For years, I ate salads—until raw foods went off my allowed diet. In America I had steamed asparagus; while in India, I bought red pumpkin and carrots from the open market, and, in the city, up to seven zucchini, when available—eating one a day.
Food shopping in that city this week, I saw a man I knew buying for a friend and debating if "salad" on her list meant cauliflower or cabbage chopped in bags. "Call her," I said. "You need to know exactly what she wants." I got on the phone and learned it was "greens" and told her there weren’t any. "Top shelf," she replied, where I saw clear, shining cellophane around romaine, iceberg, red and green oak leaf, and bronze and green butterhead. Her man took two, as did I—my eyes shining.
I have been experimenting with what I might be able to eat if I used common sense. Reading I could have lettuce four times a week, I gently laid torn pieces in my steamer, lifting them out still shapely but softened, into my bowl, and sighed with the first, fresh forkful.
My realization from the beginning of my spiritual training is, "Experience equates to information, information equates to knowledge, knowledge equates to common sense, and then you have an active knowing."