I Ate a Tomato…

…and let the universe fill me up.

This spring I built a couple of planter boxes in our backyard, one for flowers and one for vegetables. It took an entire day and 60 bags of topsoil which I carried two-at-a-time from my truck. It was exhausting to say the least, but watching my wife plant flowers and veggies in the dark that night so the job would be finished was exhilarating, so it all evened out.

Then I ate one of the dozens of tomatoes we grew in a Moroccan mint and tomato salad, and the complete cycle hit me. I built the boxes, carried the soil, spread it out, my wife planted the plants, then over the summer we nurtured the plants and when it was time we feasted on what they gave us in return. Being part of the cycle was a completely human experience, and it was fabulous.

Then some things I learned from reading Buddhist master Thich Nhat Hanh came at me even harder. Those tomatoes were not just the result of the work we did to grow them, they weren’t really tomatoes at all. They were the result of the entire universe, in essence they were the universe. Directly, they were manifestations of the sun, the rain, and the soil. But they were also manifestations of everything that brought my wife and I to the place and time we were in, and all that had gone before. They were the results of pollinators, supernatural powers we can’t see, hard work and time. Not just the summer they came to us in, but all of the time that ever existed. A simple thing like a tomato, something we take for granted and often let rot on the counter because we’re too busy to use them, is not just a tomato. It’s the culmination of everything we see and feel around us, and everything the cosmos has put into place. They also nourish us to carry all of that forward.

That Moroccan mint and tomato salad was a pretty big deal.     

A Long Walk Home is about being connection. We are all a part of everything. Sometimes for the worse, but eventually always for the better. The next time you’re feeling a little disconnected from yourself, your people or your world, think about the awesome series of events that led to the last tomato you ate and then think of yourself.