We are primarily terrestrial creatures. As much as some may love water, living in it presents a few problems for us. Not too many years back, our understanding of the world was limited to the four elements, Earth, Air, Fire and Water, but as our ability to practice science improved and technologies for breaking down the world around us into component parts improved, we discovered many more elements, or building blocks from which matter derives. Now, we know of more than four classes of these building blocks of all things. Pure water, for instance is actually two things, two hydrogen atoms for every oxygen atom. Air can be made up of, or contaminated with several dozen more things. Some of us have studied chemistry to the point of thinking that we understand exactly how it works. However, the process of chemistry, dissecting and recombining materials thought to be elementary building blocks or indeed, smashing the atom completely also have an unintended purpose or consequence. The knowledge that we have developed over the last couple centuries has led many to think that the elements of old have lost much of their meaning and importance. Indeed, the four elements still hold sway, if not influence over our lives.
Earth, Air, Fire and Water are still elemental and powerful concepts, even though science has changed our perception of them. Perhaps our understanding is not as "complete" as we may think. I have been thinking about relationships since I was a child. The art and science of relationships lie in our ability to recognize, understand that "other", interact with one another in meaningful ways and to influence one another, much like the elementary particles that make up all matter. Just because we can break down Earth, Air, Fire and Water into constituent parts and pieces, or combine these fractional portions in different ways with predictable results, this cannot stand-in for the powerful gifts that come from acknowledgment of these "four directions" and the pull they still have on us today. Often, within our own organisms and within the broader species as a whole, we learn and develop facility with different "realities" as we grow. What we thought that the world was, or how we understand it at age two is different than twenty and that is different again at sixty or one hundred. We probably think that the world has changed, even if it is just our perspective.
Child mind seems to be trendy. ("I'm not a scientist", ev'ry body likes to brag these days.") is how Todd Rundgren puts it on his recent release Global. Believing in ancient deities, praying to them in public and basing political and ideological decisions on folktales seem to be growing, not shrinking. At least that is how the people who control media are painting things. As we learn more about the ancient world, most of what we thought we knew about civilization seems to not be proven out. Why should it be? Most of what we found, we assumed to know what it meant and no matter how limited our understandings were, we had to fit them into our old ways of thinking. Thus the terms primitive and hostile. The oppressors frequently paint "others" with disdain, they are only there to name, claim, tame and shame. Raping (plundering) the planet and saddling her people with clean up costs is no way to run an empire.
I focus on language because it is the fabric that holds ideas together. The strands holding our culture together are the remnant cooperative spirit and hopoe that comes from feeling secure, part of, something larger. It is human nature. Our tribes are now capable of spreading around the globe on digital pulses. We have now identified relationships between and among atoms that hold all matter together, but we are unfamiliar with the ancient gods and goddesses who were the psychic glue holding human reality together since our species was swapping DNA with other proto-human species.
Sitting around fires, we know that they are alive. They represent one of the most primal and physical proofs of life itself. Science has now proven that metabolic activity itself liberates energy in the form of heat. Now, science proves the truth behind the old saying "the fire of life." We can even state with relative certainty that on average, humans generate between 275 and 500 BTUs per hour. Adding 200 bodies to a room is like having a whole house furnace burning the whole time. All of this energy comes from the Sun, the ultimate source of fire in our part of the Universe. In this respect, we are just an amazing biologic battery, absorbing Sun energy, (fire) in the form of plant mediated fats, carbohydrates, protein and a host of mineral and unintended human-made compounds. Just as the wood we burn is a battery for solar energy, so too are our bodies. We are not just mesmerized by fire, we are akin to it!
The Earth is the same way. Our relationship with the Earth is that we too are one. Both of us are inhabited by microbes, both of us are alternately washed with photons on a diurnal cycle. Rays from the Sun lights about half of each day and the reflected light of the moon (varying on a moonthly cycle) reflects the Sun's light, most nights. When we use terms like "He's real salt of the Earth", or we call someone down to Earth, it is more about the elemental understandings that Earth represented to us on a primal level, integrated into our DNA ages ago than any up to date soil science. However, as we learn more, there is a system-wide integrity within the communities that inhabit our planet, and in time, the knowledge we gain about relationships within soil, may help us to develop better relationships with our foods and we very quickly need to understand that our own health flows from honoring the community within the soil that we depend on for survival as well as the microbial communities that exist within and upon our bodies. When the dust bowl days took away the soil, it had taken thousands of years to accumulate, develop, evolve toward stability. That is gone, and has never been rebuilt.
It may seem odd that solar and lunar events are included in a post entitled sacred planet, or that on the other end of the size spectrum, microbes, but indeed, we are all differing harmonics of the sacred sound. There are spiritual costs of wiping out diversity in our soils. In addition to the physical disruption of the environment, there is great silencing of the songs of trillions of living creatures. In my gardens, I attempt to keep all turned soil covered to reduce the sterilizing effects of ultra-violet radiation from the Sun. Learning to cooperate instead of just disrupting nature was a great step forward in my own understanding of deep ecology. Each of us takes a different path to get to our awareness, mine came through keeping fish and utilizing their "wastes" as valuable resources for my garden beds. I grew to see cycles of energy, of nutrients and of carbon in live soils, but the last five years or so, I have been stepping up my game with the addition of biochar.
