Tending the Fire with Jules Davis
We got to sit down and talk with Jules Blaine Davis, a mother, artist, healer, and chef who is bringing back awareness to our culture’s core values of family, home, and the power of a simple home-cooked meal. Her power lies in the magic of the home, and cultivating a safe space for women to share their own uniquely abundant lives. She shared with us her passions, values, and sparkling sense of humor, and are honored to share them here with you!
Photo by Charley Star
How do you connect to you core values?
BEAUTY! BEAUTY! EVERYWHERE!
beauty and the reflection of beauty connects me to my values. it also supports connection which leads to a feeling of presence or paying attention even if it’s for just a moment inside a warm tea in the palm of my hand, the warm aroma of roasting carrots or sautéing onions, the altar above the kitchen sink or a white peach cut in half on a wood board.
all of these are moments that tend to my values and value my tending. they work together inside a deeper hunger to slow down in the chaos of my messy noisy abundantly blessed authentically human life :)
Photo by Cynthia Perez
What is the importance of cooking and serving food in the home?
this is also a beautiful place to begin the conversation. sometimes it is easier to answer the question with a question. if i were going to do that here, which i am going to! what is the importance of a culture in the home? what is the importance of nourishment in the home?
they are one in the same: home and culture and mother and nourishment. all living together inside our personal and cultural stories of what is looked or felt like to be nourished.
what is a home? how does it feel? what is the rhythm of how we live inside our homes? are they airports? are we in and out or do we stay awhile? more questions for your question. of course, this also depends on where you are in your life and your values.
cooking & serving are deep, full, heavy and light. they are everything and sometimes nothing which is usually alive too for us. cooking tells a story —and how the cooking happened or happens decides where the story lives in the book store: tragedy or fiction or poetry and so on. the way we cook, our desire to cook versus how to cook are also inside the stories of how we serve ourselves and each other. did it cool down yet? we all have a story inside the kitchen and this story usually is the beginning of our whole story.
Tell us a little about your new book wood board love? What does it look like to nourish our lives?
wood board love is a movement, a beauty healer, a love fest, a conversation inside the way we nourish our day to day lives. it is one way to feed how we live, how we mother, how we father, how we take care of ourselves and those we love. it is a BODY conversation. it is food, cut up on a wood board, grounded, simple, beauty available and ready to sate you in the morning, mid day and at night. how we tend to our hunger in this culture is confusing. we ask each other or our kids if they are hungry. then we have to think about it. hunger is not about thinking. it is about feeling. it is about being taken care of. if you really want to nourish someone, don’t ask them if they are hungry. if you just have food out, or better yet cut it up in front of them at the table while you go about your life it doesn’t need to become ‘a thing.’ it is everything. you are nourishing as your connecting and going on with your day to day life. WE ARE ALL HUNGRY ALL THE TIME. this is also important to do for yourself at work or on the computer.
make a wood board so it is there if and when you are hungry. it will be gone as you go about what you need to be doing. what is more important than nourishing your life and getting ahead of your hunger? what is more important than caring for our bodies in a BODY way? the wood board love is a way to take the mic away from the mind so that we can let the body feel LIGHT and FULL.
What does being a Spiritual Gangster mean to you?
A Spiritual Gangster is authentic in her freedom. She is heavy and light at the same time, fearless and fearful inside the same body. she serves with a broken heart full with gratitude. she talks about this heart break. she doesn’t run or hide from it. she believes that others have it too. she is fierce and tender. a spiritual gangster takes really good notes. she cooks up remedies from grief and integrates the wisdom inside her hips, the soles of her feet and she allows it soften her low belly. she shines bright, she leans in, she lets go inside the messy beauty noisy life that she lives.