The Divine Gift of Good Soil
Compiled by Tom Small
So then, there is the sweet communion.... the sweet joy and refreshment in the Lord our righteousness, who causeth righteousness to drop down from heaven, and truth to spring up out of the earth. And so our Father is felt blessing us, blessing our land, blessing our habitations, delighting in us and over us to do us good; and our land yields its increase to the Lord of Life, who hath redeemed it and planted the precious plants and seeds of life in it.
—Isaac Penington (1617-1679)
Darkness is no less desirable than light. It is rather, a rich source of creativity... First there is the darkness of the earth in which the seeds wait all through the winter. Second, there is the darkness of the womb in which the young mammal grows into sufficient viability to be born and take its place on earth, as a separate being.... And third, there is the darkness of night, when the garish sun has gone down and the things of earth are blotted out, and we may glimpse the vastness of the universe of which we are part...
We say that God is the Inner Light, but I want to affirm that also of the Inner Darkness, and I do not mean desolation or evil, but a quiet waiting and creativity. "The darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day; the darkness and the light are both alike to thee."
—Elizabeth Watson
"Your God Is Too Small"
address to Quaker Earthcare Witness Annual Meeting, 1996
Green vegetation and the ground on which we step are bathed in sunlight—but not plant roots, not our own Inner Light. They work in blessed darkness.
—Francis Hole
Friends General Conference workshop, 1996
Life is not just a diurnal property of large interesting vertebrates; it is also nocturnal, anaerobic, cannibalistic, microscopic, digestive, fermentative: cooking away in the warm dark.
—Gary Snyder, The Practice of the Wild
Mysterious and little-known organisms live within reach of where you sit. Splendor awaits in minute proportions.
—Edward O. Wilson, Biophilia
We deeply require an earthy spirituality.
—Matthew Fox, Original Blessing
Soil is not unalive. . . . Life extends over the planet as a contiguous, but mobile, cover and takes the shape of the underlying Earth. Life, moreover, enlivens the planet; Earth, in a very real sense, is alive.
—Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan, What Is Life?
When we leave our conditioning behind, we come up—as George Fox described—into the paradise of God. All things were new, and all the creation gave another smell unto me than before, beyond what words can utter. In that rebirth, the aliveness of all things speaks directly to our own, and can no longer be denied.
—Marshall Massey, “Uniting Friends With Nature,” 1985
The mystery and integrity of Creation . . . is all around us, in our house plants, our yards, the compost heap, the dust under the sofa, the neighborhood park—Everywhere is great beauty, complexity, amazement.
—Lisa Lofland Gould
Caring for Creation:
Reflections on the Biblical Basis of Earthcare.
Everything that lives is holy.
If the doors of perception were cleansed,
everything would appear to man as it is—infinite.
He who sees the Infinite in all things sees God.
—William Blake (1788, 1793)
Why, who makes much of a miracle?
As to me I know of nothing else but miracles, . . .
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth
is spread with the same,
Every foot of the interior swarms with the same.
—Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, 1855
‘I have said to the Worm Thou art my mother & my sister’
—Wm. Blake, For Children: The Gates of Paradise, 1793
Songs by Francis D. Hole
A Rainbow of Soil
(Tune of "On Top of Old Smoky")
A rainbow of soil is under our feet:
Red as a barn & black as a peat.
It's yellow as lemon and white as the snow;
Bluish gray.. so many colors below.
Hidden in darkness as thick as the night:
The only rainbow that can form without light.
Dig you a pit, or bore you a hole,
You'll find enough colors to well rest your soul.
Tis a Gift to Have Soil
(Tune of 'Tis a Gift to be Simple)
'Tis a gift to have soil, 'tis a gift to have land,
'Tis a gift to belong to the place whereon we stand.
And if we are contented with the work that we are doing
We've discovered a community that's energy renewing.
Chorus:
When true community is gained,
To bow and to bend we shall not be ashamed.
To turn and to turn will be our delight,
Till by turning, turning we come round right.
'Tis a gift to have seed, 'tis a gift to have plants
'Tis a gift to behold so much beauty at a glance
As we survey a garden where we've given hours of toil,
A community of flora, fauna, people and of soil.
Chorus (When true community, etc.)
