Variety is the SPICE OF LIFE!

Variety is the Spice of Life.  Spice of Life is actually the name of the restaurant that my 3 siblings and I grew up in.  My family owned and ran a restaurant for 10 years of formitive learning (age 3 - 13).  We truly grew up in it; lived on top of it actually.  Saturday nights we would go to sleep with the floor vibrating underneath us because of the live music in the lounge.  It was an awesome experience.  However, I'll save those stories for another time.  This blog is actually about metaphors and how effective they have been in my learning process.  Because food continues to be  a consistent theme in my creative evolution, I'll be use it as the macro metaphor to explain several themes of Truth that keep surfacing in my life.   

Metaphors work for me.  They totally make sense.  I love how my brain feels when a really complex concept is learned through a really simple metaphor.  Lots of spiritual teachers use metaphors as the ultimate teaching tool.  Jesus Christ sure loved 'em as well as Lao Tzu, Gandhi, The Buddha and more modern day sages such as Eckhart Tolle, Greg Bradden, Caroline Myss, David Bednar, just to name a few of my faves!  Metahors are a powerful teaching tool.  

Even the process of being able to understand the magic of a metaphor is vital for the evolution for our brains.  In order to embrace a metaphor,  our little brains have to open up to this broader perspective.  We have to be able to step out of the patterns of predictability and get "fresh" with a new pattern.  This new pattern helps us see how truly myopic and limited we can be in our thinking patterns, actions and ultimately, our lifestyles. 

Let's use the most universal behavior that we all share-- eating and food preparation.  Is there one cookbook that works for everyone?  Is there one spiritual text that works for everyone?  No.  I don't think so.  I remember when I first started trying to follow directions from cookbooks it was frustrating for me.  Half of the time I wouldn't even have 1/2 of the ingredients but I wanted to try to make some variation of the recipe.  I was too stubborn to bail out on the recipe, so I created my version of it.  More times than not,  the variation was decent enough to be it's own recipe.  (Please note-- this has taken years and ounces of ingredients wasted to have some confidence with this exploration).  I'll never forget the time when my sisters and I tried to make pie crust from scratch without any butter.  Some ingredients can not be substituted.  Similar to life, some rituals and habits can not be substituted. Trial and error is a beautiful part of the process, for sure! ; )   Trial and error helps us  connected deeper to our intuitive tools.  Everytime we call on the tools to determine Truth,  the tools become sharper and more effective. We've got to be open to this trial and error process.  When we confine ourselves to one cookbook or one spiritual text and think that none others will work,  we close ourselves off to a wealth of insights, wisdom and experiences that evolve us closer to our Creator. 

Do you see where we are going here?  Cookbooks are helpful guides and idea givers but being able to experiment will open up the mind and pallate to different experiences that will open up our myopic mindsets to more creativity, joy, and invention!

  Let's sum it up with one of my all time FLAVORITE quotes--

"Necessity is the mother of the invention. 

Invention is the brother of the creation. 

Create daily."