This morning I lifted the lid on my Dutch oven to see the most beautiful loaf of sourdough bread I’ve made yet. The reveal has some drama, and a successful result is something to celebrate. The dough has a life of its own, making each loaf turn out differently.

My relationship with the starter and the process is ongoing, and includes an element of the unknown. But my understanding grows, and the quality of the bread reflects the cumulative learning with every bake.

This grand experiment began in the initial, shocking days when the pandemic overtook us and normal activities ended. In a spirit of grow-your-own self-sufficiency, I wanted to see if I could capture wild yeast from the air and make my own sourdough starter. The ingredients were flour, water, time, and attention.

It took weeks to coax a bubbling starter into being. I fed it, adjusted its diet, and found the place in my kitchen where it was happiest to live. I even gave it time on my porch when the breeze was warm, inviting more yeast to the party.

My first efforts at bread were heavy and dense—less fluffy pillow and more like memory-foam. But I kept at it. Eventually, both the starter and my ability gained strength. I’m still learning, but I’m making progress.

The loaf I made today came out high and round, golden brown, with rustic edges to the scores I slashed just before placing it in the oven. The aroma while it baked was a dark and yeasty bass note, a hint of the underworld of life not visible or commonly met in the daily round.

The leaven for this loaf was literally taken out of the air. Not thin air, but air dense with life, with wild yeast that move through the world all the time. There’s much more than the virus that moves through the spaces between us.

The cultivation of this starter is a flavorful testament to the fact that we live and move and have our being in a field, not a vacuum. The space surrounding us is rich and dense and full of life. It is not an emptiness but a connective medium. It conveys all manner of ways through which creation affects us, and we affect one another.

We are part of a larger world that exists outside our concrete perception. This greater reality reaches us, impinges on us, supports and challenges us, and works with us when we manage the skillful means and awareness to engage. This rich field—call it Energy, the Life Force, God, the Higher Mind—offers leaven for our lives.

There’s no need to procure yeast elsewhere. Everything we need to bring life to the simplest of ingredients—flour, water, salt—is right here.

Susan Christerson Brown