*******************************************
You Are My Soil, My Only Soil
(Tune of You Are My Sunshine)
You are my soil, my only soil;
You keep me vital night and day.
This much I know, friend, you do support me
Please don't erode my life's soil away.
Darkle Darkle Little Grain
(Tune of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star)
Darkle, darkle little grain!
I wonder how you entertain.
A thousand creatures microscopic.
Grains like you from pole to tropic
Support land life upon this planet!
I marvel at you, crumb of granite!
Article 1. The Earth Beneath Our Feet: Explorations In Community
by Francis D. Hole
Our friend, the earth beneath our feet, is supporting us as we sit here in this room. We are all children of Mother Earth, whose family is diverse, including as it does: fungi, bacteria, slime-moulds, mites, springtails, nematodes, earthworms; roots of hemlock, maple and mint; people, badgers and oven birds.
I see that this building sits on a body of Virgil silt loam. This is a dark, moist, deep soil that is named after Virgil, Illinois, a village about one hundred miles south of here, near where this soil was first discovered.
It is a pity that we are not able, today, to view the beauty of the Virgil silt loam. The pattern of layers, called soil horizons, is impressive. At the top of the soil is a natural, vital litter of decomposing leaves of trees and grasses that overlies about ten inches of a dark, soft granular silt loam. Below that is a mass of fragile soil blocks, the size of my thumb, of yellowish brown soil that has delicate spots of light brownish-gray, as delicate as the spots on a fawn. This mottled soil extends down to a depth of four feet. Rarely is the deep soil ever exposed to sunlight. The secret beauty of any soil must be kept hidden if the plant roots and the myriads of associated creatures are to do their work of maintaining land life.
[Illustration: typical soil horizons, with caption]
Because the earth beneath our feet is literally supporting and nourishing us every day of our lives, and stands ready to receive us back when we die, the land is working with and for us. I speak up for the right of a soil to exist, and not be consigned to abuse and even to extinction. If the human race could nonviolently restrict its numbers, the soil and its biota would have a better chance to be.
This University grants academic degrees to the scholarly. I have invented some unofficial soil-related degrees for which I think we all qualify, scholarly or not. First is T.N.S., meaning “temporarily not soil.” Another label is S.B.S., “supported by soil.” Now consider M.O.B.S., “maker of bodily soil.” In 1913, as a new-born babe, I set to work making soil, for which diapers were needed. Nearly every day of my life I have made some soil. E.O.S. stands for “extension of soil.” We are extensions of soil that are more mobile than those extensions of soil that we call trees. A.S.K.S. is an abbreviation for “a special kind of soil.” That is what we are. So we have come full circle from thinking that we are not soil to thinking that we are all unique forms of soil.
The English word soil connotes not only loose material in which plants root, but also corruption, pollution, dirtiness and even moral defilement. In the title of my talk I have avoided the word soil and have focused on the earth beneath our feet. The rest of my title is “explorations in community.” The human race is a community that includes people who live in harmony with the land; and people who have lost the sense of being connected to the soil. Communities of animals that live in the soil, along with bacteria, fungi and algae, are very much connected to the soil.
[Illustration: soil biodiversity, with caption]
Soil is the root domain of lively darkness and silence on which land life depends. In ancient scripture, Adam and Eve of the biblical account of Genesis, have names derived from Hebrew words meaning soil and life. Adam, soil; Eve, life. In Chapter 2 of Genesis, man is directed to serve and preserve the Garden of Eden. In the teachings of Buddha, the earth and all life forms are sacred. To the Greeks, the earth was Gaea, a maternal goddess.
The soil has no vote or voice but ours. Who will speak for the dumb acres? The rate of soil erosion in the United States is still on the order of one hundred times the rate it is in some undisturbed ecosystems. The Scriptures assure us that not one sparrow falls to the ground unnoticed by the Divine. I suggest that erosion of any crumb or grain of soil does not escape the notice of the Divine, to use biblical language.
Let us together build a groundswell of affection for and understanding of the earth that supports us and other land life. By being conspicuous friends of the soil (as well as of birds, trees and grasses), we will help make it unthinkable and unacceptable that soils of our landscapes will be abused any longer.
