(Spelt Bread)

I was watching a documentary about a Buddhist monk who travels around the world going to different retreat centers teaching break making. He told of how, when he was ten, he went to visit his aunt. She baked her own bread. He wondered at the time how it was that everyone seemed to buy the horrible white slices of bread when they could have this beautiful homemade stuff.

(Through the cafe door…)

He decided there and then that he was going to learn to make bread and teach over people to do the same. So, after the holiday with his aunt he arrived home to his mother and asked her to teach him how to make bread. But…. she told him she was afraid of yeast and didn’t know how.

Eleven years later when he was twenty-one he went to a Zen retreat center. He worked in the kitchens in payment for his food and board and he saw the chefs making bread. He asked if they would teach him. They were more than delighted because to the chefs it was just another chore and here was this young guy willing to do it for them.

(I hope there’s no fire – Avoca)

He finally uncovered the secret of bread making and the secret included a way of being in the world that nourished him. Thirty years later he’s still baking bread and teaching others about this nourishment. The seeds of our dreams are in our childhood and if they were not nourished then, it is not too late now. The longing to touch the dough or to play the note or to draw the paint filled brush across the canvas is a calling to yourself.

Listen for the call, Mairead