Janet Doroba's Artspan Blog

Ritual for Riches

Years ago when in Belize, I was offered a piece of coconut bread from a local.  It was so delicious, it woke me up immediately.  I asked where he got it and he told me about the local woman who baked it and where she lived.  He advised me to get there early as she only baked a certain amount and it sold quickly.  When I got there the next morning, she was hanging her laundry on a clothesline outside her (truly) ramshackle house.  I didn’t need to ask.  I could see that she was into her task, already on to the next ritual of her day.  I had missed the coconut bread, but watching her, I could feel the intention behind how she hung her laundry.  She seemed to me to be a person who energized everything she did with spirit.

I never met her but I think of her often.  I think of her riches.  She is truly rich.  She lives on a beautiful island.  The term “Third World” is probably not in her consciousness. She puts her heart and soul into her bread and is rewarded with the warm treasure of it’s aroma from the oven and the joy she brings to others who have the good fortune to taste it.  This bread could not come from another source.  A factory could not make this bread and she would never become a “financial success” in worldly terms, with this bread.  It is her experience of making the bread that makes her rich and brings the richness to the bread.  She only bakes so much.  She knows she could sell more but what would be the cost.

When doing laundry, she doesn’t distinguish the laundry as any different than the baking even though she is not doing the laundry for money.  She puts the same energy into it, infusing the experience with richness, like the bread.  I imagine that the events of her days do not vary much.  I imagine ritual after ritual with the last being the blowing out of a candle before she goes to sleep.  I imagine all of these rituals done with full awareness, allowing her spirit to flow freely into everything she does.  She doesn’t have to go anywhere to have the greatest experience life has to offer, pure consciousness, living spirit.