- sometime between
- I’ve changed, slowly andÂ
- imperceptible at first
- I was sweet but
- replaced by complex
- aromatics and sharp
- bite of acid
In my apartment, through the living room, on the counter in the kitchen, I have a continuous brew vinegar. It is similar to the kombucha that lives next to it: both are alive; both eat sweet things; both have a silver plastic tap at their base. I do not feed my vinegar sweet/black/tea (when I have it, bags of irish breakfast from trader joe’s — I save the loose/leaf/singe/origin leaves for myself). Instead, I feed it sweet/simmered/ginger or (decoctions of) lavender leaves.
Near my home/around the corner and almost everywhere you walk lavender grows from the sidewalk in abundance. I have three bushes I speak with. We have an understanding: I help to prune what they no longer have use for/help them continue growing=they give me calm, and clarity, and acute focus in the form of leaves stems and (at other times in the year) flowers.
And they always come with a blessing. One we share in our interactions with each other.
What I love about both continuous ferments and working with plants is they teach you about cycles/transformation/patience/observation: when to shower with love; when to leave to develop; when to act with freedom and abandon. This is magic at its most practical and fundamental. This is the lessons of the science of life: when we learn to act in trust with forces outside out control, we can master transformation. We can master the wheel.