Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Pagan
The Corner Crone: Lammas and the Wisdom of Pizza Dough

The Corner Crone: Lammas and the Wisdom of Pizza Dough

Last updated on: July 30, 2020 at 6:58 pm by Martha Kirby Capo

The Corner Crone: Lammas and the Wisdom of Pizza Dough 2020-07-30T18:58:29+00:00 Martha Kirby Capo

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

There’s a witchy/pagan meme that sometimes makes the rounds:

You: Being a witch must be so ethereal and dangerous. I imagine you walking through the woods, naked, after sunset, eating only the dew off the ferns. Exquisite. Divine. Otherworldly.

Me: There’s literally a bread holiday, Susan.

Many of us are up to our elbows in flour in these days. Image by jackmac34 via Pixabay.

Many of us are up to our elbows in flour in these days leading up to Lammas, thinking about how our celebrations might embody themes of harvest. I’m no different, but today I want to examine bread—in this case, pizza dough—as a metaphor for the process of spiritual awakening.

If you make a yeasted bread of any sort, you already know there’s some real work that goes into kneading. I’m not going to head in the direction of human physical labor; instead, I want to look at what the mass of dough is enduring on its way to becoming a pizza crust.

The recipe I use involves a stand mixer and, after directing the baker to hand-mix the ingredients into a rough dough, the recipe instructs “using the paddle attachment, mix on low speed for 1 minute. Increase the speed to high and beat for 4 to 6 minutes, until it becomes a vaguely menacing mass.” You can see the Very Artistique Video I made of that process, below.

https://wp-media.patheos.com/blogs/sites/124/2020/07/pizzamixer.mp4

I think of words like “paddle” and “beat” (and another word later on in the recipe, “scrape”). Mixing this dough at high speed for 5 minutes—stand mixer gears screaming and bowl rocking and trembling and clanking under the onslaught of the paddle blurring through a sticky wet mass—well, that dough is beat to hell and back before it gets a chance to rest.

And isn’t that what it can feel like for us, when we’re in discernment about new spiritual insights? Or for that matter, when we’re enduring the seemingly never-ending onslaughts of COVID, of isolation and quarantine? As we Say Their Names? As we speak Truth to Power?

We can feel battered, beaten, and the furthest thing from proactive—we’re reactive, with only enough energy to respond to the stimuli—the hits—that just keep on coming. And sometimes we don’t even have enough energy to be reactive—we just keep spinning, trying to hold ourselves together as best we can. We may well feel like “a vaguely menacing mass”.

A 10-minute rest on a soft bed of flour will do me just fine. Photo by the author.

The dough gets scraped out onto an area made soft with flour; it’s folded in half to rest for 10 minutes. Sticky and sluggish, the dough takes several seconds to release from the confines of the mixing bowl and oozes down onto the surface. This action, too, feels familiar.

I think about how we, too, can feel so beat up that we simply crawl into bed—metaphorical or otherwise—almost too exhausted to breathe, almost too shocky to even think. When we’re feeling besieged it can be easy to lose our spiritual way—we can feel far from our deities or no longer fed by our practices.

How can we assimilate any new learnings or insights when we’re in such a state? If we’re lucky, we rest. After the pizza dough has had its 10 minutes on its softly floured bed, it’s divided into 2 equal pieces—a kind of mitosis, if you will. Each piece is gently rolled into a sphere, heavily dusted with flour, placed on an oiled plate, and loosely covered with plastic wrap. The dough at this point is pillow-soft, with good heft. It will rest undisturbed in a warm space for 3 hours or until it rises to be at least double its size.

Shhhh. I’m under a metaphorical blanket for the next 3 hours. Photo by the author.

This reminds me of what can happen to us when, resting under our metaphorical blankets, we too find the still, quiet place where we can begin to understand what has happened to us and how we can make meaning from it. Maybe that happens through meditation or journaling or heartfelt conversations with our most trusted friends and/or mentors. At some point, if we’re lucky and intentional, we might feel ourselves expanding as the meanings we make from our experiences are incorporated into our being.

At the end of 3 hours the dough is punched down, sealed in a plastic baggie, and refrigerated for 1 to 7 days. Metaphorically, I think of this last bit of the raw dough’s journey toward pizza crusthood in terms of The Hermit in tarot. The Hermit is about taking time for heart-searching and self-analysis, which happen most effectively in some form of isolation.

As we go through these sometimes-brutal experiences on the way to whatever it is we are going to spiritually become, we need some form of cave time. Time in the dark, dealing with whatever has been dumped into our Shadow selves. In human terms, wrestling with whatever we find in our dark places is something we must do as a crucial step in our journey toward spiritual wholeness.

Ready to reap what we have harvested! Photo by bhumann34 via Pixabay.

Finally, after having gone through all of this—the beating and the scraping and the resting and the rising and the punching and the stasis—we are ready to reap what we have harvested, be that a pizza crust or a re-centering and re-focusing of our spiritual selves. We’re fed by the nutrients both physically and spiritually; we’ve restarted up our core and that energy once again feeds upon itself.

Yet even as we rejoice in the harvest – and we’ve earned some rejoicing time! – we’re still ever-aware that the seasons, our own seasons, are cyclical. Eventually, because we seek growth and deeper knowledge and because sometimes life is what happens while we’re making other plans, we’re going to have to endure the entire process of making spiritual meaning again. All things in their season, all purposes – and pizzas – in their time.

So, there you have it—my Pizza Dough Wisdom for you this Lammastide. May you bring in a worthy crop from all that you have worked to harvest, and may you be well.

You can hear more of The Corner Crone during her Moments For Meditation on KPPR Pure Pagan Radio on TuneIn.

Previous Post

July 29, 2020

Simple Witchery: Practicing Self Care When We Need It Most

Next Post

August 4, 2020 Druid in the City: I Am Not Okay

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category A Lakeside Hearth Adventures in Wortcunning Alone In Her Presence Arts, Crafts & Cooking Birthing Hereditary Witchcraft Book of Blackbirds Book Reviews Born-Again Witch Cauldron, Sword, Spear, & Stone Cermony and Liturgy Columns Community Dandelion Seeds Dear Jasmine Druid Thoughts Editor's Picks Everyday Pagan Family & Household Practice Family Traditions Full Frontal Magic Gateway Goddess Guest Articles Happily Heathen Health and Wellness Hearth of Hellenism Heathen Woman Hills of the Horizon History Holidays Horse Goddesses Interfaith Interviews Irish-American Witchcraft Jewish Witch Lamp & Labyrinth Letters from Midgard Literature, Media, Film, Music Loop of Brighid Love, Sex & Relationships Magic or Magick Making Light Naturalistic Traditions Nature News Outside The Circle Pantheisticon Politics Prayers, Poems, Blessings & Stories Queer Femme Mystic Queer of Swords Recipes Ritual and Practice Science and Research Seekers and Guides Seeking the Grail Socially Responsible Magic Spear of Athena Star Made Witch Syncretic Electric Technology The Blooming Staff The Busy Witch The Cartomancer The Crow's Nest The Dance of Pagan Recovery The Hearth of Hellenism The Lady's Quill The Other Side of the Hedge The Path of She The Rantin' Raven The Witches Next Door The Zen Pagan Theology, Ethics, Philosophy Tree City Witch Urban Earthwitch Wayfaring Woman Witch on Fire Wyrd Words

Select a Month January 2026 March 2025 December 2024 June 2024 April 2024 March 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 August 2023 July 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What did Jesus cast into a herd of pigs?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Demons Coins Water Leprosy