Wisdom in a Jar
I bake sourdough bread. This article is about sourdough, but it’s also not about sourdough, because I find nothing is just about one thing. At least that’s how my mind works. I hope you’ll read on.
I decided to revive my sourdough starter a couple of weeks ago. It had hung out in the back of my fridge for probably six months after I had determined I was eating too much bread and if I kept making it, I would keep overindulging. I knew the starter could survive dormant in the refrigerator for a while, so I let it be. But I was missing the joy of baking bread, so I brought it out, began to feed it, and left it out on my counter to wake up.
If you’re unfamiliar with the sourdough process, it’s simple and slow. My sourdough starter began life as a few raisins soaking in water. After a few days, I put the raisins in muffins and mixed a bit of flour into the water. Once some healthy fermentation got going, I had my young starter, bits of which could be used as the leavening agent to mix with more flour, water, and salt to make bread. The only other necessary ingredient is time. Sourdough is gentle and slow. No vigorous stirring and kneading. But a lot of patience.
What does it take to wake up the starter from its cold sleep? Warmth – room temperature is fine. And food – I stir in additional flour and water a couple of times a day for as long as it takes for the starter to produce a good amount of bubbles and double in size. In between times, I just let it hang out quietly on my counter.
When the starter gets happy, I get happy. I even talk to her like the amazing girl she is. Yes, my starter is female. Her name is Flo, which is short for my grandmother’s name. She is almost four years old now. She’s a living thing that’s part of my household. (If you think this makes me weird, I’m okay with that. My sourdough mentor calls her starter Her Royal Highness – I’m in good company.)
Because, as I said, my mind makes connections between all kinds of things, I see lots of parallels between waking up sourdough starter and waking up our creative process and life in general. Here are some:
1. Resting and even dormancy do not mean death. Given the right conditions, our creative juices and productivity, even our enjoyment of life can and probably will revive. Relationships can have seasons of dormancy, too. That’s okay. It doesn’t mean a relationship is dead or needs to end. Yes, sometimes one does end, but sometimes it can be revived, too.
2. Warm-up is necessary. We know this and do it with our muscles if we’re smart. Warming up before working out gets those muscles firing and avoids injury. When I’m cold, I clench up. When I’m warm, I relax, spread out, and move naturally. My mind thaws out, too. Warm up a conversation with good questions, words of appreciation, and common interests. The shared heat of friendship and love warms us to our core.
3. Feed the body, feed the mind. If we want alert brains, we need to feed ourselves nutritious food. We can feed our minds by approaching life with curiosity. Again, ask good questions of others, of yourself, of the world. Dive down topical wormholes and read or listen to podcasts. Feed a relationship – with a partner, a child, a parent, a friend, or a business associate – by spending time together, doing a project, sharing a meal, chatting.
4. Add water. Actual water. Drink it. Go stand in the shower. Get near moving water in nature and listen. See what flows through and bubbles up.
5. And stir. Get up and move, literally. To stir the mind, look at things through someone else’s eyes. Let the ideas swirl. Play with them.
6. When you feel something start to bubble up in you, let it. Nurture it. Follow where it leads. Go there. Bake the bread. Repot the plant you’ve been rooting. Paint. Jot down notes as ideas occur to you. Tell yourself you’re enjoying yourself. Honor what is coming back to life in you, and trust that you are on the way to being more whole, more healthy, and as a result, more creative and more fully present in your personal and professional life.
7. Share this life with others around you. Your community needs you.
So what am I going to do with the bread I bake so I don’t eat too many carbs? Share it, of course. Invite me over for dinner and I’ll bring you a loaf!
