Monday Morning Wake-Up Call

~ Live & Learn

I want to reinstate a respect for soil. We must touch the soil. How many times do we touch our mobile phone every day? Maybe 100 times. How many times do we touch the soil? Hardly ever. We must give dignity to peasants, farmers and gardeners. We are all part of this healthy web of life maintained by soil. The Latin word humus means soil. The words human, humility and humus all come from the same root. When humans lose contact with soil, they are no longer humans.

– Satish Kumar, from “The Link Between Soil, Soul and Society” (The Guardian)

Notes: Quote via Liquid Light and Running Trees. Photo – Soil by Alexandra

25 thoughts on “Monday Morning Wake-Up Call”

  1. Oooooh, I’m so gonna share that with my son, the learned landscape gardener. He sent me a moving text to my plea on ‘what do I do with this ‘inherited’ crippled shrub’ – and later sending him pics with said shrub having struggled to get some leaves and flowers – saying for Mother’s Day: This poor Weigelia (shrub’s name) stands today for you, my mum. It’s wood is , after setbacks and failings, orienting itself towards new ways, even though an incompetent ass of a gardener (in this case, former lodgers/renters) robbed it of its dignity. It forgives and strives for newly offered sources of light and now in May, offers fresh flowers, saying: I forgive you my child. Its wood marks the years, it is wearing its life openly and even though it bears many heavy scars with optimism, it accepts forks on its way, and is always directed towards the sun…. (and more, no longer related to a shrub….).
    It was me and a gardener friend who ‘made’ him first a gardener and although he is no longer working in this profession due to health problems, he just oversaw and directed the lay-out and planting of a huge landscape project for his employer, a very large care home with all types of care-systems for elderly, ill, demented, and healthy people. We will forever be thankful to our long gone friend who planted, together with me, the seed and love, but also respect and thankfulness towards the soil and every little bit of growing, crawling and growing from it.
    Sorry for always taking so much space – and hoping that, although in a bad way, my thoughts come through the way I intend them to.

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      1. Valerie, it was such a shock to me!!! Honestly. We have had for many, many years such a difficult, complicated and on his side very negative relationship that the occasional deeply loving expression like this bowls me right over. It also reminds me of – finally – having done a pretty good job because for the time of his growing up I was the witch (educating him) while his father was his all-time hero. Only at around 30yrs old he started to tell me that ‘I wasn’t that bad’ and since he has the most wonderful lady friend and partner, he truly sees me also as her mum and he started to confide in me, asking my advice, and – as above – surprise me with an amazing testimonial about once a year…. Yes, he IS a treasure, a deeply caring man, hard-working, considerate, the darling of the home he’s working at – he is the apple of my blind mother’s eye, and I’m happy to see the fruits of the many seeds I laid in his heart and soul for his first 18 years. It was all worth it.

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  2. That article, I searched for it and I wondered why I hadn’t read it (I’m subbed to their newsletters)….. it’s from October 2013….. and it’s more revelant than ever!!! Doesn’t throw the best light on us, inhabitants of this precious soil and earth.

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  4. My mother and her mother both kept very large gardens when I was a kid. They spent many hours together in each other’s patches, seeding, weeding, harvesting, and chatting. As a child, I loved the garden. Though I couldn’t have articulated it at the time, there was a sanctity to that space. It was a place in which those two women nurtured their families in a very real way, and their spirits in a more abstract one. I remember clearly sitting between the rows, eating strawberries and tomatoes warmed by the sun. Love plucked from a plant….

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  7. Reblogged this on It Is What It Is and commented:
    Wow!! RESPECT … “The Latin word humus means soil. The words human, humility and humus all come from the same root. When humans lose contact with soil, they are no longer humans.”
    Satish Kumar, from “The Link Between Soil, Soul and Society” (The Guardian).

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  8. gathering courage to tend the soil…have signed up for a community garden plot again (courtesy of Lawrenceville School), and newly for a Victory Garden plot via the D&R Greenway in Princeton… I no longer have land I can grow things on–tried the first 2 years here [this rental used to be a kennel and the yard has a plasticky canvas about 8 incles down, then covered with pebble rock and then soil.] Something satisfyingly ancient about working with the soil to grow flowers and vegetables and herbs!

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  9. oh yes, lovely soil, love nothing more than repotting and getting my hands in there, topping them up with fresh nutritious soil. This feels very relevant too having just read The Resilient Farmer by Doug Avery, surviving drought and learning that he was not a farmer of sheep but a ‘farmer of water’, one of the keys to nutritious regenerative soil.

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  10. I walked through the garden, slipping in the straw and mud, late yesterday, before the rain started…snapping photos…I took photos 2 or 3 weeks ago… my how the garden grows so fast! The peas and berries are flowering, we’ve been eating the lettuce,herbs add to our meals, flowers bring Joy, so many more veggies growing, baby apples hold promise…Seeds and propagated fruiting trees are such a blessing /// PBS over a decade ago had a series about nature and the “Power of a Seed”/// Soil, water, warmth and sun…such a blessing…/// So hard to know that the lady governor of Michigan has banned the sale of seeds!!! she says they’re not essential!!! I so disagree!!! Much of Michigan is rural, many retirees, many folks who hunt and fish and of course garden!!! Who might live on a fixed income & need the bounty of a garden…
    So she is taking away food from people!!! Many Michigan resident are dependent on living off what the land provides…fishing, hunting, gardening -they can, freeze and dry the food from the garden and from their catch and hunting…Garden seeds are an item that people who are on food stamps are allowed to buy with their food stamp debit card, so a Federal program that she sees fit to override!!! There are so many things that are questionable about what she has banned one being Child Car Seats!!! In my state you are not allowed to leave the hospital with out a Child Car Seat!!! If a person has an auto accident you are to replace your car seats!!! If you are expecting you may not of had time to buy the car seat yet or you think you have time and you have a premmie baby…

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      1. It is stupid…we saw on the tv news how she ordered certain areas and items to be taped off with the Yellow Tape…Target the baby seats, Home Depot any thing to do with home improvement all taped off (think of all of the projects the men out of work due to the quarantine could get accomplished from their honey do list) and I don’t know the name of the stores with taped off garden area thought it was shown on the news…we followed up by googling -so unreasonable…groups of people in that state have been protesting…

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