Wild Yeast
Last week I started coaxing wild yeast into a little white flour and Dallas city tap water. With a brief article from Taproot Magazine to guide me, I daily tended a mess of something that could be nothing, or not.
Fermentation is a hope project. One part trust and two parts foolish, with a pinch of charm.
After a full week of stirring and whispering welcome, bubbling fermentation raised me a prize of fresh sourdough bread. I used a no-knead method that wove my efforts and the appetites of wild yeast with time to make something of a miracle.
From what I understand, sourdough happens when tiny critters — what we call yeast — predigest flour. Their off-gasses are the leavening in our bread; that’s right, their toots! Combined with heat and time, the bodies of our tiny biotic kin transform raw material into something nourishing, delicious, and whole.
Just how does that make you feel?
To know another, to give your attention to another, is to be transformed. What we give our attention we give the power to change us (though I am not so sure that we are always aware of our choice in the matter; see Jenny Odell for a good discussion).
I am changed, in some definite way, by knowing and being known by the microscopic wildlife living in my kitchen.
This week their thousand bodies near my one body in the kitchen of my home on earth taught me grace (what other lesson is there to learn? “This is my body…”).
In particular, they taught me that I do not have to wait (for knowledge, for next steps, for the end of the pandemic, for dreams to come true, etc.) to engage with the ongoing proliferation of life. WE DO NOT HAVE TO WAIT TO LIVE REAL AND RELATIONAL LIFE. Even in the most transient or liminal moments of life, we can attend to the beings around us — and also receive their gifts.
When we actively and routinely learn to pay attention in these ways, like “a little yeast hidden in several measures of flour” (Matthew 13:33), we will find ourselves always known, never alone, and forever welcomed to participate.
This knowledge is almost too lofty for us, except for the fact that it is our birthright.
It is grace.
You are known and loved, dear one.