Bread of Release

Prep Time:

Follow the directions. Time has brought you here.

Revel in this moment.

Cooking Time:

One hour, or until golden brown.

Preheat the oven to four hundred degrees, when directed.

Grease and flour the pan, to avoid the past clinging to the new you.

Ingredients:     

Four cups grief

One cup guilt

One-half cup anger

Three eggs                                      

Three cups tears                                                    

Two cups milk                                                                                          

Four cups sugar                                                          

One teaspoon salt

One package of dry yeast                                                       

Six cups desire

Directions:

You have been consumed with the spirits of your past, near and far. Your life has changed. A tragedy occurred some time ago, and now the stages of grief have empowered you by allowing you to feel, and think, again. You see that the ingredients are gathered around you and ready to create your recipe for the bread of release.

This is not a recipe you have ever made before and it is not based on previous dishes, already prepared, and served that are long gone and cold with age. The oven will be preheated soon. It aches to ease your despondence and this awakens you to the desire to indulge yourself. Crack open the oven door, ever so slightly, and allow the past to slip out and drift away.

To begin, you will need to place the grief, anger, and guilt into a sifter and shake into a bowl. Now, measure the mixture, precisely, by leveling with a knife, sliding across the rim of your cup, already overflowing. Allow the extra sifted mixture to fall away, as it is unneeded, but will be used later.

Add the eggs. Your life has always been about serving the eggs to everyone else. Now eggs are seen as symbols. Break the eggs you have never taken note of in the past. Tap them gently and hear two champagne glasses that ‘tink’ in a salute filled with the laughter forthcoming. Notice the yellow, the same color of the sunshine you have been missing, and of the new you being fed by the slippery, shiny, whites. You haven’t noticed color, in a long time.

Add sugar, the sweetness you have been denying, then the salt. The very thing you have not allowed yourself to enjoy, because of your belief that you are not permitted to have flavor in your life. Then add baking powder, the gift of lightheartedness that you forgot existed.

Milk, for tenderness. Milk is the one ingredient, most people deny themselves, because of the nearness to childhood and no one who grieves ever feels tenderness in the same way as before. See its softness and remember the creaminess of its love served in a glass or on a warm bowl of oatmeal.

Don’t forget the yeast, the lift you have needed and been waiting for. Sprinkle it into the sugar, milk, tears, and eggs, laying atop the grief, guilt, and anger, feeling the overwhelming desire and conviction that you are worth it. It’s tan granules instantly spread out to consume the sugar and be absorbed by the wet ingredients. All those granules with so many places to go and so much to accomplish.

Pause here to allow yourself to experience how these changes make you feel. You are going on a picnic. You will take this bread of release down a small forest path, and you will lay it atop a red and white checkered blanket. You will open a bottle of champagne and fill one crystal glass.

Now, using your fingers as forks and spoons, begin to stir the ingredients. Feel the dough begin to form. At first the grief becomes sticky and gums up onto your hands, but don’t be discouraged. Add more grief, by sprinkling that remaining pile, slowly, only adding until the dough begins to release from your fingers and starts to become a smooth beautiful piece of art.

This is you! This is the beauty you have overlooked in yourself. Don’t feel guilty for seeing yourself as beautiful, because you are, and always have been. You were too busy making sure the other eggs were perfect.

Feel the warmth of the yeast that has blossomed in you and is consuming the grief. You are creating your new life. Pour the dough out onto the remaining grief and begin to knead. Press the heels of the palms of your hands against it. Gently, at first, then more forcefully, push and stretch the dough of grief. Tenderly allow your hands to press the dough back together into a smooth beautiful you. Then press and stretch and form the dough. Continue this process until all that remains is beauty.

Place this piece of art into a beautiful crystal bowl. Cover yourself with the blanket of love and leave yourself to rest. Yes, you are allowed to close your eyes and rest. In this world of chaos and exhaustion, love yourself enough to sleep. The beauty of the dough and the smell of the yeast bring you home, to the place you have been looking for. You rest and you sleep, without dreams, without worry, without guilt.

When you wake up, you are refreshed. You rush to form your piece of art, more precisely, into the child long gone and the person you have been waiting to see. Now turn on the oven and preheat to the desired temperature. Feel the warmth fill the room.

With one swift blow, punch the dough down. See and feel the release of air. This deflated dough, is about to become the most beautiful, free, and golden child every created. Place the dough into the greased and floured pan you prepared earlier. Place it into the preheated oven. Turn on the oven light so you can see the bread begin to rise and turn a beautiful golden brown. Remove when ready and leave to cool.

You smell the warmth of desire cloaked around you. Wrap your beautiful bread in a towel. Grab your picnic basket. Place the bread, champagne, a red and white blanket, and don’t forget your glass!

“With this champagne, I toast to me. With this bread, I consume my desire to be free! I move on because I choose to, and the past stays behind because I let it”