[This post was originally published on January 13 2025]
It’s January, and this is the time of year that I start thinking a lot about beans.
In the winter, I am usually very aware of how I choose to take care of myself. It becomes a lot more important to nourish myself physically, mentally, spiritually, and creatively. I find that taking care of myself starts, always, with my animal body. I need to take care of my body first. And so I feed myself beans. Not just because of how good they taste when you cook them right, but because of what they represent.
To me, beans represent a few very important things: firstly, they represent protein, literally the building blocks of our physical bodies. Protein helps our bodies repair, keeps our immune systems strong, and regulates our hormones, which influence our emotions and shape our days. Without protein, we don’t have anything.
Secondly, beans stand for intention. Harvested throughout the summer and preserved by drying, they are a beautiful metaphor for foresight—looking ahead to when something will be valuable and making arrangements to ensure we can access it. Once dried, beans can last for years without spoiling. If that isn’t magic, I don’t know what is.
Eating beans, then, is not just an act of nourishing your body with essential nutrients. It’s a way of building a relationship with yourself and your food. It’s also a way of traveling through time. And this is the third thing beans represent: time, and our relationship to it.
Dried beans, preserved at the height of summer, remind us of the cyclical nature of time: what we save in one season sustains us in another.
When we nourish our bodies with intention, we give ourselves the opportunity to participate in the rhythm of the seasons with strength and presence. Time moves as a spiral—a motion that invites us to dance with its cycles.
We eat beans to make ourselves strong for the year that is to come.
Pictured is a simple butter bean broth that I made, with kale, leek, thyme, chicken stock and a splash of apple cider vinegar.