Playing with Fire

Playing with fire is a preliminary obsession. You have to want to heat it up, which isn't necessarily the same, say, as cooking your food. I mean to be both metaphorical as well as literal. One can eat it raw or cook it - or then one can just heat it up: move the molecules around a little, pave the way, digestively speaking. The ancient teachings of Ayurveda acknowledge the power of food as medicine (as did old Hippocrates). You know the Hindus have this amazingly rich pantheon of Gods and Goddesses, right? So Agni is the God of fire. Agni is also the fire in the belly, the digestive fire. It's hot in there when everything's going right, ya? We have all this acid he produces to break down the raw roots and berries. Heating and cooking our food are other ways to pre-digest our food, make it good and ready so we can better assimilate the natural goodness, the nutrient goodies that are the components of our vegetable victuals. I encourage you to feed the God Agni with ginger, a spice that adds heat to our foods, both raw and cooked, and is known as a digestive aid. I am not herein advocating any one way of fixing food for maximum nourishment, though I am a fan of the infinite varieties given us to feed the gods and goddesses, within. Animal flesh is sacred to me, as is the verdure kingdom. And raw as holy as the 4 elements of life itself: air, water, earth and fire. However, when we lose touch with these sacred four we lose our ability to properly digest and assimilate what we consume. Yet consumers are we. And a society sick with a weak digestive fire. Do not mistake the heat of anger for this God, anger robs fire from the gut or inflames with its incense...