I keep a yoga mat in my kitchen.  I keep it at the foot of the sink and dishwasher space.  It was one that I never enjoyed using in class because it never stood still during my poses.  It would always slide and so would I, making it an arduous task to be calm during a class, (probably just the practice I needed at the time though).  The mat is orange with some mandala-like print on one of its sides.  I think my mom bought it years ago at a Barnes and Noble.  (We have commercial bookstores that sell yoga mats these days, nice.)

What was once the agitation of my beginner yoga classes now gathers food crumbs and footprints.  However, recently, it has become a place of serenity for me.  As shared before, I have become a vegan chef for a family of Mexican artists who are living in Dunwoody, and so, I spend a good 8 hours a week standing on that mat chopping, peeling, stirring and thinking.  It is calming and centering and, recently, it has been reminding me to find peacefulness as I prepare meals for them.  

The energy we bring forth when preparing our food is, in my mind, pertinent to its quality and its nurturing principles.  It fascinates me that every day, we indulge on foods prepared and grown by people all the way across the world.  We no longer know who makes what we consume.  Sometimes, it comes in boxes or cans or wrappers.  We have lost communal connection, yet we have gained global trust and interaction.  The good and the bad, the bad and the good, it is all present in everything, for certain.  Clearly, I could go in many directions with the above scripts, but I choose to come back to the orange, kitchen yoga mat and what it has taught me.

The yoga mat though.  It reminds me that everything is practice and everything is art.  I find myself taking a break to do handstands, headstands, child's pose (yes, on the crumb-ridden turf), and focusing on my breathing and the direction of my thoughts. Is my heart open?  Am I carrying the residue of my day over into their food, or have I found a spot of peace?  What an honor it is to prepare these organic, vegan, whole food meals for a family who partakes in mindful consumption, I think to myself.  How do I reflect that honor into what I prepare?  I find a place of quiet gratitude.  What has unintentionally led me to make this a practice and tradition?  That orange yoga mat that kneels at my feet, placed on the kitchen floor for decoration, and which was once the bane of my yogic existence.  Is it not funny how everything changes?  Everything teaches.  Everything can be learned from.  "It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see," said Henry David Thoreau.  I now see a kitchen mat that means mindfulness.