Not too long ago, as I was baking a batch of cupcakes, it dawned on me why I love baking so much. I always thought it was because it was a great indulgence for my perfectionist side; everything has to be correctly measured or it won’t come out right. I’m sure that’s still part of it, but I came across a bigger reason for my deep affection. It is because, to me, it so perfectly embodies the life-death-rebirth cycle. The grain grows, it is harvested, ground into flour, and now I am giving it new life as cupcakes.

                I spent some time meditating on this realization.  I have never dealt well with death.  When, as a child, my dog had to be put to sleep, I cried for months.  In my adult years, the losses of family members sent me reeling.  And when my father died a few years ago, I fell into a deep depression.  Death frightened me.  Perhaps not death itself, but the loss of control;  the fact that everything comfortable and familiar could be snatched away without any notice.  I saw only life and death.  I could not yet see rebirth as a part of this cycle.

                For years after the death of my father, I tried to avoid looking at death in any way, shape, or form.  I did not understand the goddesses of death and rebirth.  But in the past few months, those goddesses have started whispering to me.  Whispering about rebirth, that I may understand the nature of the entire life cycle.  They spoke to me in the only language I can really understand… food.  They whispered that I also carry out their sacred tasks of overseeing life, death, and rebirth, every time I create a new food from something that had once been alive in a different form.

This thought came to me again the other day as I was preparing some fresh fruit to be frozen, so that I can preserve summer’s beautiful flavors all winter long. At first I dismissed it as silly, but quickly realized that the fruit I was slicing was fruit from the earth;  fruit of the Goddess herself.  Why shouldn’t  I consider my task a part of the sacred life-death-rebirth cycle?  Who knows what new life I will give to the mangoes, strawberries, peaches, and bananas.

I find the rebirth aspect of the cycle very exciting.  It’s like the feeling I get when I am standing in the kitchen, raw ingredients at hand, but nothing has been created from them yet.  It’s a time when absolutely anything is possible!  And so I hope it is for my loved ones who have crossed over.  While I mourn the loss of their physical presence in my life, I am exhilarated by the thought that they now have a new blank canvas to work on, and anything and everything is possible for them.  And now when I cook or bake?  I hear the whispers of goddesses and loved ones, saying “take joy in your new creation… take joy in the rebirth”!