Fostering Community and Fermenting Cultures

Or more accurately, fostering cultures and fermenting communities. Both require simple, wholesome ingredients mixed with care and left to work their magic. With the watchful eye you would give to the weather reports you check it occasionally, test it cautiously and don't believe the forecast until you see it yourself. How do you know when your results are successful? When you've created something beautiful. And as the cliche goes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Last week started with the simple task of entertaining myself and while eating my breakfast so I wouldn't experience the rude shock of rolling out of bed from the weekend right into the work week. Before my first cup of coffee could leave me questioning the lingering remains of the nights dreams I typed the letters "bur" into my search bar and was then left with a quandary. I had to choose a 4th letter to type to take me away to a website that would leave me with inspiration for the day. Good old Google popped up two options for me, www.buresberrypatch.com or www.burningman.com. If your reaction is "hello weird combo you silly hippie" my response would be "here, have some coffee, it tastes fantastic."

Bures Berry Patch represents the growing and gathering of food in our local communities, the connected network of people and friendships we foster through those communities, the beauty of our landscape, and the self reliance of growing and preserving you own food. The essence of Burning Man is the coming together of many different people for the pursuit of building connections, spreading ideas, self expression, reliance on yourself and the community around you, and the giving and receiving inherent to this.

Growing and preserving food takes simple components and mixes them together with care to create something beautiful. A seed with nutrients, water and sunlight will grow into the unfurling leaves of a cabbage plant. That head of cabbage when chopped and mixed with salt in a crock will ferment into a complex blend of sweet, savory, salty, tangy sauerkraut.  Thousands of communities of bacteria enacting a change on the simple pale green leaves in a way you couldn't re-create with any artificial assemblage of ingredients.

Now take thousands of communities of people not afraid of self expression. Feed them with
creativity, open hearts, and the gift of sharing and creating. Now leave them in an arid desert and watch the transformation. Much like a crock of sauerkraut wouldn't you say? A little sweet and savory yet a salty and tangy edge that only comes from life experiences. A person cannot simply be told to be open or to bring happiness to others, they must come to it themselves when provided the environment that fosters that fermentation process. Nothing can be forced to provide the deep beauty that the right elements can create on their own.

Now do you see? I may be a silly hippie but the combination is not weird, it's serendipitous.