Greetings beloved fellow Earthlings from here in the compost heap of the Holy Church of Dirt.

Let’s dig right in. I’d like to draw your attention to how in nature, things are in a constant state of eating or being eaten, and often, both at the same time. For example, here in this compost pile, zillions of bacteria are heating up the pile, eating nutrients, mixing nitrogen and carbon, and feeding other bigger creatures in the soil. It is alive. When this pile is ready, it will nourish healthy plants and animals, large and small, all of us, that are eating and being eaten from this pile.

You and I are eating, and being eaten, by bacteria, mosquitoes, viruses, and interactions rubbing us the wrong way. Beauty and positive interactions feed our soul and give us energy.

The bird-party song off the deck, of surprisingly shy grey necked wood-rails feeds my soul. While the neighbor’s machines blowing herbicides on their fields sap my energy and make me take stock. I won’t go right now, into the threat of erosion on steep slopes that used to be rainforest in a country that is supposed to be “green”. Today, I’ll focus on the underpaid brothers out there, being eaten in just about every way imaginable by blowing poison to kill large swaths of life in the soil so that their boss can plant more of one type of grass to feed cows.

Over Eating- Killing Swaths

The same toxins that they absorb through their unprotected skin and noses, goes into the grass to be turned into toxic cheese. Toxins in the soil leach into the water, and with the rain, dump toxins into the streams and oceans. Toxins are now found in every system along the chain ending up in your cup, on your plate, and in your breastmilk. These brothers will die young and sick from those poisons, as countless others dependent upon the meager hourly wages to do that dirty work.

So let’s back up. Why do the neighbors think they need to spray poison to get the right stuff to grow?

I think my neighbor figures it is a quick way to put food on his table. And for a time, that will work, but eventually, all life in the soil is dead. So, then, he strips more forest and sprays again. But, I want to point from the bigger picture, that it looks more like greed on tables in boardrooms further up the chain in a giant global toxic industrial food system.

Profiting in quick money, while killing soil life on a large scale, they are disrupting the natural systems of eating and being eaten that feeds life on earth. In our extractive consumer, status-seeking culture, we have become detached from the dirt that feeds us. We live on a finite planet. This cannot continue.

The Intelligence of Dirt

I’ve heard it said, that one teaspoonful of soil has more organized intelligence, than all the other known planets in the universe. Modern science has barely begun to even unwrap the complexity of all of that micro-life community. I can tell you with certainty that until we understand quantum mechanics and interactions between enzymes, fungi, bacteria and their cohorts, we will fail to appreciate how their life feeds us through the soil. When we begin to understand these relationships, we will begin in earnest, to regenerate soil health, along with human health.

Food that is rich in nutrients feeds us, in addition to little entities feeding on us, digesting and metabolizing the food in our bodies in a healthy state of eating and being eaten. The Holy Church of Dirt is here to remind us to notice our nature. To feed our guts, our souls and our soil.

Take time to notice how you are eating and being eaten. For kudos and karma, you might find a way to feed a system you’ve been over-consuming.

We’re interested to hear your lessons learned. Keep your comments nice, please.

Here’s to building healthy living soil.

Can I have an AMEN-d-ment?