I woke up with the pungent taste in my mouth. It went right to my head and my heart. Nothing could be compared to it. Wasabi, horseradish, chilli or French mustard did not come anywhere near in intensity. It flooded my whole being, capturing my attention leaving room for nothing. It was sudden, griping and all-consuming. Talk about razor sharp concentration, being pulled into the now, nothing else stood a chance. Compared to a flow state, except that nothing is enjoyed here, it smarts the brain, agitate the heart permeating the whole atmosphere. Absolutely no chance of thinking or considering anything else. All these descriptions still falls short of what the actual experience is like, you have to feel it to feel it, to experience it to know it. You sit in the restaurant with someone and they ask you, ‘what does the food taste like?’ You are wondering, if you truly want to know what the food taste like, get a spoonful in your mouth and you will know, anything I say will be tainted by my own experience of it. When does the sense of hearing take the place of the sense of taste? I get it, the brain can use the words to provoke the memory of taste. But nah! not the same. Taste and you will know.
How do you handle your spice? Some handle it well, others don’t. Most spicy food will calm down on the palate if we can hold it together for a period, there are obviously some quick fire remedies like milk, honey or bread. When life frightens us, we can fight, flee or freeze. These three responses are reactions to the trigger and in most cases we have no other choice but to lean towards one of them. There is a fourth option which is to free ourselves from the effect of the trigger. People that can handle their spices have usually over time exercised their sense to handle and tolerate spice, in so doing freed themselves from the intensity or negative impact of the spice. Fear is the same, the more we exercise ourselves in taking on fearful endeavour, the more we free ourselves from the negative effect of unplanned negative situations. We taste it, but we don’t burn as readily. The magic time is 30mins, feel the burn and endure, tolerate or savour it for that time period. Live the fear and live to see the fear transform to tolerance and that is freedom my friend.
A few years ago I attended Wing Fest in Stratford, quite a fun day, the buzz was infectious, going from stall to stall sampling different flavours of chicken wings. The highlight of the day was the Spice eating competitions, about a dozen people lined up on a stage to put their taste palate to the test. There was nothing typical about the line up. Made up of all kinds of people from young to old, male, female, Caucasian, African, Asian etc they were all their. Some look determined others were unsure. Some had pre competition rituals others just spaced out. Competition about to start, all where seated, bottle of water passed around, some wanted milk, bucket for the inevitable. Though to win, you couldn’t take any water or milk until done. At this stage we all had our money on who we thought will win. How disappointed and surprised we were, the race was definitely not for the fiercest or the fastest. The winner was an underwhelming unassuming looking young man. He held it together, gobbled his hot spicy chicken like it was Dunkin Donunts, he was almost robotic in his manners, his eyes was what gave him away. He was feeling it but just held it together, all around him, people were coughing, weeping with red eyes, spitting, spattering, sputtering, frothing at the mouth, slobbering, throwing up, almost fainting and all manner of drama. He allowed the spice to have it’s perfect work in him and he emerged the winner.
There is a time to flee and there is a time to Taste the fear and still do it, allowing it to have the perfect work in you, that we may be free, wanting nothing.
Beautiful Ivory 