The Healing Power of Making Sourdough Bread.
How the making of a Loaf of Bread re-connected me to my spirit self.
There’s nothing like sharing a homemade slice of sourdough on a Sunday afternoon.
Along with homesteading, sourdough ‘everything’ has taken the world by storm. So have you ever encountered moments where you felt ‘outside time’ or at least in an inexplicably joyful place during the process of creating a perfect sourdough loaf?
In today’s blog post we will take a look at the how the process of making sourdough bread offers a unique opportunity to slow down, stretch time and reconnect with the most important parts of our lives.
What Does Procrastination Have to do With Bread-making?
I am going to begin with something hard to acknowledge in a public way - I am a procrastinator. I often lack discipline, I go through periods of extreme creativity and productivity and I go through just as many, if not more, periods where (what I deem as) distractions and laziness set in. I have been this way my entire life.
Today, I had a mini-realization, a really special moment that anchored a way of being that I never really acknowledged before. Those periods that I call ‘laziness’ are what led me to the incredible expansion I felt today, all during the making of my first sourdough loaf.
And from this experience, I felt so inspired that I decided to go ‘off topic” and write this blog about what I have experienced for the last 3 days in ‘Sourdough Land’. In doing so, I have freed myself from a blog course that instructed me that I must only ever write about my business and everything I write about must refer back it. Sourdough Land has, instead, brought me back to who I am and how I show up in this world, and it will never fit into the ‘I have to’ box. So Yay for that!
These are the longest lasting tulips I have ever had. Each day was a whole new world with them, talk about stretching and folding time!
Remembering the Journey.
I can’t even remember the last time I had a day that felt like it went on forever. In fact, these days, it’s the opposite, time has been speeding up in ways I can’t even describe.
In the early days of when my husband and I first met, there would be those days that ‘lasted forever’. We often bring it up now and we can only describe the current state as the speeding up of time.
What Happens to us in the Spiritual Realm when Time Stretches?
It’s been so long, I’ve forgotten how incredibly inspiring and healing the experience of ‘time stretching’ is, like the repeated stretching and folding of sourdough during fermentation.
The thing is, sourdough bread takes time. You can’t rush it. And it’s really the perfect metaphor to life. Taking time, letting things marinate, being ‘lazy.’ That’s where the magic happens, the doing of nothing where everything happens. Just like the perfect sourdough loaf.
How Do We Know When to Take the Long Way and Enjoy the Journey.
There’s nothing better than being with those your love, no plan, just contentment in the quiet.
I realized yesterday I had one of those time stretching days, magical, like floating in clouds of inspiration. It’s hard to believe and all because of the power of bread making!
I was pretty loopy and noticed that it had been a day of energetic movement and healing. As I write these words, I am becoming aware that this would never had happened if I hadn’t been in this state of waiting and hanging out and following whims.
Let me say this again (to myself mostly). If I had not allowed this time of brewing expansion, this past weekend would not have had the space to arrive. I now have a surge that will carry into the fall, igniting projects that have been on my mind, giving clarity to how they will all unfold. In the letting go and opening, inspiration arrives in spades.
What is Really Happening During Periods of Supposed Procrastination?
This weekend was 8 months in the making. Last Christmas, my sister had sent as a gift an Emile Henry bread baker. And it has been sitting in the cabinet ever since.
During this past month I’ve done a lot of research on sourdough bread making; I ordered various items I read I would need. I kept delaying and deliberating, feeling like I was missing something.
Then one day last week, the spark ignited. I was feeling especially calm and healthy, the heat and humidity broke to five days of perfect weather and I had five days off from work.
All those elements came together to create a really special time at home. No more thinking about it, I was ready. Home is where the heart is. Literally.
I learned a lot about my own perception of myself while making my first sourdough!
Sourdough Breadmaking as a Metaphor to Living a Joyful Life.
The process of making sourdough has the potential to feel longwinded, and that’s because it is. I had already made the decision to take my time, all day if needed: checking and double checking humid coastal climate variations details :D making notes along the way. I wasn’t rushed and my home felt so peaceful.
I had probably five recipes I pulled from (if you know me, that is not out of the ordinary) 😉 I made lots of notes, simultaneously noticing that I was receiving messages and connection with my intuition.
Are there spirit guides for baking? … it looks like there are! When I finally pulled the finished loaf out of the oven and dumped it out of the baker, I could not believe how perfect it was, how sweet it looked.
My first sourdough loaf, breadmaking is such a wonderful time.
Creating an Opening to Connect with Our Angels and Receive.
I took a few pictures and set the loaf on a rack to cool. I went into a state of reverie and later realized the house felt very similar to the way it does after a Quantum Healing Session or a Sound Bath.
Everything expanded, my consciousness felt open, I was in a state of receiving. I could feel Love everywhere.
It dawned on me that I was in the same state while going through this whole sourdough process as I am leading up to all my quantum healing sessions.
Taking a Healing Training to the Next Level in ‘Regular Life’
This immediately brought me back to my time at the retreat center in Hawaii, where I first became acquainted with and later trained in the power of healing through tea ceremony, painting, farming, herbal remedies and food creation.
I sat on my couch experiencing the connections of my life, over time. The experiences that seemed so separate coming together with really deep messages and integration.
I know I have touched on this before in other areas of my website. There is nothing like the healing power of foods. Except when a person comes together with their heart consciousness and the consciousness of the foods they are creating, bringing even more profound healing, connection and opening. It is one of the most important things I feel exist. The possibilities are endless.
Sunflowers follow the sun all day. They are not in a rush, they turn so slowly, it’s barely noticeable. In Hungarian, they are called Napraforgo, ‘Turning towards the Sun’. Have you ever looked at the center pattern of sunflower seeds?
What Does it Mean to Use Your Intention?
What’s even more interesting to me is that I was doing something complicated or seemingly so, for the first time. And within that, the healing and energy transfer was still there. Perhaps more so, because I wasn’t even thinking about it, it was truly divine inspiration.
Even though I had extensive training in connecting the heavens through my body into the activity at hand, I feel like it was something that was turned on in me by believing in its existence. I received knowledge in the teachings, it came into reality with my believing and doing.
Having Fun and Feeling Joy Shows up in Everything We Do!
What I mean is, anyone that is reading this and feels a connection, can begin to apply this in their own life. You don’t need a Grandmaster to teach you. You believe in it, create your intention and do so with a pure heart.
Aside from energy work, I don’t believe it requires special training. It only needs your love and your intention. This can be applied to most things, although I do feel if it’s something you are connected to or really excited about, then the openings will appear more easily.
I also believe we all come into life with huge gifts and during periods of pure joy and excitement, they can be ‘turned on’ or sparked into life from that pure place.
So I encourage you all to try it out. Take time out to procrastinate, ‘be lazy’, and make magic in your kitchen. Experiment with stretching and folding time, sitting in reverie, making the magical connections, it is so worth it. I know I am changed for the better from this experience and I wish all good things for all of you.
The sun always finds new ways to express itself, by being itself.
I wrote these words a couple of weeks ago and I am posting now after having made my second sourdough loaf today. It’s the same experience, even deeper this time. The peace in our home, it’s like you can reach out touch it, angels and elves everywhere. And the bread… even better than the first one!
Related Blog Post: What is Quantum Healing Hypnosis and How Can it Be Life Changing?