I really loved our Bread Ceremony this year. It was a little bit chaotic. We can carry a bit of learning from this year forward into future plans. I doubt we’ll do another Bread Ceremony quite like this one, though.

If you weren’t present and you haven’t participated in the service online yet, we fed one another bread. We used forks, so there was very little opportunity to stick our fingers in one another’s mouths. But it was still a vulnerable moment, receiving a bite or two of bread from someone else and lifting a bite or two of bread up to another person.

We can literally do this in other spaces, too. I’m not sure how family would respond to the idea of feeding one another bites of a holiday meal, but it’s certainly possible.

As I mentioned on Sunday, we figuratively do this in every space. We feed the people around us something wherever we go, whoever we’re around. It isn’t always nourishing. And it isn’t always mindful. But we have the opportunity to be conscious and intentional about what we feed the world around us.

The corollary to that is also true: We are fed by every space we inhabit. Wherever we go, whoever is around us, we are taking in something. Sometimes we inhabit toxic spaces, which is to say the emotional environment is feeding us poison. Other spaces are more nutritious to our spirits, though. Our psyches are fed healthy things.

Here’s what I noticed at our Bread Ceremony: A lot of us want to feed someone else first. Then we’re willing to allow someone to feed us. It’s like we have to earn it. I did something nourishing, so I’m now able to receive nourishment.

I accidentally set up this dynamic with the way I modeled our ritual. I only thought later on how completely backward that is. We are worthy of nourishment. We don’t have to earn it. In fact, we’re better at nourishing the world around us when we are well-nourished ourselves.

If I had this particular ritual to do over again, I would set it up with this explicit message in mind. As it is, I can only reflect on it with you after the fact. We will always have opportunities to spiritually nourish the people around us. But that isn’t a prerequisite to our own nourishment.

May you embrace every opportunity to be well nourished by connection with the people around you, connection with the natural world, and connection within yourself. And may that nourishment inspire your ability to provide wholeness and well-being to others.