What Gets Baked In?
Since the beginning of this year, I have begun some kitchen experiments - what some might refer to as “baking”. Usually on a weekend, I will raid the pantry and/or fridge to see what ingredients are available to transform from shelf powder to home-baked pastry. There are recipes, general guidelines, and traditional wisdom passed down from current and bygone bakers, but reading about scones and digging into the trenches of butter and flour are two very different experiences.
Baking is a simple and elegant example of emergence. An emergent property is one that an entity displays in its wholeness, that is not present in any of the individual parts that comprise it. For example, butter and flour and sugar by themselves have certain textures and tastes, but none of them can be said to be a biscuit. It is not until they combine with thoughtful ratio and exposure to fire that the alchemy of emergence brings about a new form - one that is more complex than the sum of the parts.
Baking has also reiterated for me how profound a subtle gesture can be. In the kitchen, like in life, things rarely proceed the way the recipe dictates. The ability to adapt to a changing environment is important. Sometimes, a “minor” substitution can yield a major shift in the way the experience unfolds.
Take milk, for instance. For my recent batch of biscuits, I realized there was no milk in the house well after the process was underway. Instead, I substituted Bulgarian yogurt for milk because that was what was available. The baking continued and eventually the golden treats were drawn from the oven. The biscuits were slightly chewier than usual. Not long after the first bite, the eminent critic weighed in. He proceeded to observe that this batch was “not as good. Not like normal.” In other words, these biscuits did not meet an arbitrary and preconceived notion of perfection.
But what about how they browned more evenly and the outer crust was richer? What about the witness who could take a moment to appreciate that I can spend a Sunday morning baking something (anything!) for the sheer pleasure of it? It gave me a chance to reflect on how much I/we miss in the ceaseless quest to judge and criticize instead of simply seeing what is right in front of us. Simple in its truth, yet sometimes rather challenging in practice. This process does not happen in isolation and I enjoy the good fortune to have a partner who encourages me to see this way, who reminds me when I seem to forget, and who patiently supports my adventures in baking.
Another “minor” substitution I have been experimenting with is reframing the question my mind asks about many of the things it considers. The shift from “what if…” to “what is…” may only reflect a single letter substitution in the ingredient phrase, but it yields a much different and much richer Present when it comes out of the oven.
As we enter the heat and the fire of this summer season, I am curious to ask: what is getting baked in? And how does the art and manner of how we bake impact what emerges?
A World Below
In the dark rich earth there is a world that often gets overlooked, trodden down, and covered up.
On an early Spring weekend in Portland, I had the good fortune of fine weather to begin excavating the backyard on a piece of dirt that will make a fine garden. Covered in leaves, weeds, and crab grass, what was once an ordered and tended plot of land had been turned by the hands of time into a neglected space. Nature was reclaiming that which no longer held human attention, and rightly so.
With trowel, spade, shovel, and rake the work of uncovering began. With machines powered by dinosaur remains, edges were drawn and a patch of earth was tilled. Across this not-so-vast territory it is easy to observe small animals - birds, squirrels, an occasional cat, and the lion/fox/bear/sometimes-dog Mack traverse and explore. But unless you dig down, and pay attention to what comes up, you would never see the entrance to the world below. Spiders, slugs, snails, worms, and ants infuse the soil. They create their own highways and byways, establishing an ancient symbiosis with the roots and the plants that grow out of the earth. Harder to see but just as important are the relationships of fungi with the rhizosphere root networks that inform the ecosystem from the ground up.
It is beautifully simple and wonderfully complex at the same time: everything is connected.
Taking account of how much life exists in some handfuls of dirt was a great reminder about how woven the wellbeing of the water, the soil, and the inhabitants of earth are. Spending time with the soil made it clear to me that it is not possible to spray chemicals of any kind, especially those that kill “weeds” without devastating consequences to the entire chain. One telling example worth mentioning is the decline of the western Monarch butterfly, whose population has been estimated to be 99% reduced since the 1980s.
BJ Palmer, the developer of chiropractic, made note of the potential for impact we can have with our thoughts, words, and actions. I intend to use mine well.
“We never know how far-reaching something we may think, say, or do today will effect the lives of millions tomorrow.”
Life as Continuity
What are the things that connect us?
I’m currently contributing to a project aimed to prepare students who are considering chiropractic college. Working on the Philosophy section has given me another opportunity to review the tools and terms, but more importantly, the Big Picture. What is the WHY that informs the practitioner? How does the body work? How does directing focus on promoting and advancing health (instead of prevention and treatment of disease) impact how someone experiences their body and the world?
As one of the things that connect us, language is so important. I used to think of myself as a student of the Anatomy of Wellbeing, until I made the connection that the word “anatomy” (to cut up) itself implies an orientation to separating things into pieces. This can be a useful process and often helps us understand things with more detail. However, without an appreciation for the context of the whole and the recognition that in life things are not separate, the process of reducing can lead to division in mind and heart.
Within the realm of the human body, everything is connected. Traditionally, we have been taught that muscles attach to bones via tendons. We can “dissect” these “pieces” out, see the nerves and blood vessels that feed them, and describe what actions they perform. This is what tradition has passed down - a tradition informed by reductionism. What if we approached the body from the perspective of continuity? There is a seamless continuity within and through the entire body. I mean this literally. There are no seams, stitches, or pins in healthy tissue. The connective tissue of fascia wraps, folds, and weaves together all tissue in the body. The nervous system coordinates and communicates directly or indirectly with all parts of the body. The second a knife - a surgical one or a mental one - is applied it introduces a break in this continuity. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as long as it acknowledges and honors the natural whole state of the body.
How can this sense of continuity inform other aspects of life? If we begin with the perspective that everything is connected - and in some way or another continuous - we realize the tremendous responsibility we have to ourselves, each other and the planet. Nothing and no one exists in isolation. Your wellbeing is my wellbeing. How we treat the environment reflects how we treat our own bodies. We’re in this together. This is the Big Picture.