[Illustration: Francis Hole with his violin, with caption
—may be placed anywhere in relation to this article]
Article 2. The Cleansing and Organizing Processes of the Earth:
Two American Transcendentalist Prophetic Voices
from "This Compost," by Walt Whitman
Behold this compost! behold it well!
Perhaps every mite has once form'd part of a sick person—yet behold!
The grass of spring covers the prairies,
The bean bursts noiselessly through the mould in the garden,
The delicate spear of the onion pierces upward,
The apple-buds cluster together on the apple-branches,
The resurrection of the wheat appears with pale visage out of its graves,
The tinge awakes over the willow-tree and the mulberry-tree,
The he-birds carol mornings and evenings while the she-birds sit on their nests,
The young of poultry break through the hatch'd eggs,
The new-born of animals appear, the calf is dropt from the cow, the colt from the mare,
Out of its little hill faithfully rise the potato's dark green leaves,
Out of its hill rises the yellow maize-stalk, the lilacs bloom in the dooryards,
The summer growth is innocent and disdainful above all those strata of sour dead.
What chemistry!
That the winds are really not infectious,
That this is no cheat, this transparent green-wash of the sea which is so amorous after me,
That it is safe to allow it to lick my naked body all over with its tongues,
That it will not endanger me with the fevers that have deposited themselves in it,
That all is clean forever and forever,
That the cool drink from the well tastes so good,
That blackberries are so flavorous and juicy,
That the fruits of the apple-orchard and the orange-orchard, that melons, grapes, peaches, plums, will none of them poison me,
That when I recline on the grass I do not catch any disease,
Though probably every spear of grass rises out of what was once a catching disease.
Now I am terrified at the Earth, it is that calm and patient,
It grows such sweet things out of such corruptions,
It turns harmless and stainless on its axis, with such endless successions of diseas'd corpses,
It distills such exquisite winds out of such infused fetor,
It renews with such unwitting looks its prodigal, annual, sumptuous crops,
It gives such divine materials to men, and accepts such leavings from them at last.
(Published in Leaves of Grass, 1856 as "Poem of Wonder at the Resurrection of the Wheat.")
The “Liver, Lights, and Bowels” of the Earth
by Henry David Thoreau
When the frost comes out in the spring, and even in a thawing day in the winter, the sand begins to flow down the slopes like lava. Innumerable little streams overlap and interlace one with another, exhibiting a sort of hybrid product, which obeys half way the law of currents, and half way that of vegetation. As it flows it takes the forms of sappy leaves or vines; or you are reminded of coral, of leopards’ paws or birds’ feet, of brains or lungs or bowels, and excrements of all kinds. It is a sort of architectural foliage more ancient and typical than acanthus, chicory, ivy, vine, or any vegetable leaves. The various shades of the sand are singularly rich and agreeable, embracing the different iron colors, brown, gray, yellowish, and reddish.
The whole bank, which is from twenty to forty feet high, is sometimes overlaid with a mass of this kind of foliage. You find thus in the very sands an anticipation of the vegetable leaf. No wonder that the earth expresses itself outwardly in leaves, it so labors with the idea inwardly. The atoms have already learned this law, and are pregnant by it. The overhanging leaf sees here its prototype. The feathers and wings of birds are still drier and thinner leaves. The whole tree itself is but one leaf, and rivers are still vaster leaves whose pulp is intervening earth.
You here see perchance how blood-vessels are formed. It is wonderful how rapidly yet perfectly the sand organizes itself as it flows. Such are the sources of rivers. What is man but a mass of thawing clay?
Thus it seemed that this one hillside illustrated the principle of all the operations of Nature. This phenomenon is more exhilarating to me than the luxuriance and fertility of vineyards. True, it is somewhat excrementitious in its character, and there is no end to the heaps of liver, lights, and bowels, as if the globe were turned wrong side outward. This is the frost coming out of the ground; this is Spring. It precedes the green and flowery spring, as mythology precedes regular poetry. There is nothing inorganic. These foliaceous heaps lie along the bank like the slag of a furnace, showing that Nature is “in full blast” within. The earth is not a mere fragment of dead history, stratum upon stratum like the leaves of a book, to be studied by geologists and antiquaries chiefly, but living poetry like the leaves of a tree, which precede flowers and fruit—not a fossil earth, but a living earth; compared with whose great central life all animal and vegetable life is merely parasitic. You may melt your metals and cast them into the most beautiful moulds you can; they will never excite me like the forms which this molten earth flows out into.
