It was while I was growing my microbial leather that I figured it out. Alchemically my life is about fermentation right now. Everything I read or hear that I don't like makes me feel like my face is making the same face I feel when I smell fermenting material. Slightly sour. I had just gotten some books from the library on bread-making, having made poolish starter bread for a few years now and wanting to get into levain, and suddenly my neighborhood blog announces there is a new backyard bakery opening just one street over from my house, specialzing in levain breads and offering a bread share program where they deliver to your house once a week. Then I had a conversation with someone and something they said made me feel my fermentation smell face and inside I had the "a-ha!" moment.
"Take oil of olive, honey, rectified spirit of wine, of each a pint. Distill them all together in ashes. Then separate all the phlegm from the oils which will be distinguished by many colors. Put all these colors into a pelican, and add to them the third part of the essence of balm and sallendine, and digest them for the space of a month. Then keep it for use. The liquor is so subtle that it penetrates everything."
- "Elixir Substilitatis" from ALCHEMY RISING: THE GREEN BOOK, Scarlet Imprint, 2015.
So I've got some rough sheets of microbial leather drying. One is very thick and one very thin. It was a nice experiment but it's clear the time to master the growing would be longer than I wish for general use. Moving on to levain and continuing to explore fermentation will be more useful overall. I'm going to try one of the bread shares for four weeks, where I will get a loaf of bread per week. I need to observe my desire/consumption at that rate and volume, and see what this baker's bread is like. I also need to read up on seed cultures and mother cultures and watch the thrift stores for containers and a few tools.
It's not just doing fermentation, it's acting like fermentation. I have to go a little slower than I might prefer. I have to watch how things develop more. I have to trust that smelling bad psychically can be a sign of either bad or good, and I have to pay attention to tell the difference. I have some person work that is forming, a series of three rituals, and as they came into being and went from one ritual to three, I realized that was a fermentation too. That work is in the fall and winter. My pendulum and working with alchemical timings led to specific dates and influences, and it's clear I have to ferment before and between those works, like how dough is folded and proofed while developing.
Talking with a friend about sweetening work led to a discussion of how I'm always just a bit off the usual, and that led to "what if the flavor I've been looking for all this time isn't sweet?" More reading and meditating and it's clear that where most people might do sweetening work magickally, the flavor that is more appropriate to the feelings I want is umami. All the fermented foods are in that grouping. Just like my tiny house has to be designed for how I am going to use it, I have to take the time to find the strange, liminal counterparts to everything I do in my magick too.