Making Pesto: Tuesday's Reflection

I have been making pesto the last couple days. Six batches, but only five made it to the freezer, for we have had pesto and linguini for dinner two nights in a row. Bruce tells me I could fix this every night and he would be satisfied. If that were the case I wouldn't have any left for a below freezing, snowed-in night when we need a reminder of summer harvest time. Nor would I have any to share for a company dinner. 

Something about making pesto brings me closer to the person I was created to be, I think. I don't sew. I don't knit. I don't paint or make furniture. I'm not even much of a baker, although I do enjoy baking cookies or other goodies occasionally. In late summer, however, I make pesto, and I feel creative and calm and contemplative. 

I'm not sure when I first made pesto, but my best memories of doing so date from our days at Sweetwater Farm, where I had a large herb garden, which included a variety of basil plants. Mainly sweet basil, but also globe and Thai and lemon and purple ruffles.  On more than one August morning I filled my gathering basket with basil and then washed it all thoroughly in a large graniteware basin before plucking off the leaves and arranging them on vintage white embroidered dish towels spread on the harvest table. 

On the counter --I had only one, but standing there I could look out the window to the gardens and the fenced meadow where our animals grazed--I assembled all my ingredients and utensils, including a green Depression glass measuring cup for the oils. A pesto-making marathon. How satisfying to see the growing pile of plastic bags full of rich green pesto ready for the freezer. And oh, the aroma--a slightly peppery smell, earthy and pungent and not quite what one would expect in a Midwestern farmhouse. Perhaps I had time travelled to another lifetime in Tuscany. 

Now I only have a few basil plants which Bruce planted in a pot-enough for a mere two batches of pesto, but Sunday I bought four big batches from a farmer who sells produce between services at church.  Only $1.00 a bunch. I intend to buy more next week. 

I no longer have a harvest table and instead of looking out upon our farm vista, I look into a wall of open shelving, but the aroma is the same. The fresh, almost other-wordly taste is the same, and for an hour or so I am free of concerns or plans. I think of times I have lit candles and poured wine and served pesto to friends and family. 

Pesto inspires conversation full of connection and laughter and shared memories. I know there will be more of those. 

Making pesto is a contemplative practice for me, reminding me of the basics. Giving thanks to the earth. Feeding and nurturing others. Doing something that involves my heart and body and not just my mind. Being mindful of the present moment. Finding the sacred, the holy in ordinary acts. 

There are other kitchen moments when I feel this same sense of the Divine--when I bake cherry walnut bread at Christmas time or when I plan the menu for a special gathering or when I prepare a meal for someone recovering from surgery or cancer treatment. Sometimes I am even open and full of gratitude at the most ordinary of times, such as fixing our grandson a ham and cheese sandwich or making a list for yet another trip to the grocery store. 

What a blessed life I have.

An Invitation

Do you experience any contemplative kitchen moments? I would love to know. 

Nancy's Pesto

2 cups fresh basil leaves, washed and dried

6 garlic cloves

1 cup pecan or walnuts

1/2 cup olive oil mixed with 1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1/4 cup grated Romano cheese

Salt and pepper

Combine basil, nuts, and garlic in a food processor and chop coarsely.

With motor running add oils in slow, steady stream.

Shut motor off and add cheeses, and salt and pepper to taste.

Process briefly. 

If you want to freeze, you can either store in freezer bags flat in the freezer or you can spoon into ice cube trays and use the pesto one cube at a time. 

Makes about 2 cups. 

The Empty Becomes Full.

    I attend a class that focuses on the contemplative practice of centering prayer, and the other night one of the facilitators mentioned the concept of kenosis or self-emptying. I remembered first learning about kenosis when I was in training to be a spiritual director. We were encouraged to develop a spiritual practice that would help us renew and be open to what we were created to be.
     
