Taste
Eating an orange
Have you ever really eaten an orange? I bet a lot of us would confess that we haven’t. We, like most of us in our culture, rush through the daily eating rituals. Our dinner tables have given way to drive-thru windows and become, more or less, self-serve filing stations. We fuel the physical and go. Some of us, even unaware, stuff food into our mouths like a drug. We eat to ease unsettled-pain. We eat without thinking, living unconsciously by the motto, “don’t think just eat.” Suffice it to say that many of us have never really tasted all the magnificence in the simple and often mundane act of eating.
So, let’s take sometime and eat an orange, fully alive and fully present to the moment. Think of an orange, if you have one near, go ahead and grab it. First notice the color from which this fruit derives its name. What does this color say to you? Maybe even think of how the color and the name of the fruit itself, may suggest its subsequent taste to you.
You may meditate on how subjective taste is, how what one loves another abhors. Taste and its being good or bad, seem to be influenced by an array of social and cultural influences and yet remain wildly nuanced to the personal. In fact, taste seems to be one of the most subjective of all the senses. The word itself has become a synonym for personal perspective. You can identify someone as having good or bad taste. Yet even this is subjective, there are probably as many “tastes” as there are people in the world. There are different cultures, different regions, and different families all that influence taste. One’s own taste can even change as you live your life. Which is why I think it is so important to spend time in the moment of eating an orange. This one moment can reveal so much about who you are.
Again, take this moment and focus on the color of the orange. Perhaps, it takes you deep into the playhouse of your mind. What is it that is recalled there? What does the color of the orange suggest? Perhaps the sun or that dress you wore as a little girl. Do you magnify the little orange orb and let it become a basketball in your mind? How amazing to be aware of how connected we are to every random piece of our lives, that an orange can bring us into beautiful nostalgias or other worldly wonders.
As you hold the orange, sense the texture of its outer skin. Notice it’s not entirely smooth and it may have imperfections indicating the earth from which it received life. The skin of the orange is so full of depth, history and life; it protects the heart of what lies beneath it. It has protected the meat of the orange through the seasons, through the rains and from the rays of the sun. It has brought to you the fruit just beneath the surface, prepared and full of life.
Now tear through that skin, slowly taking in the aroma and noticing the way it tears. It gives way to your determined purpose yielding nourishment and an awaking to the senses. Notice how the rind has its own unique aroma. Look closely and be aware of just how the skin tears from the meat of the fruit. Is there a sound that it makes?
And now take a piece of the orange, hold it purposefully between your fingers. Lift the fruit just below your nose and drink in its aroma one more time. Bite into the orange piece, don’t just throw the whole thing into your mouth, bite it, deliberately. Feel the way the flesh tears between your teeth. Let the juices of the orange fill your mouth and continue to chew, slowly, 27 times like your mother used to tell you. How does it taste? Have you ever really thought about just the pure taste before? What memories does the taste invoke? Are they happy, sad, nostalgic, or all of these. In this way, loosing track of time continue to eat the orange, letting the taste steer your thoughts, being fully alive to the moment, present to the experience.
This week I encourage you to practice this exercise at least once a day. Each day find a different taste to be present to. Everyday find a different fruit, meat, dairy, or even candy, and spend some time slowly drinking in all the wonder of the taste. If you are feeling really brave try a taste that you haven’t liked in the past, perhaps this slow eating will change the taste for you, maybe it will make it worse, nonetheless take the time to taste, at least once during each day this week.
“Taste and see that God is good…” - the words of a prophet from the Hebrew Bible.