Soil is one of the most ubiquitous – and underappreciated – substances on Earth. Yet in several fascinating ways this miraculous substance holds the key to life. Yet all too often, the message I was given, is that good things were light, and bright and upward. It felt as though this message, moved me away from the earth, away from my body.
We are moved away from the soil and creatures and beings under our feet, and also the soil under our skin; the realm of feeling.
The darkness and the inner worlds have, in these more modern times, received a bad press. The soil is dirt, and the dark inner worlds are a hindrance to light, progression, capitalism and people pleasing.
We are taught to move away from our inner world and the world of feeling, so we can be more malleable and easy, just as we learn to no longer see the dark beauty of soil.
I used to think that my soul was like light on water, ephemeral, hard to grasp and easily hidden or taken away. But the more I learn from nature, the more I have begun to feel that my soul is something very different.
I have come to feel my soul as black, as black and soft and dark as incredible fecund soil, full of fertility and seeds, made of lives and lives gone by, shapes and forms and stories and ancestors composted down.