Fermentation as metaphor.
The words fervor and ferment come from the same latin root: to boil.
A roil, agitation, a seizing of the senses in ecstatic, sensual union.
The words fervor and ferment come from the same latin root: to boil.
A roil, agitation, a seizing of the senses in ecstatic, sensual union.
“The differentiation of my senses, as well as their spontaneous convergence in the world at large, ensures that I am a being destined for relationship: it is primarily through my engagement with what is not me that I effect the integration of my senses, and thereby experience my own unity and coherence.” - David Abram, Spell of the Sensuous
Through our sensing of the exterior, we come to know our interior, our psyche, as it continuously unfolds. Sensing is taking in what the world is giving, as such, a relationship: our relations make us. Our relations with each other, with the rain on our face, the smell of wet soil, fruit ripe on our tongue, wind blowing through the trees, soft light on a naked hip. Our relationship with the invisible but ever present microbiome, that, like the air, serves as a medium that sustains us and through which we experience the world.
“Because food is an extension of their own body, living things recognize their own food; this means they in fact recognize themselves.” - Kinji Imanishi, A Japanese View of Nature
“Because food is an extension of their own body, living things recognize their own food; this means they in fact recognize themselves.” - Kinji Imanishi, A Japanese View of Nature
What is the message of this unifying medium? When so intimate and co-evolved with, is there a line between us and world? Between natural and unnatural? Humans and more-than-humans?
“We don't obtain knowledge by standing outside the world; we know because we are of the world.” - Karen Barad, Agential Realism
Fermentation as creation, procreation, the bubbling excitement, intoxicating sensitivity, ephemeral lightning between fingertips and gut, reciprocal amplification, pressure building to bursting, dissolving into plurality.
“We don't obtain knowledge by standing outside the world; we know because we are of the world.” - Karen Barad, Agential Realism
Fermentation as creation, procreation, the bubbling excitement, intoxicating sensitivity, ephemeral lightning between fingertips and gut, reciprocal amplification, pressure building to bursting, dissolving into plurality.
The invisible chemistry of making love, for it does feel like making something: the sugars within us just waiting for the right conditions to spontaneously combust with someone into sweet liquor.
“If I could kiss you now / Oh I’d kiss you now again and again / I don’t know where I begin / And where you end.” - Moby, Where You End on the album Hotel
Swig the microbes in that bottle, mix them with the ecosystem of your gut, tell me where the micro becomes macro as your head rushes and I’ll show you the relationships that make the world.
“If I could kiss you now / Oh I’d kiss you now again and again / I don’t know where I begin / And where you end.” - Moby, Where You End on the album Hotel
Swig the microbes in that bottle, mix them with the ecosystem of your gut, tell me where the micro becomes macro as your head rushes and I’ll show you the relationships that make the world.
“The skin on each of us, which we think of as the boundary between ourselves and the world beyond, is home to many more microbes than there are humans on Earth, and these microscopic beings, in symbiotic relationships with us as well as one another, spin elaborate biofilms, constantly exchange metabolic by-products as well as genes, and mediate much of our interaction with the world around us.” - Sandor Katz, Fermentation as Metaphor