Have you ever held a leaf of lettuce up to the light of your kitchen window while it dripped into the sink after you rinsed it?
Have you ever taken a few moments to examine its ruffles of tissue and intricately woven veins?
The leaf in my hands is a vessel for streaming light and holding water. It has the potential for being so much more than what I plan to do with it.
What can I do? This living thing has caught me in a moment. It’s revealed its true identity. My vision is x-ray. I see what it is to capture light, to be a light being.
The image of an entire tree with roots, trunk, branches, and leaves is imprinted on a piece of lettuce. Held up to the light, it’s like a photographic negative or a blueprint artfully recorded on what will soon be my lunch.
And to think that such beauty, such an intricate network, can nourish, can be broken down and absorbed into another body, sustaining its life, my life.
I will dress my salad in humility and toss it with gratitude. I will ask forgiveness from what I must destroy because I seek to live, because I need to eat.
All I can do is notice. All I can do is open my eyes.
-Radiance Writer
July 26, 2022
Radiance Within 