover, and you move in sync together. Does this sound familiar?

In the beginning, a new relationship is a little scary and exciting all at the same time. Perhaps you are meeting someone for the first time, and you are not sure how to behave. Can you relate to this? Likewise, this same feeling happens when you go out into the wild. In the beginning, it’s very powerful, but it may be a little scary as well. These feelings mean that a powerful potential exists, that something really magical can happen.

As you develop a profound and loving relationship with nature, you will feel more open. Take a moment and lie down in nature, and feel yourself let go. Pay attention to any sense of discomfort and be open to it.

  1. Ground yourself by connecting with your body. Are there any places where you feel tension? Tension may appear as shallow breathing from holding diaphragmatic muscles tight.
  2. If the body is contracted, this is will be reflected in the mind and emotions which are also contracted. What emotions do you have? How do you feel?
  3. What thoughts are you having?

If you trust it and give it time, go back into the wild on a regular basis. Your relationship with nature will open and flower, deepening along with mystery of life. Embracing what you love opens up a profound path of healing from the inside out. So, developing a relationship with nature is really about developing a relationship with yourself.


by

Cultivating Universal Energy

I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station, through which God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in.
~George Washington Carver

Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.
~Kahlil Gibran

Did you know the natural state of your heart when unblocked (no contractions or distractions) is unconditional love? Unconditional love radiates naturally throughout nature and the universe. Cultivating universal energy helps you open up this pathway of giving and receiving. Then unconditional love can shine from your heart naturally; the radiance of the sun mirrors the radiance of the open heart.

Reasons to cultivate universal energy:

  1. Good health
  2. More energy for deeper self-reflection
  3. To realize your unity with nature
  4. To clear away mental and emotional blockages that prevent you from realizing your source

Mother Nature is balanced. By connecting with her, you can rebalance yourself. Walking barefoot on the grass is a fun and easy way to do this. An acupressure point on the bottom of the foot, called Bubbling Well point (K1), is where you kiss the earth, give love, and receive vitality. (An alternative is shoes with leather or cotton soles to make a direct energy connection with Mother Earth.) By allowing your whole foot to embrace the earth, you become a natural conduit for universal energy. Can you feel a thread of energy traveling from the earth, through your body, to Heaven? Your body is where Heaven and Mother Earth join in you.

This flow of energy begins to accelerate throughout your body to open your heart. When you cultivate universal energy, your heart naturally opens in state of unconditional love. As natural radiance of heart begins to manifest, you connect more deeply with the Divine. How open is your heart today?


by 2 Comments

Embracing Nature

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.
~John Muir

Do you have a favorite place to play in nature? Nature provides many places in which you can both play and pray. Tension dissolves as you embrace nature, which is the natural state of oneness with the present moment. By strengthening your awareness of the present moment, you can cultivate a deeper connection to nature. Your senses are the secret to connecting with universal energy for healing in body, mind, and spirit.

In the blog “Walking Meditation,” I spoke about the importance of mindfulness. Mindfulness is the profound ability to perceive present awareness. This is the process of unlearning the habit of focusing on past and future. Instead, you learn to focus on one thing at a time without being overwhelmed by distractions. The more time you spend in present awareness, the more you become aware of subtle distractions. As these distractions drop away, your awareness of the present moment deepens. Bliss, joy, and happiness manifest. These are nature’s gifts that come with cultivation of mindfulness.

Embracing nature in the present moment is how you cultivate your connection with the outer world. Your energy is constantly exchanging with nature and vice versa. For example, nature provides food for your sustenance, and this food is eventually returned to the outer world. Can you see how boundaries are self-imposed?

You can turn around your everyday mindset of separation with nature through your senses. Every sense organ can become a doorway to an experience of natural connection. Close your eyes and take a moment to smell your food. What does this smell remind you of? For example, when I smell sea vegetables, I am immediately connected with the ocean. I imagine the waves crashing on the beach, pelicans gliding over the water, and boats sailing on the horizon. Through my sense of smell, I experience myself as being part of the whole family of life. Can you see how everything experienced through your senses connects you with the outer world?

By cultivating present awareness through your senses, you connect with Mother Earth. This pathway of coming into union with nature connects you to universal energy. The best part is, your meridians (energy pathways) begin to open as blockages are dissolved, bringing organ systems back into balance to create a healthy long life.