This blog’s name Munching on a Dream has been with me for over six years and I keep wondering if it isn’t a bit too weird to use. Back then it came to me in a hunch, as a gift from the universe or something, and I accepted it with both arms. Over time I found many reasons to love it. Because the name is still a bit cryptic, I can imagine that not everybody automatically sees the same things in it as I do. Therefore, I now finally have written a blog post explaining it all! And I have to say that after writing it, I think the name Munching on a Dream is pretty rad.
So here we go, on a magical journey through five ways to interpret this fabulous blog name Munching on a Dream, and at the same time we’ll pass through the core themes of this blog.
1. Munching on the vegan food
The first and most obvious explanation is about this blog starting out as a ‘vegan food inspiration’ blog on which I posted what I thought of were inspiring vegan foods. I just went vegan and I was very enthusiastic to share about it. And what do you do with food? You munch on it! So the name Munching on a Dream is a reference to choosing to have vegan, possibly local and organic, food and thereby changing the world.
I still think that with choosing food that has a relatively low impact on the planet, like plant-based foods, you can already make a big difference in the world. I mean, it’s probably the easiest thing you can do to reduce your (carbon, water, land use, animal suffering) impact! And it’s fun too, because vegan food can be as delicious as non-vegan food. I’d say it’s much better even, but of course I’m just one woman (of many!), and I you got to judge for yourself.
Choosing plant-based food is probably the easiest thing you can do to (drastically) reduce your impact.
Most of the older food posts I did remove though, because now many years later, there is so many vegan food inspiration to be found anywhere that I think mine don’t add so much anymore. I never committed to doing the food blog thing, so instead I phased it out. However, occasionally it will pop up again. It is still something that I do, eating. 🙂
The food posts that are still present can be found here under the Food category. I just remembered that earlier I also had my own vegan food gallery on the blog, which I thought was pretty nice. If I feel the inspiration and have collected enough pictures to put into it, I may cook up something like that again. It’s on the list of possible projects.
Moreover, earlier when I first declared that this blog is not a food blog I added that it’s more of a spiritual growth & support blog‘, with some sustainability too, which is also a spiritual problem if you ask me. Sustainability in itself is a big topic for me, but is goes together with becoming more conscious of the impacts that our choices have. Which brings me to the next point.
2. Vision inspired actions
More than just food, Munching on a Dream is about activism: about having a Dream or vision for the world to move towards, about making small and big decisions in your life that change the world for the better. Because every action that you take, even every thought you have, changes the world. Everything we do has a ripple effect. So if you want to, you can easily be an activist. You just gotta use your heart and your discernment.
I do also believe that we need more of a clear vision for the future. At least here in the Netherlands it seems to me that we’re pretty much lacking a long-term vision of what a sustainable and ethical society of the future can look like, and of what we would want it to look like. If we had a clearer vision, it would be much easier to actually take steps in that direction. We would be able to see what we’re doing it for, what we are creating! So that’s something we can work on too, creating these visions, and I’d be happy to contribute to that.
If we had a clearer vision of what a sustainable and ethical society of the future can look like, it would be much easier to actually take steps in that direction.
Simply put, if you do have a vision or some sustainability ‘guidelines’ that you live by, you can just follow or use those in your decision-making and in that way have an impact that actually brings this vision into reality. I would also say that is a form of activism.
Do I make it sound too easy now? Don’t worry, this really is an activism blog (in that broad sense of the word), so I got you covered! It comes back in about every blog post in one way or another, I make sure of that. For example, you can easily be an influencer – you already are! You influence with spending money on ethical vs. non-ethical stores & through discerning whether you want to buy new or throw something old ‘away’ at all.
Go here for all my articles about sustainable living and minimalism. But as said, activism and sustainable choices inform most of my pieces, also the ones that are to be found in other categories.
3. Contemplation & being present
This one used to fit me best because I’m quite a thinker: contemplation, looking thoughtfully at something, considering and becoming more wise. For me Munching on a Dream stands for this, for taking observations or bits of information from your life and to contemplate, so to be able to put them into perspective, to see how these observations are part of the whole. All the while staring in front of you and chewing or munching on some straw, like a cow, sheep or llama (got to love the animals!).
The Munching is of course the contemplation; the Dream may be the gems, the observations, that you take from your life, or the insights that you leave with in the end of the process. It can be whatever you want it to be, or whatever it naturally turns out to be. Come to think of it, contemplation can also contribute to shaping this vision that we talked about earlier.
In my reality contemplation and spiritual development can go together.