     Relying on God has to begin all over again every day, as if nothing had yet been done. 
C. S. Lewis


     Get thy heart as clear from the world as thou canst. Wholly lay by the thoughts of thy business, troubles, enjoyments, and everything that may take up any room in thy heart. Get it as empty as thou possibly canst, that it may be more capable of being filled with God.
Richard Baxter


     One of the practices I have used to empty myself and therefore, be more open to God is T'ai Chi. As I move through the T'ai Chi choreography, I clear the space, I become present, I smooth the rough edges. I find calm.  When I taught T'ai Chi, I always mentioned kenosis, and students seemed to appreciate the connection between body, mind and spirit.  But not always. 
     Once upon a time I was asked to offer an introduction to T'ai Chi at a woman's retreat. I didn't know the retreat leader well, but she had  attended an earlier event where I taught T'ai Chi. I also didn't know the retreat participants, and I knew very little about the content of the retreat itself. I just did what I always did, confident they would love it, too. When I introduced the move called Clearing the Space, I mentioned kenosis as an act of self-emptying. I talked about having a pitcher of water and if it is filled to the brim, there is room for no more. It is only by emptying that we can refill. Almost immediately I felt a shift in energy. Not everywhere in the room, but still, I sensed some discomfort.  I continued with my instruction, leading the group through the moves, trying to be alert to what might be happening, and soon I saw one woman stride quickly from the room. The retreat leader followed her. I finished my teaching, and all seemed to go well. Many, as I packed up my things to leave as had been planned,   indicated how much they enjoyed the session.  
     Days later the retreat leader called to tell me what had happened. The woman who left the room felt if we emptied ourselves, we left room for the devil to enter our hearts and take up residence. We needed to be ever on the alert and not leave any open space for the devil. I was stunned. Naively, that had never occurred to me. Knowing this perspective has not changed the way I feel about kenosis, but it furthered my awareness of how everything has shadow and light. I was saddened by the woman's fears that seemed to dominate her faith, but I respected her ability to act upon what was real for her. 
      I have continued to incorporate spiritual practices into my life that help me empty in order to know the movement of God in my life, and kenosis as I first understood it has been a staple in my spiritual life. Until this morning when I encountered this passage in the very challenging Awakening the Energies of Love, Discovering Fire for the Second Time by Anne Hillman. http://annehillman.net/


     This silence--'the mind's empty room'--is not the emptiness our intellects define. This emptiness is full. Emptiful. To me the word I coin is resonant with the word beautiful.
     To enter this kind of Kingdom, we shift our attention from the mind's knowing and drop into what seems like emptiness inside. Then, we begin to dance with Life. We ask, What now? and are amazed to discover that the emptiness is full! New possibilities, all kinds of new responses to the situation at hand, arise out of the stillness within us--another way that spiritual practice 'breaks the mind.'  


     The difference is subtle. Instead of thinking about how emptiness leads to change, including fullness,  I contemplate emptiness AS fullness itself. I am not sure yet what that looks like or even feels like, but I am challenged to update, to deepen what I have up till now accepted. And to live it. Hillman continues,


     When, instead of reacting from our gut, we drop in to the silence and ask, we are offered spiritual gifts just waiting to be received: courage, reverence, awe, patience, restraint, gratitude, and more...
     Sometimes this is how I experience it: In the middle of a spat. I 'step back' from wanting to be right, then ask from some place deep in my body. What now? What rises is usually a response that is exactly right for the occasion! I don't think up this response; it is offered. In this situation, what might rise in awareness is forgiveness. If I am feeling stubborn or afraid, the suggestion might be willingness or courage. When I am trapped in judgment, what occurs to me is compassion. All of these responses from the "empty room" are nonviolent; all of them, a softening. And any one of them--if I receive and act on it--returns me to the present moment.


     How much I have yet to incorporate kenosis, the emptying and the fullness, into my life was clear to me this week when I realized how overbearing I had been in a specific situation. I did not pause and  and enter the empty room. Instead of softening, I hardened, judged, and got stuck in my own ego.  I am grateful my apology was accepted, but a real apology means greater devotion to contemplative practices, including centering prayer.  A greater exploration of emptiful.