02/11/2023
A fantastic description of life's trials and triumphs...
Peanut butter. A short story of trauma healing.
There was once a peanut. Whole. Below the ground, attached to the very roots of its home plant. A hard shell around it. Safely encased.
One day it was uprooted. Itās shell ripped off. itās very being put into a cold metal machine whose giant unforgiving arms crushed and pulverized it until it was onlyā¦ mush.
It was confusing and the peanut didnāt know what was going on.
Ultimately it intuitively knew that it would find merger and natural union with the earth again. It did want to nourish the earth with its presence, for, as with all plants, their destiny is to carry the earths nourishment in themselves, share it with all of life, hopefully reproduce, and then ultimately feed and re-join the circle of life. Either by solitary decomposition, or through the digestive portal of a precious being. Either way, they bring more life. It is not their doom, but part of their destiny.
This peanut (now peanut butter) however, unable to even recognize itself now, was then put into a giant glass jar, transported through unknown portals of time and space to a new place. A shelf. Loud. Sad. Empty. Nothing like itās moist earthy soil home and itās natural state. It was left there. Alone. Untouched.
After some time, slowlyā¦ so slowly it didnāt even noticeā¦ it became fractured. Itās oil separated from its peanut essence. Itās spirit felt split in two. It had separated from itself. It felt broken.
The peanut butter was in limbo. It was stuck in an ongoing numbness which seemed like it would never end.
But then one day it was moving again. There was warmth, sound, some sort of life! The jar was opened and it was greeted with some excitement, but also a feeling of irritation. What? Why? Why was this being irritated with it? They said something about itās oil spilling on their hands and the dry and crumbly state of its other self causing their bread to crush and break if they spread itā¦. Oh the peanut butter felt so useless and impossibly sad š¢. It was dejected. Ashamed. It felt like a failure. Finally it was released from its glass prison, only to discover that its fractured self could only cause irritation and suffering to those who it wanted to nourish and merge with š.
But then the human being did something miraculous. Just when the peanut butter thought there was no hope, and it might as well just be put on the shelf to rot foreverā¦ the human seemed to know just what to do.
They stuck a metal device into its fractured self and began to stir it. At first the peanut butter was afraidā¦ last time metal devices were involved, it was plunged into its cold fractured limbo. But it could sense that this time was different. Something good was happening. The device was yielded lovingly by the human who was helping, not hurting. On and on the stirring wentā¦ churningā¦ movingā¦pushingā¦giving inā¦at times it felt like a battle, at times there was a slippery lack of resistance, only to meet hardness again. It felt like it was fighting against itself, which was very difficult. The peanut butter didnāt know what was happening, all it knew was that it felt right and it must not stop! A process had started which must be seen through! At times it seemed that itās state would never change. That it would remain fractured forever. Doomed to an eternity which was somehow too wet, and also too dry. It knew it needed to surrender to the churning knife, the constant movement and battle of the loving kitchen hands, it had to constantly forgive itself for resisting, for itās slippery-ness, for taking as long as it needs to takeā¦ it was working itās very being into somethingā¦ miraculouslyā¦ whole! All at once it realized that the knife was no longer getting stuck, it felt smooth and creamy and deliciously hearty! It felt a joy like it had never known.
It jumped on the ride of its life as the knife spread it thickly over warm moist buttery bread which reminded it of its soil home way back before its journey of transformation. It realized that it could never have known joy like this if it had never been crushed and mashed, fractured, lost hope, and then stirred into new life. Now it found new joy. It had made a new friend, who it would never forget. The beloved human, who knew not to give up, when the peanut butter thought all was lost. Also itās new friend honey, which had once been but drops of nectar from its temporary flower home, but had been transformed into an incredibly sweet and non-perishable form, by the bees who brought life to all of the beings on this earth with the power of their wings. And this beautiful bread, another plant that had gone on its very own journey of transformation, now joined the peanut butter joyously in its journey into the body of the precious creatures they would nourish. Joining the circle of life, as they always knew in their cells, they would do.
It took patience, but their destinies took them places they could never have imagined.
Thank you peanut butter, for reminding us that fracture and separation does not mean the end.
We must keep loving and churning, keep stirring and moving, keep having faith in ourselves as beings of nature, even when we forget. There is joy and fulfillment waiting for us, which we canāt yet imagine. And to never, ever, give up.
This story ends, and begins again, with the best sound known to the beings on this earth, the sound of pleasure and creation, which we all long to spontaneously make, and to hear, āmmmmmmmā.