(Edited from “Spring,” Chapter XVII of Walden)
Article 3. The Heaven Under Our Feet
by Tom Small
Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.
—Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854)
Though, as a species, we may have journeyed through immense reaches of time and space, we remain close to our origins, to Eden, and to wilderness. They are within us and right beneath our feet.
Scripture tells us God formed us “of dust from the ground” (Genesis 2:7); created us “from dust, then from a drop of seed” (Koran, Surah XXII.5). Our progenitor, Adam, is adama—soil, or clay. We Homo sapiens are capable of wisdom, perhaps, but most assuredly Homo (from humus, of soil or earth).
Astrophysicists inform us that the very elements of our being are stardust, exploded matter of ancient stars. Agronomists note that all life receives its nourishment from rocks ground down to dust by ice and water and spread by the winds of time.
Wendell Berry marvels over the formation of organic humus as “the chief work of the world,” an immemorial process that all creatures live by and die into. For Francis Hole, the human creature—with all other creatures—is an “extension of soil,” a temporary arrangement of dust and humus.
No less than ourselves, the soil that supports us is alive. About 80 percent of the earth’s biomass is beneath the surface. A handful of good soil contains more living creatures than there are human beings on the earth. We know names and relationships for perhaps less than 5 percent of them—no matter whether they live in a Costa Rican cloud forest or an Ohio backyard.
The most numerous of these creatures are the bacteria. Take a pinch of good soil: You hold about a billion of them, of perhaps five thousand different types, communicating and evolving so swiftly that they outwit our antibiotic strategies. They invented recycling, photosynthesis, and genetic engineering. As Stephen Jay Gould admits, they “rule the earth.”
Your same pinch of soil may also contain thousands of wispy root hairs and miles and miles of micorrhizae—networks of fungus threads interdependent with the roots of plants, drawing energy from them and in turn enabling them to absorb phosphorus, nitrogen, other nutrients, and water. All terrestrial ecosystems depend on this underground “web that holds it all together” (Gary Snyder). Without mycorrhizae, which extend a plant’s root system by 1,000 percent or more, most plants could not have emerged from the water, to thrive on “dry land.” Either by themselves or combined with algae as lichens, fungi are indispensable to the creation of soil and evolution of life.
We are equally dependent on the lowly roundworm, which endlessly ingests, turns over, and fertilizes virtually every crumb of soil on Earth. Nematode worms account for four out of every five animals on Earth. In a square meter of soil, there may be as many as ten million of them. In that same space, we might find a billion protozoa, hundreds of thousands of springtails and mites, and thousands of arthropods—insects with jointed legs—some of them so tiny that 20 or 30 might dance within the period at the end of this word.
[Illustration: “worm” cartoon, with caption]
Almost all these creatures are beneficent, even from our limited human point of view. Indeed, they may all be indispensable. At the very least, they serve to demonstrate how the humble (humus again) sustain the great. Such humble ones inherit the earth, despite our relentless decimation of them with monocultures and chemical aids to agriculture and to better homes and gardens.
Hidden, too, beneath our feet is the radical life of plants, the basic and only essential part of our “food chain.” Their roots support them—and us. Prairie grasses foraged far beneath the surface to form the deep, rich “breadbasket” soil on which we depend for grains and legumes. A single clump of big bluestem grass (Andropogon gerardii) may have a root system with a total length of several hundred miles and a total area of several thousand square feet. Such native grasses, unlike our exotic lawns, are independent of chemical aids and sprinkling systems.
[Illustration: root diagram, with caption]
We discount the intelligence of plants, worms, fungi, or bacteria at our peril. If, as Gary Snyder says, “the information passed through the system is intelligence” (Gary Snyder), then Lynn Margulis is right to suggest that human “intelligence,” despite its ingenuity, is very limited:
As tiny parts of a huge biosphere whose essence is basically bacterial, we—with other life forms—must add up to a sort of symbiotic brain which it is beyond our capacity to comprehend or truly represent (Margulis and Sagan).
