If They Have Souls, Do I Have a Choice? When the Plate Meets the Prayer
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I was standing in a damp Berlin market last Tuesday, holding a paper bag with something heavy inside, when a former yoga student waved me down. We’d been talking about breathwork and chakras for years, and out of nowhere, they asked me point-blank: “If we’re trying to awaken the divine within, why do we keep killing it to put on our plates?” I didn’t have an answer. I just shifted the bag and mumbled something about cultural tradition. But that question stuck to my ribs.
Teaching vinyasa in this city has made me increasingly uncomfortable with how we’ve sanitized spirituality into branded leggings and studio memberships. We chant ahimsa but rarely apply it to what we eat. I’ve been digging into the roots of practice lately, and this whole animal soul thing isn’t just philosophical fluff to me anymore. It’s applied metaphysics. If consciousness isn’t just a human monopoly, then every meal is a transaction with something that felt, feared, and lived.
I keep thinking about Leon Festinger’s work on cognitive dissonance. We literally split our minds in two to survive the modern world. One half meditates on interconnectedness, the other scrolls past industrial farming ads without blinking. It’s exhausting. I’ve been reading the CosmicCurrents threads here lately, and it’s got me tracking how energy actually moves through a system. When I pull the Hanged Man in my daily draws, it feels less like a card about patience and more like a warning about suspended choices. Last month, I skipped a studio retreat to visit a small farm outside Potsdam. The farmer, a woman with soil under her nails and a quiet way of speaking, showed me how she rotates her pastures and buries her compost with actual gratitude. She didn’t preach. She just handed me a jar of honey and said, “Everything asks for something in return.” That moment cracked open the whole debate for me. It’s not about perfection. It’s about presence. When I finally sit down to eat, I’ve started closing my eyes for three seconds, not to perform, but to acknowledge the weight of the choice. If they have souls, then yes, I have a choice. And that choice isn’t a cage. It’s just another breath in the practice. Has anyone else felt that shift from guilt to gratitude when it comes to food? I’d love to hear how you’re navigating the space between the plate and the prayer.
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