(Note: originally posted November 2014)
By Roger Mock
I recently re-read these words from Don Miguel Ruiz’s book The Mastery of Love:
“Your heart is a magical kitchen. Open your heart. Open your magical kitchen and refuse to walk around the world begging for love. In your heart is all the love you need. Your heart can create any amount of love, not just for yourself, but for the whole world. You can give your love with no conditions; You can be generous with your love because you have a magical kitchen in your heart.”
Isn’t the magical kitchen a wonderful image? Just say the words “My heart is a magical kitchen” to yourself a couple times and you can feel your consciousness start to shift. If you believe those words even a little it’s like you hear the tumblers turning in the lock, like you’ve begun to crack the code.
And what’s in that safe? It’s the really good stuff and it’s not someone else’s treasure you’re trying to steal like a burglar. No, it’s all yours. It’s your birth-right. “It’s the Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom,” said Jesus. But like the guy in the parable we dug a hole and buried it to keep it “safe”. We kept it under lock and key because we thought we could lose it.
Speaking of magic, it’s like that Malvina Reynolds song, The Magic Penny. “Love is something if you give it away, you end up having more. …it’s a treasure and you’ll never lose it unless you lock up your door.” Once you get that safe open and the loot out of there all heaven could break loose, because that treasure isn’t a treasure until it’s shared, of course.
Okay, let’s get back to the kitchen. It’s a yummier metaphor. It’s the loaves and fishes, right? And of course, the message of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes is not that we have to find a guy who can perform the magic trick or we’re all gonna starve. No, it’s that all we need is already there within each one of us and when we trust that and begin to share it, we can expect an amazing feast with plenty left over to share with the local food bank.
Don Miguel says, “Selfishness comes from poverty in the heart, from the belief that love is not abundant. But when we know that our heart is a magical kitchen, we are always generous, and our love is completely unconditional.”
Have fun exploring your magical kitchen this week. Cook up something amazing!