Yes, as soon as I opened my car door, bread pudding crossed my mind’s radar, Butterscotch Habanero Bread Pudding to be exact. Then within steps of walking into the store, I spied Alex my favorite employee whose presence after the parking lot inspiration were the only signs I needed.
A bit of backstory: Alex and I met last winter as I debated which hot sauce would be best for this sweet/hot treat. Alex’s helpfulness merited bread pudding so I delivered some the next day. Alex wasn’t there. He wasn’t there for some time. Had I accidentally poisoned him? Was he hiding in the employee hang out room, if Trader Joe’s offers such, as a means to avoid me, the woman who thought he liked bread pudding. Alex was not from the South so I hoped he had not fallen prey to pretending to like things as Southerners seem prone even when they despise whatever's being offered. We finally happened upon each other. I was glad to see Alex alive and he enthusiastically thanked me.
Back to the present: When I saw Alex recently, just as the kitchen muse had struck, I told him bread pudding was in the works.
Yesterday I cubed three baguettes and over the course of the day, the bread soaked in rich concoction of eggs, heavy cream, milk, butterscotch chips, sugar and yes, hot sauce.
As I stirred, cubed and cooked, I realized the many circles and cycles of sharing involved in this gift of bread pudding.
Here’s what I mean. The first cycle of sharing started with a circle in the shape of a nut. This nut through many seasonal cycles grew into a tree. That tree gave its life so I could receive a newspaper. (Yes, I love trees but I still enjoy holding a newspaper in my hands each morning.) The delivery man shares his energy as he delivers the paper making him part of my daily cycle as I am his. In the local paper last winter, a recipe was shared, a recipe for the above bread pudding served at Nashville’s Sunset Grill.
The hot sauce/butterscotch combo got my attention. So I in turn shared money (shared with me by clients) with the grocery. Cows at Hatcher Dairy and hens from McDonald’s Farms both local were part of the cycle and circle of sharing.
These gifts from Nature combined in a circular bowl soaked for hours before going into an oven made from metals shared by Mother Earth and baked by circulating heat.
Later thanks to the many circles and cycles in my car (wheels, steering wheel and belts for starters) I will deliver bread pudding to Alex and others at Trader Joes and I’ll share this through the internet. 
Most importantly I realized while engaged in this process, that the cycles and circles of nature -sunlight, rain and soil- provided the jump start for my baguettes. Thanks to Nature the grain became the wheat that became the flour that became the bread.
Bread, the Flour of Life, nourishes our bodies.
And even m
ore beautifully, these many connected circles create what Sacred Geometry calls the 
Flower of Life, the basis or recipe of all Creation.
I think of the folks who first made bread pudding 800 years ago, people salvaging stale bread for sustenance, were onto something of great value to us today. Regardless of our state of affairs, economically or otherwise, you can’t feel poor in spirit when you’re sharing good food or sharing in the circles that are part of the economy of the heart, Love.
Recipes are used in feeding our physical bodies, but a greater recipe feeds the spirit in life’s kitchen, the circles and cycles of sharing presence in the connections we make.
We’re surrounded by circles, seen and unseen, circles and cycles of continual sharing, giving and receiving. May we all awaken to the beauty of being fed by the Flower of Life and Creation and in so doing share the flour of life so all people can be fed.
-Dawn! The Good News Muse, 16 December 2010
dawn@imaginetheshift.com
Thank you also to Leslie Blackburn at onespaceconnected.com for introducing me to Sacred Geometry and to Noa for just beginning to tutor me last summer. The compass just wouldn't work on that poster board :) .....
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