Mermaids. Unicorns. Goddesses. Walk into a yoga studio these days and you'll probably spot a few of them.

You may even find yourself swamped in a glittery sea of them, depending on where you are. Self-proclaimed mythical creatures with an incredible yoga practice that makes a beginner want to give up then and there.

Fully grown, fully bendy women, doused in designer mala beads and describing themselves in fairy tale rhetoric. 

I was one of them.

​Sans rhetoric. But the intent to be a rockstar yogi? That glitter-coated ego? That was there all right. 

If meditation were a musical genre I dare say it would be metal and all of its sub genres. Here’s a few reasons why.
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​I love metal music. Mostly good old stuff like Metallica, but also alternative metal, and a little bit of crazy glam metal. I love that it can be dark, gritty, and sinister… or energising and transcendental, depending on which genre and artist you listen to. Its wide spectrum of emotive expression mirrors and brings to light the psychological reality of most human beings.
 
When we meditate, we shine a bright stage light onto this same reality.
 
Meditation is instinctive, natural, and expressive. People slip into meditative states spontaneously whilst watching a sunrise, listening to a brilliant crescendo of riffs and drums at a concert, or lying in bed after lovemaking. Even whilst experiencing a car crash recently, time seemed to slow down and for a brief moment, I was hyper-aware of what was going on.

In many cultures and religions, there is a tradition of offering thanks before eating. We recognise the blessing of having food, acknowledge that other living things die so that we may eat, and that while we eat others go hungry.

Many traditional cultures also eat a much simpler, more natural diet than we do in the west. However there is a tendency for indigenous peoples to be content with what they have, and offering thanks is one way of expressing this.

A respect for food and contentment with what we have, both develop a healthy attitude towards what we eat. Giving thanks and eating simply are ways we can experience greater health and vitality, as well as a deeper connection with the earth from where our food came.

Contentment and simplicity go hand in hand. If we always require complicated, exotic and expensive food items in order to be content, we are missing the point (although these things can be a wonderful celebration on special occasions).

Eating a humble yet delicious diet of fresh, seasonal, and regional foods whenever possible, brings an element of joy and lightness to eating. Such simple eating means stepping away from the Standard Australian Diet (S.A.D) of dense yet nutritionally empty processed foods, unnecessary supplements and complicated “health food” products.

By offering thanks, we recognise the miracle of life that produced our food, the macrocosm in the microcosm, the big in the little. In simplifying our diets, we reduce the environmental costs of production as well as our own intake of preservatives. And by understanding the beauty of simplicity, we can experience true contentment with not only our food, but with our bodies and with the force that created the foods that nourish our bodies and souls.