Albert Einstein felt it was enough for him “to try humbly to comprehend even an infinitesimal part of the intelligence manifested in nature.”
In our bodies, as in the soil-body of the earth, remnants of the most ancient life forms are virtually immortal: bacteria, mitochondria, and other tiny organisms, subsumed by our cells and our selves. Together, they constitute at least half of our dry weight; and their DNA is alien, other-than-human. The arrangement is symbiotic: one of mutual aid. But from the long view, it appears that we are the ones subsumed, colonized, co-opted—and consumed as well—by a bodily organism greater than ourselves (call it Gaia if you will). Our very bodies are not owned by us; they are community property and habitat. Nor is ours the intelligence of the soil’s body—we are of its intelligence, just as we are of its body—temporary, upstart “extensions” of both.
[Illustration: “universal tree of life,” with caption.]
Will we achieve—by design or default—mastery of the universe? Or are we something like a synchytrium, a form of pond scum that spreads over the available surface and parasitizes other forms of life? Science offers no prediction—comforting or otherwise—in answer to such vexing questions. But if we think of fungus in the popular connotation of the word, as an unpleasant, expendable, morbid outgrowth that’s out of place—in human terms a creep—then the word might sometimes better apply to our species than to the millions of fungal species that cleanse the world’s dirt and bring forth life from decay.
Certainly we grossly abuse the soil’s body—and therefore our own. Each year, for instance, soil erosion in the U.S. exceeds soil formation by a factor of at least ten; and as soil degrades it contributes carbon dioxide to global warming. Each year up to half the nitrogen we pour onto our farms, lawns and golf courses leaches into ground and surface water as nitrate—toxic in high levels to humans and countless other organisms—or leaks into the air as nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas hundreds of times more potent than CO2 and a contributor to acid rain. Each year acid rain kills not only trees but also soil organisms, including the life-giving mycorrhizae. After a clearcut on the Olympic Peninsula, 90 percent of the fungi vanished from the soil in the first year; with them went the primal memory of how to sustain an ecosystem. We can project an extinction rate for birds, or plants (up to 25 percent of species in the next 25 years, according to UN projections). We don’t know enough about soil organisms to make a projection.
We begin to grasp, however, that whatever fouls the soil also fouls the human body. We are animated dust; and whatever befalls the dust…
But despite all the losses, “There lives the dearest freshness deep down things” (Gerard Manley Hopkins, “God’s Grandeur”). The wilderness we seek, the secret to the restoration of Eden, is alive and breathing just beneath our feet.
What then are we to do?
The first precept: Do no harm; preserve as much as possible of what remains. Tom Eisner, a world-renowned expert on tiny invertebrates, puts it this way:
Organisms are linked by their interdependencies. In principle, therefore, if you are preserving land with one group of organisms in mind, you are also creating shelter for others. . . . I would say that one should simply try to save as much land as possible. . . . The future is in wilderness preservation. It’s as simple as that. (Tom Eisner, “Little Things”)
Wilderness, fortunately, is close at hand—or at foot—not just in precious land trusts and wildlife refuges but also in small patches of earth, accessible within seconds, harboring an astonishing remnant of wilderness.
If you keep your ear to the ground, you may yet hear what Lynn Margulis calls “Earth’s sentient symphony” and Lewis Thomas “the music of this sphere.” By harmonizing with the music of the soil that Francis Hole sought to render on his violin, by partaking in the intelligence of the soil, we may yet become wiser and restore our souls. Eden, the unfallen world, endures and is continually renewed in the very dust of the native soil we repeatedly seek to shake from our restless feet. Take a stand wherever you are.
Practice mindfulness and do no harm. Then, seek to restore. Begin with your yard. Continue with the grounds of the school, the meeting, the church, a garden in the park, your neighborhood.
Maintaining biodiversity among the little creatures, shockingly rich in unexplored behavior and biochemistry, can be done on the cheap, in relatively tiny patches, as small as a few acres. (Edward O. Wilson, The New York Times. Sept. 24, 2002)
Learn the flowers and grasses that evolved in the place where you stand. Bring them back, and the creatures that evolved with them will be fostered and revived—yourself as well. The spirit will be manifest. In this faith, in this work of hands, the world is “all alive” and “every particle of dust breathes forth its joy” (William Blake, Europe),
Questions for reflection
“Membership in a place includes membership in a community.”
