Microbes + Spirituality with Asia Dorsey
About the Episode
What if actions you take today might not only change the future but rewrite the past? What if your gut was a kind of “bank” where wealth was stored, released, and passed onto others? What if the bacteria living inside you will influence the lives of your great-great-great-grandchildren? What if every decision we make is actually dictated by unseen forces that live in, on, and around our bodies? Is asking that a kind of spiritual acknowledgment that there are things much bigger (or smaller) than us that we can’t see, but that are nonetheless real and constantly influencing our lives?
And while the intention of this episode is not to argue the metaphysical merits of time entanglement or the existence of free will, I am someone who gets mystical when I start talking about food. My Instagram bio once said, “Fermentation is my theology. Shared meals, my church. Paradox and prose, my offerings. Aliveness, my message.” I just think food is an endless source of metaphor. And microbes—microscopic organisms like bacteria, yeasts and molds, algae, and viruses—are some of life’s greatest magicians and alchemists, constantly practicing the art of transformation and change, taking one thing and turning it into another. And the art of change is something I’m deeply interested in.
Asia Dorsey is someone who practices this art every day. She’s the one who originally taught me how to collaborate directly with microbes, mostly through the process of fermentation. So, of course, in today’s conversation, we talk about the intersections of Microbes + Spirituality.
Episode Details
About Asia (she/her; they/them)
Asia Dorsey writes Afrofutures into existence by reweaving Black bodies into relationship with the earth through the fabric of food. She studied food and sociology at New York University but extended her education to include public health nutrition in Accra Ghana, seed sovereignty in Northern India with Vandana Shiva, and biological agriculture and ancestral nutrition with Kay Baxter in New Zealand. After healing her depression with bones, bugs, and botany, Asia took the helm of Five Points Fermentation Company in 2016 in order to bring probiotics to the people. As a bioregional herbalist apprenticing with Herbal Elder, Susun Weed, an organizational ecologist with Regenerate Change, and permaculture instructor with the Denver Permaculture Guild, Asia deciphers and reintegrates the sacred instructions of microorganisms, plants, and animals to bring the patterns of ecosystems into our people systems. You can also find her curating educational programs at the Seeds of Power Unity Farm, bone-deep in soil, balancing botanical chaos long enough for her people to rise together in power and step into the wholeness that is their birthright.
Join in and support her creations on Patreon and on Instagram. And, listen to her on The Petty Herbalist podcast, as well.
What We Discuss
The wild notion of sugar as healing.
Our thoughts and beliefs affecting the way we “metabolize” food, people, and everything else.
Microbes as spiritual impulses and deities.
Sanitization, inoculation, war, and allowing ourselves to be changed by the “Other.”
Becoming that which we resist.
Phases of activism as phases of ecological cessation and inflammatory responses in the body.
Fermentation as a type of ancestral “inheritance” and what ancient dairy practices teach us about generational wealth.
Viruses as adaptation advantages.
People who have cleared the path for us to claim both science and spirituality in all their complexity—devaluing neither but also not ignoring their flaws.
And, the beauty of not belonging.
Sources Mentioned
Fermentation as Metaphor by Sandor Ellix Katz
Navdanya, where Asia studied alongside Vandana Shiva and Satish Kumar
Anti-Diet: Reclaim Your Time, Money, Well-Being, and Happiness Through Intuitive Eating by Christy Harrison
Health at Every Size: The Surprising Truth about Your Weight by Linda Bacon
Báyò Akómoláfé, from the Black prophetic tradition that Asia mentions. Báyò also came up in my interview with Kendra Kreuger, on Infinity + Nuance. Asia and I mention Kendra specifically, later in the episode, and you can find Kendra’s work at 4loveandscience.com.
Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice by Rupa Marya and Rajeev Charles Patel
What Mongolia’s Dairy Farmers Have to Teach Us About the Hidden History of Microbes
Here are a few references I found that speak to the concept of the “micro-virome”:
“Viruses Can Help Us As Well As Harm Us” from Scientific American in December 2020. Here’s a relevant quote: “Scientists' rapidly expanding knowledge makes it clear that we are not made up primarily of ‘human'‘ cells that are occasionally invaded by microbes; our body is really a superorganism of cohabitating cells, bacteria, fungi and most numerous of all: viruses.”
“Does a sea of viruses inside our body help keep us healthy?” from Science in late 2017.
“The Gut Microvirome” from the Humans and Viruses blog in 2017.
We also mention Regenerate Change, the organization referred to in my earlier episode with Abrah Dresdale and Adam Brock on Fractals + Free Will. Asia is one of their collaborators, along with Caroline Savery, whom Asia also mentions.
Here’s a piece on “blood quota” by NPR and the “one-drop rule” by PBS, which Asia mentions, if you’d like to learn more.
Check out Tiffany Lovato’s work here.
“I speak to God in public / He keep my rhymes in couplets” is actually a line from "Blessings,” a song by Chance the Rapper.
Luisah Teish, the teacher, dancer, storyteller, and high priestess who Asia says paved the way in the women’s spirituality movement.
Or, Listen & Subscribe On
Spotify
Stitcher
YouTube
Or wherever you get your podcasts.
Find Asia Online
Instagram
Website
The Petty Herbalist Podcast
Get More This Plus That
Sign Up for the Newsletter
Follow on Twitter
Follow on Instagram
Credits
Audio engineering by the team at Upfire Digital.
All of my music is provided by the in-house musicians at Slip.stream.
Episode Transcript
Coming soon, hopefully! Would you be willing to help? Email me at brandi@thisplusthat.com!