Moreover, I believe that contemplation and spiritual growth do go together. I mention this because in my experience in the kundalini yoga culture (and probably others too) the intellect and everything of the mind were quite easily disregarded as not important or trustworthy, and really as a sign of you not trusting ‘the teachings’ or ‘the universe’ enough. Being critical was portrayed as a blockage that you needed to ‘transform’, something standing in your way to ultimate bliss, something to let go off. While in my current reality using your brain to be observant, critical or discerning is quite a smart thing to do. And it can go great together with becoming more present in the moment too!
In writing this piece, I accidentally started writing a whole other blog post about how these things can go together well. I’ll save the elaborate piece for later, so I can take up more space for it. I’ll come back to that when time is ripe. (I never know beforehand! Though, you can influence my flow through encouragement and inquiries.)
Most of my contemplation articles end up in the Inner growth category on the blog, at least when they are about that personal and spiritual development we were talking about. When I contemplate other things, they can end up elsewhere, mostly in the Other category, even though most of my blog posts have some contemplation in it.
4. Mulching in ecological gardening
I am so happy that I found this gem: Mulching on a Dream. You see, my partner and me have a veggie garden and it’s one of the most lovely places that I know. We do a lot of mulching there: leaving plant materials on the land as mulch so that the nutrients are preserved, the ground doesn’t dry out and the weeds don’t grow as much because they are deprived of sunlight. So mulching is a pretty cool practice that should be used more in our food systems to make them more sustainable.
I’ll take this opportunity to mention that I’m also part biologist. I’m saying ‘part’ because I kinda moved on to focusing more on environmental systems and societal systems instead of on natural systems per se. But of course everything is connected just as in nature and its ecosystems, so the nature logic is still present in me, as is the care for our planet.
This alternative name Mulching on a Dream reminds me of the earth, of nature, of being connected to nature and taking care of it too.
For me this alternative name Mulching on a Dream reminds me of the earth, of nature, of being connected to nature and taking care of it too. So yes I’m keeping it. 😉 Check out the Mulching on a Dream tag page here for all my garden related posts. Thus far I mostly posted pictures of our harvest, not of the garden itself. I’ll remind myself to post something else too this garden season!
5. Pleasure
Last but not least: Pleasure! I gotta say that this is quite new to me, to be able to use this word without shame and to even write it down like this. To proclaim it even. What if Munching on a Dream is about pleasure? Even though Munching is usually done with teeth, what if it could also be nibbling, licking, tasting… And I’m not just talking food. I’m talking all the senses, all sensuality, all the pleasure, and, there you have it: Sexuality! With a big S. We are here to enjoy life, so let’s allow ourselves to do so!
As you are probably well aware of, we didn’t grow up in a culture that encouraged us to explore our sensuality and sexuality, not as girls and women at least. We were implicitly and explicitly being told to shut it all down, to never look at it again. It saddens me enormously to even write it down like this, there is so much in those two sentences.
There is so much to dissolve and transform so to give more space to our (sexual) energy and our desires.
The good news is that there is so much to dissolve and transform so to give space to our (sexual) energy and our desires! So that is something I am committed to, even if it’s just a slow and gradual process for me.
This topic hasn’t gotten much attention yet here on the blog. I did already write about things that can be standing in the way of experiencing pleasure, like insecurities and body image. Starting there may be a natural first step.
Related themes I’m interested in are (and these are all categories on the blog): relationships/relating (which naturally has to do with those insecurities and how you handle them!), the body and how we relate to that one (including the clothes we wear), and reclaiming being a woman.
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One other thing I’m pretty interested in are the workings of social media and online business, which is a huge theme too, since everyone can post everything on there. It’s so interconnected, it’s crazy (interesting).
So here’s a bonus interpretation of Munching on a Dream: The Dream is the ‘ideal’ image that is all too often portrayed in online business and marketing coaching, of you living your ideal life as a business owner. The Munching is the work of these ‘coaches’ and others businesses that has the purpose of you purchasing there products and services, so they’re actually eating away at you. Too grim? It could also be your own hard work as a business owner to get to that dream scenario. Better? (Read my analysis about this online business and marketing coaching phenomenon here.)
Okay, one more: The Dream can also be the big promises of social media, or being connected with your friends at all times and to never be alone, while these platforms are eating (Munching!) away at you too, all your juices. They’re like parasites.
That’s a blog
This name is so multi-interpretable, I could go on for days. But I won’t, because by now we’ve covered the core themes and approaches of this blog! Most of these are very tightly linked to personal or spiritual development and/or sustainability. Those are my true core themes really, they inform about everything that I do and write about.
So that’s it! A journey through my blog and my interests. What’s in a name, right? It’s pretty impressive, this one. 😉
If you have any thoughts to share here, if something struck something in you, let me know in a comment! Let this be a conversation about important and valuable things that we want to be alive in the world. Or: if you know a funny or serious blog name that you like to share, please do! And as always: thanks for reading!
Photo of person walking by Sinitta Leunen via Unsplash. Garden photo by me.
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