—Gary Snyder, The Practice of the Wild
- What “place” do you consider yourself to be a “member” of? In how many senses are you a “member”? (You might want to consult an unabridged dictionary.) How does one become a member of a community?
- What steps are you taking to enlarge and extend your community? To extend it so as to include more of the soil’s body, the life beneath your feet?
- What sort of “front yard” do you have? Begin by considering this quotation from Henry David Thoreau’s “Walking” (It’s in this essay that he says, “In wildness is the preservation of the world”). Hope and the future for me are not lawns and cultivated fields, not in towns and cities, but in the impervious and quaking swamps… I often think that I should like to have my house front on this mass of dull red bushes, omitting other flower plots and borders, transplanted spruce and trim box, even graveled walks…. Front yards are not made to walk in but, at most, through, and you could go in the back way. Yes, though you may think me perverse, if it were proposed to me to dwell in the neighborhood of the most beautiful garden that ever human art contrived, or else a Dismal Swamp, I should certainly decide for the swamp. How vain, then, have been all your labors, citizens, for me!…
- A township where one primitive forest waves above while another primitive forest rots below—such a town is fitted to raise not only corn and potatoes, but poets and philosophers for the coming ages. What does your house “front” on? Is its frontage “made to walk in” or only “through”?
- Do you, in fact, “go in the back way”? Where does most of your outdoor living occur? Why?
- What does your “front yard” offer for the delight or contemplation of the “poets and philosophers for the coming ages”?
- What does it offer for the community of creatures of which you are a part?
- What more could it offer? How?
Illustrative activities
1. Revealing ”The Little World Hidden Beneath”: An experience for you alone or together with family.
Edward O. Wilson, who studies and loves the small creatures of the earth, says he rarely can resist turning over a rotting log to reveal “the little world hidden beneath.” He relishes the rich smell, “like a perfume to the nostrils that love it.” He enjoys tracing the fine threads of rootlets and fungi, the revelation of “secret lives,” this “ancient wilderness” suddenly brought to light. (“Prologue: a Letter to Thoreau,” The Future of Life, xv–xvi.) Share in Wilson’s pleasure on your next outing. How many different kinds of organisms can you observe in the first few seconds after you turn the log? What do you observe if you probe the decaying wood and the soil beneath with a knife blade or stick? What are the signs that this log, once an “extension” of soil, is now lapsing back to soil again? What are the causes—the agents—of this recycling?
2. Take a Handful of Earth: an activity best done with a few friends. After reading—perhaps discussing—“The Earth Beneath Our Feet” and “The Heaven Under Our Feet,” step outside, gather in a circle, and share this ancient Osage “Song of the Vigil” with your friends, perhaps as a responsive reading.
The touching of the earth is an act divine—Greetings
The touching of the earth is an act divine—Greetings
The touching of the earth is an act divine—Greetings
I have come—Greetings
The touching of the earth is an act divine—Greetings
The digging into the earth is an act divine—Greetings
The digging into the earth is an act divine—Greetings
The digging into the earth is an act divine—Greetings
I have come—Greetings
The digging into the earth is an act divine—Greetings
Now dig into the garden soil with both hands, and take up a handful. Observe it closely as you sift through it. Use at least three of your five senses.
Now sit very quietly for a few minutes as you continue to hold the soil in your hands.
What is this that you hold?
Try to forget the words, the numbers, the “lesson.” Try to forget the question. Feel the weight and texture of the soil in your hand. Wait in silence.
Later, after you’ve broken the silence and risen, reflect on whether you received an answer to the question. If you did, try to share your answer with your friends—in words or by whatever means seems appropriate and possible.
3. Walking on the Earth: Try this one on the path, and off the path.
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
—Gerard Manley Hopkins, “God’s Grandeur”
Yes. Feet on earth. Knock on wood. Touch stone. Good luck to all.
—Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire
Wherever you may be on this earth, take off your shoes. You are standing on holy ground.
