Day 57n: The Pistachio Rule … (06/10/2019)
There were several fundamental guidelines (a.k.a. “rules”*) to which I adhered during the entirety of my Walk — using no money, carrying no tent, and having no personal ID being among them. That having been said, there were several other more minor “rules” that came to being along the way, and one of these was The Pistachio Rule …
You see, I had realized from the earliest days of The Walk that one of the most powerful lessons it offered others was the Truth that our greatest Joy only comes when we give to others without desiring anything at all in return. This is why I neither carried nor accepted nor used any money for the entire Walk, and this is also why I chose to neither “hoard” nor even carry with me any of the foodstuffs I received from strangers. In essence, as a rule I would eat whatever vegan sustenance was offered me (and never so much that I became completely stuffed) and then leave the rest behind; always walking onward with the very same “nothing” I had been carrying before those gifts had been made … 😉
One day — much earlier in The Walk, after receiving some food from a kind stranger (a portion of which being a bag of pistachios; hence the rule’s name), I wanted to walk on and yet was not yet finished eating. And so I adopted The Pistachio Rule — which essentially stated that it was OK for me to take a small portion of given food with me while I walked, as long as I ate the same while walking away from the place where it had been given … 🙂
On this particular afternoon in Bonnefon, I had been quite a bit of “food for the road” from my benefactors, food that I knew I couldn’t fully eat on site and food I knew I wasn’t allowed to store or carry. As such, quite a bit of it was left by the side of the road as I walked away (reverently offered as humble gifts to my many non-human Friends nearby), and yet one particular portion thereof was more than worthy of The Pistachio Rule — namely, the fresh bread and vegan dark chocolate that made for quite the delicious “poor man’s choco-croissant” as I sauntered along my way … 😀
“Gratitude isn’t a tool we use to manipulate the Universe or persuade God. Rather, gratitude is a joyful state of mind coupled with a generous way of living — a state of mind that knows life itself (regardless of calling or circumstance) to be the greatest of gifts, and a way of living that knows our time here on Earth is to be spent in the service of others, not of ourselves.” ~ inspired by Melody Beattie
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