Ferment

Mind-body connectedness and practices & Fermentation 101

Dela’s opening reading: 4 Lessons from Fermentation When Life Feels Stuck

Adapted from a post by Jenny Wilson, Inner Alignment Mentor, Sept. 4, 2025

You’re doing everything right. You’re showing up, journaling, meditating, taking action. And it

still feels like nothing is shifting.

You wonder why you’re stuck. Why nothing’s changing. Or maybe, even, if there’s something

the matter with you.

But what if transformation doesn’t always look like forward motion? What if the real magic is

bubbling beneath the surface?

As someone who brews kombucha regularly and loves to ferment veggies, I’ve come to believe that

fermentation is one of the most powerful metaphors for personal growth.

It’s not fast. It’s not sexy. But it works.

Here are four things it teaches about trusting the process—even when nothing seems to be

happening.

1. Growth doesn’t always look like movement

When I make kombucha, I start with sweet tea. I add a SCOBY, a curious-looking starter culture

that looks like a horrendous culinary mistake, cover the jar, and walk away.

For a week or more, it sits in a dark, cozy corner.

From the outside, nothing seems to be happening. No noise, no drama. But beneath the

surface, invisible forces are transforming the contents. Sugars are breaking down. New

organisms are forming. Something’s brewing.

So often, we associate growth with motion: visible results, fast feedback. We want progress we

can measure. But real transformation? It often begins in stillness. In the dark.

Just because you can’t see progress doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.

2. Trust the invisible work

There’s no rushing fermentation.

Just as a gardener doesn’t pull up the seedlings to make sure they’re growing, the fermenter

doesn’t poke and shake the jar. Set the conditions, then let go.

You wait trustingly. You observe.

There’s something magical about that. Even when nothing seems to be happening, something

is. In perfect timing.

3. Learn to bide your time

The word bide (according to etymonline.com) comes from the Proto-Indo-European

root bheidh meaning “to wait trustingly.” Isn’t that beautiful?

Not just waiting but waiting trustingly in the expectation that something good is already on its

way.

I haven’t always found waiting easy. I’m naturally impatient. Stuck in traffic, for instance, I’d

obsess over the distance between where I was and where I wanted to be—home

When we fixate on what’s missing, the gap feels bigger. When we focus on what’s coming,

everything clears.

Now when I set my veggies or kombucha aside to ferment, I don’t fiddle with it. I don’t

overthink. I simply anticipate the delicious rewards.

4. Make space for the fizz

Here’s the thing: Transformation is not always comfortable or pleasant. Or Instagram-able.

When I first encountered the SCOBY, it looked pretty gross. I couldn’t see how this slippery,

alien-like culture was going to transform my sweet tea.

But it did. In fact, it is essential. It holds the key to the whole process.

In our own lives, the catalysts for growth can look like discomfort, uncertainty, even breakdown.

Things dissolve before they come together. You may not recognize yourself for a while.

That’s not failure. That’s fermenting.

A while ago, a health condition turned my life upside down. At that time, it felt like my world

had collapsed around me. Now, with hindsight, I see how it quietly transformed me.

It invited me to stop. To listen. To really hear what my body, my soul, already knew: I didn’t need

fixing. I needed stillness.

The truth is you’re not stuck. You’re not broken. You already hold everything you need within

you.

Wait trustingly for what’s ready to rise.

Della End's Rose, Thorn, Bud, and Peach

Ellen's Fermentation Slides

Della's Recommendations:

Recipe for pickled beets

Wild Fermentation by Sandor Katz

Additional follow-up insight from Dela:

Making homemade yogurt: I haven’t made yogurt in a long while but the easiest way is to use a pre-made culture starter. I used to buy it from New England Cheese Making Supply. It’s a really great company for all home made milk products. However, prior to finding them I made yogurt using grocery store yogurt for starter but that was a long time ago and store yogurt is NOT the same. So to succeed making yogurt if you don’t have cows or goats of your own you need to buy a local and as unprocessed whole milk as you can find. The same for a starter yogurt. It could take some trial and error to find what works. Forget big corporate milk products. They will be over processed. I have made Organic Valley whole milk work for cheese making so it should work for yogurt. Once you have made yogurt successfully you just use your own for starter. 2-4 Tablespoons of yogurt starter per quart. My inclination is more is better than less. Heat milk to 180 only if you want to pasteurize it. I prefer unpasteurized milk. Store bought milk is already pasteurized. The temp you need to make yogurt is milk at between 100-115 degrees to add culture Whisk in the culture. Put the mixture into a clean glass jar and cover. You want to keep the jar at around 110 degrees for 6-12 hours. There are various ways to do that. I would put my jar in a pot of warm water, a bit warmer than 110 (Maybe 125-130ish) since the temp will drop as it sits. And I’d cover the pot with a thick towel. I’d set it in a warm place on or near the stove or by the wood stove. That always worked. I’ve read you can wrap the jar in a towel and place in a warm turned off oven or wrap in a heating pad turned on low. Sometimes you can find a yogurt maker at the thrift store but I preferred the larger jars.
Making fermented beets: Grate them up and squish them down to get enough liquid to cover just like making sauerkraut. If they aren’t quite juicy enough add a little water. Salt taste. This will depend on the quantity of beets. You definitely don’t want it over salty. You can add herbs or spices but plain is fine. Keep the beets submerged just like you would cabbage or any other fermented veggie and tasty periodically for readiness which is the last you like. Then refrigerate. Easy peasy!

Chat Highlights

Fermentation:

Ellen's fermented cauliflowers: I pulse cauliflower, garlic, and a few peppers in the food processor, add about 2 teaspoons of salt for a half gallon jar. smoosh it all down, add a little water to cover if I need to. Let it sit for a week or so.
Other DIY fermented ideas: hot sauce, salsa,
From Ellen on sourdough bread fermented benefits: The research is very contradictory. Some studies show benefits, some don't. It looks like a lot of the products on the markets don't make it through the digestive system. Also - you can't just take a pill. You have to feed those bacteria all the goods fiber and stuff or they don't stick around.

Internet awareness:

I've started to treat interacting with the internet like work and having boundaries about the time I'm connected

In partnership with:

This work is supported by the North Central Extension Risk Management Education Center, project award no. 2024-70027-42470 from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture.