Wining and Dining

Feeding yourself and others fits into the realm of the mother archetype. The Moon is connected to mothering, nurturing and growing. Cooking is taking care. In preparing food, a loving gesture is made that nourishes others or yourself.

We celebrate with food, often cooking in preparation for a gathering. Anniversaries, birthdays and other special occasions are times to offer your guests food or drink. Having food prepared for us makes us feel good, wanted, cherished, and the energy we receive is much more than the ingredients or the taste.

Some people pride themselves on cooking. In our grandmothers' day, women achieved status through their cooking skills. It was a place they got credit, a realm in which a woman could be powerful and creative. Today, some women (and some men) elevate cooking to the level of an art form.

Cooking is an extension of nurturing, and it involves the senses, the primal associations of how we were fed as children. Think of how smells transport you back to the kitchens in your childhood. Was food given freely or withheld as punishment? Was your mother comfortable with her time in the kitchen? Was she resentful? Were some kitchens cozier than others?

Traditionally, the kitchen was the heart of the house. The place where you cooked evoked warmth -- the hearth, the fire. If you were nurtured through your mother and food, your emotional and physical bodies were both being cared for. During holidays or celebrations, the mother was in charge -- she was on center stage for that time.

Today, women with careers have responsibilities in addition to the family. They don't always have time to cook. Eating out, fast food and quick meals may fill your stomach, but the feeling of being cared for may be shortchanged. If you're in enough of a hurry, you may drive and eat at the same time.

Some women feel guilty about not cooking, which may be a legacy from their mothers or come from cultural associations of what make a "good" wife or mother. Sometimes a partner can make you feel like that, even though on the surface there is acceptance of the multiple demands of modern life.

But we can find satisfaction in small gestures. If we don't have enough time now to cook the way we used to, we can still nourish ourselves and our families. We might brew a cup of tea or coffee, offer a cold drink or a plate of storebought cookies. These are nurturing acts that we can fit into a busy day.

The gesture -- what we give -- nourishes the spirit, the sense of community and belonging. We feel good when we offer and comforted when we are given food or drink.

Drink

The Moon is tied in to food and drink through the ways we've been nurtured (or not) and through the pull of water on the planet.

Milk, the first form of food that gives us everything we need, is something we drink. You give a baby a bottle or a breast at night, and you're giving comfort. Later, hot milk, chocolate or a hot toddy can have the same effect. Something like eggnog is a seasonal offering, a rich drink that's shared around holiday time and may have associations of family tradition that are particularly comforting.

Adults drink coffee and tea and alcohol. Because those drinks are off-limits to children in most families, they become attractive in some deep psychological way. They are untouchable until you grow up.

If they're part of the celebration, drinks don't have to be alcoholic to evoke the feelings associated with a happy time.

Water and the Moon are intertwined. The trendy thing these days is to drink lots of water, keep your body hydrated. So we are paying attention to a very primal tidal part of our bodies.

More on the Moon and the Home:

The Home
Gardening
Recipes
Redecorating and Repairs
Relocating

Recommended Food Links:

Food and Astrology
iVillage Food Channel