—Elizabeth Watson, “Your God Is Too Small”
In your yard, or in a natural area, take off your shoes. Feel the soil, the duff, leaf litter, twigs, mosses, lichens, downed wood (let us hope you have all these things in abundance in your own yard, to harbor and provide food for creatures, and to enrich your soil and your life). Work your feet down into decaying vegetation and sand and loam and clay. Get in touch. Let your feet be your intelligence.
Prayers and responsive readings
Prayer
Adapted from “A New Psalm” (Inspired by Psalm 19)
The earth beneath the feet of all runners and walkers
Declares the glory of God, our Cherisher!
The roots of trees and grasses, the mole
And all organisms in the rich realm of darkness. . .
These are God’s handiwork.
Our life in the realm of sunlight
Is upheld by the vital earth. God made it so.
All creatures that live on the land depend on the soil,
Which is like a strong parent,
Providing for all peoples and
All creatures that live above the waters.
These are God’s handiwork.
Praise be to the holy ground that is softly under our feet;
Praise be to God who has blessed the living carpet
That He has spread for our walking,
In the days of our living in the flesh,
And into which our rich residues will return.
These are God’s handiwork.
—Francis Hole, TNS (Temporarily Not Soil
[PHOTO OF FRANCIS HOLE]
FRANCIS D. HOLE (1913-2002 ) was Professor of Soil Science and Geography at the University of Wisconsin-Madison for 33 years. Raised as a Quaker, Dr. Hole was a conscientious objector during World War II. He campaigned against biological warfare experiments, nuclear weapons, and environmental degradation. All the soil in the world, he lamented, is “a bit radioactive,” polluted by fallout from nuclear weapons testing. For many years a member of the Madison Symphony Orchestra, he used his talents as musician, writer, and teacher to inspire students and Friends to understand and revere the soil. Here we see him playing, on his violin, the melody of a favorite soil.
[WORM CARTOON]
Lawn and garden chemicals can greatly diminish soil biodiversity. So can NaCl, salt, applied to roads and walkways, then airborne by high-speed cars, waterborne in run-off. Loss of soil biodiversity leads to loss of plant diversity, which leads to further loss of soil biodiversity.
[SOIL BIODIVERSITY]
Soil biodiversity, as depicted in the upper diagram, includes (1) buried seeds, (2) water bears, (3) springtails, (4) mites, (5) insect larvae, and (6) ants. Depicted in the lower, magnified view are (7) clay particles, (8) silt, (9) sand, (10) protozoa, (11) fungi, (12) bacteria, and (13) nematode. Since soil organisms live both within soil particles and in the gaps between particles, disturbance of the soil structure will likely decrease biodiversity. No-till agriculture and landscaping preserve soil structure and organisms.
Illustration by Tamara Clark.
[Provide whatever acknowledgement the publisher or artist requires, in whatever form is most economical.]
[UNIVERSAL TREE OF LIFE]
The universal tree of life, as developed by Dr. Carl Woese using genetic sequencing data, divides all life on earth into three “superkingdoms,” two of which are microbial—the bacteria and archaea. (The shaded area represents heat-loving microbes.) The animals, usually prominent in a five-kingdom “tree of life,” appear here as rather minor, slender “twigs” from the Eukarya branch. The profound implications of the “Woesian revolution”—showing most of earth’s biodiversity (and biogenesis) as microbial—are not yet fully comprehended. Illustration by Tamara Clark.
[ROOT DIAGRAM]
On the far left, standard lawn grass. Then four prairie grasses and wildflowers, once widespread in the Midwest, from Saskatchewan to Texas: 1) prairie dropseed grass; 2) prairie dock; 3) big bluestem grass; 4) pale purple coneflower. The lawn grass requires fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides, and frequent irrigation to thrive. The native species retain water, provide sustenance for other species, and build rich soil.
[PUNCH CARTOON—“MAN IS BUT A WORM”]
Caricature from PUNCH, satirizing Darwin’s intense interest in earthworms--and evolution. The occasion was the 1881 publication of Darwin’s THE FORMATION OF VEGETABLE MOULD THROUGH THE ACTION OF WORMS, in which he declares “It may be doubted whether there are many other animals which have played so important a part in the history of the world, as have these lowly organised creatures.”
[TYPICAL SOIL PROFILE]
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