The Briar Philosopher- How many hands

Does it take to bake a cake? An odd question maybe but one I tend to think about every time I set myself to the task of putting one together. Baking is one of my favorite forms of meditation. I know most people think of meditation as sitting still and clearing the mind, deep breathing and relaxation. I do practice that kind too from time to time but one of my favorite ways to meditate is while doing something, often cooking or baking in particular. I let my mind stretch out and think on all the other people and places that are connected to my simple task.

The most recent of these exercises came the last time I set out to make a chocolate cake. It was, in truth, my first attempt to make a from-scratch chocolate cake. I had been a little intimidated at the idea, maybe because chocolate cake is my favorite and I thought surely something that good had to be difficult to produce. But as I stood there, studying the process and ingredients list, my mind once more thought of all the people, all the hands, that were required just for those ingredients to reach my table.

From the hands that cut the sugar cane to those who processed the wheat, the egg producers and dairy farmers, the harvesters of cocoa and vanilla beans, the laborers in the fields and the factory workers who packaged and bagged it all up and the truck drivers and grocery workers who made sure everything was on the shelf to the cashier who rang it all up when I bought it – everyone had a hand in it. Then my own hands put it all together. That’s a lot of hands. That’s a lot of people.

We tend, quite often, to think of ourselves as being isolated and out of touch with the rest of the world but that’s mostly because we don’t really think about all the ways in which we are truly connected to the larger world. It is almost impossible to do anything without someone else having a hand in it. Human beings are truly an interdependent family, whether we think about it that way or not.

As I stood there putting together all the ingredients that go into a chocolate cake I could feel the sun on the wheat fields of North Dakota and the sweat on the brow of those cutting the cane in Brazil. I could hear the sounds of the West African forest where the cocoa is harvested, still by human hands. I could imagine the countryside of Madagascar, where the vanilla beans were grown. The egg producers and dairy farms of the Midwest were on my mind as well. I wondered who the people were and what their lives were like. I wondered about their children and their future and before the cake was out of the oven I felt connected to all those people and all those places. I felt larger, somehow, and less alone.

I felt much more like a member of the human family. I don’t know if any of that made the cake taste any better but it made the baking of it a much more full and meaningful experience.

I often do the same thing while cooking my meals. In the summer I tend to grow a lot of my own vegetables or purchase them from the local farmer’s market so my mind may not wander as far and a lot of the labor may be my own but the connections are still there. None of us live in a vacuum when we think about it. The water that comes from our tap originated elsewhere and many hands were involved in bringing it into our homes. The electricity, the food, our automobiles, our clothing – everything is connected to other people and places all over the world. To be mindful of that is an exercise in connection and an exercise in humanity.

Maybe the next time you’re out doing something, or even while you sit there reading this in the newspaper or online, you can give a little thought to how many hands it takes to make our lives what they are. You may feel less alone. You may feel more connected. You may even feel the empathy and compassion within you for all those other hands and all those other souls grow a bit. We are all connected. We are all related and, in a very real way, we all have a hand in one another’s lives.