I am currently scheduling classes around the country to focus on this solution to both the climate and food crises. Biochar can more than double agricultural output, eliminating the need for pesticides and virtually all fertilizer as well. Healing soils leads to healthier plants which in turn are not easy targets for most insect pests. Addition of biochar also helps stabilize soil moisture, moderating both flood and drought. We are blessed to have this technology and no corporate entity will ever get rich from it. Our sacred traditions, birthright really, requires us to adopt this ancient technology wherever we grow crops. Sequestering carbon needs to be a worldwide priority and biochar can help life thrive, if we learn to grow soil rather than abuse it.
Earth, Air, Fire and Water are still elemental and powerful concepts, even though science has changed our perception of them. Perhaps our understanding is not as "complete" as we may think. I have been thinking about relationships since I was a child. The art and science of relationships lie in our ability to recognize, understand that "other", interact with one another in meaningful ways and to influence one another, much like the elementary particles that make up all matter. Just because we can break down Earth, Air, Fire and Water into constituent parts and pieces, or combine these fractional portions in different ways with predictable results, this cannot stand-in for the powerful gifts that come from acknowledgment of these "four directions" and the pull they still have on us today. Often, within our own organisms and within the broader species as a whole, we learn and develop facility with different "realities" as we grow. What we thought that the world was, or how we understand it at age two is different than twenty and that is different again at sixty or one hundred. We probably think that the world has changed, even if it is just our perspective.
Child mind seems to be trendy. ("I'm not a scientist", ev'ry body likes to brag these days.") is how Todd Rundgren puts it on his recent release Global. Believing in ancient deities, praying to them in public and basing political and ideological decisions on folktales seem to be growing, not shrinking. At least that is how the people who control media are painting things. As we learn more about the ancient world, most of what we thought we knew about civilization seems to not be proven out. Why should it be? Most of what we found, we assumed to know what it meant and no matter how limited our understandings were, we had to fit them into our old ways of thinking. Thus the terms primitive and hostile. The oppressors frequently paint "others" with disdain, they are only there to name, claim, tame and shame. Raping (plundering) the planet and saddling her people with clean up costs is no way to run an empire.
I focus on language because it is the fabric that holds ideas together. The strands holding our culture together are the remnant cooperative spirit and hopoe that comes from feeling secure, part of, something larger. It is human nature. Our tribes are now capable of spreading around the globe on digital pulses. We have now identified relationships between and among atoms that hold all matter together, but we are unfamiliar with the ancient gods and goddesses who were the psychic glue holding human reality together since our species was swapping DNA with other proto-human species.
Sitting around fires, we know that they are alive. They represent one of the most primal and physical proofs of life itself. Science has now proven that metabolic activity itself liberates energy in the form of heat. Now, science proves the truth behind the old saying "the fire of life." We can even state with relative certainty that on average, humans generate between 275 and 500 BTUs per hour. Adding 200 bodies to a room is like having a whole house furnace burning the whole time. All of this energy comes from the Sun, the ultimate source of fire in our part of the Universe. In this respect, we are just an amazing biologic battery, absorbing Sun energy, (fire) in the form of plant mediated fats, carbohydrates, protein and a host of mineral and unintended human-made compounds. Just as the wood we burn is a battery for solar energy, so too are our bodies. We are not just mesmerized by fire, we are akin to it!
The Earth is the same way. Our relationship with the Earth is that we too are one. Both of us are inhabited by microbes, both of us are alternately washed with photons on a diurnal cycle. Rays from the Sun lights about half of each day and the reflected light of the moon (varying on a moonthly cycle) reflects the Sun's light, most nights. When we use terms like "He's real salt of the Earth", or we call someone down to Earth, it is more about the elemental understandings that Earth represented to us on a primal level, integrated into our DNA ages ago than any up to date soil science. However, as we learn more, there is a system-wide integrity within the communities that inhabit our planet, and in time, the knowledge we gain about relationships within soil, may help us to develop better relationships with our foods and we very quickly need to understand that our own health flows from honoring the community within the soil that we depend on for survival as well as the microbial communities that exist within and upon our bodies. When the dust bowl days took away the soil, it had taken thousands of years to accumulate, develop, evolve toward stability. That is gone, and has never been rebuilt.
It may seem odd that solar and lunar events are included in a post entitled sacred planet, or that on the other end of the size spectrum, microbes, but indeed, we are all differing harmonics of the sacred sound. There are spiritual costs of wiping out diversity in our soils. In addition to the physical disruption of the environment, there is great silencing of the songs of trillions of living creatures. In my gardens, I attempt to keep all turned soil covered to reduce the sterilizing effects of ultra-violet radiation from the Sun. Learning to cooperate instead of just disrupting nature was a great step forward in my own understanding of deep ecology. Each of us takes a different path to get to our awareness, mine came through keeping fish and utilizing their "wastes" as valuable resources for my garden beds. I grew to see cycles of energy, of nutrients and of carbon in live soils, but the last five years or so, I have been stepping up my game with the addition of biochar.
I am currently scheduling classes around the country to focus on this solution to both the climate and food crises. Biochar can more than double agricultural output, eliminating the need for pesticides and virtually all fertilizer as well. Healing soils leads to healthier plants which in turn are not easy targets for most insect pests. Addition of biochar also helps stabilize soil moisture, moderating both flood and drought. We are blessed to have this technology and no corporate entity will ever get rich from it. Our sacred traditions, birthright really, requires us to adopt this ancient technology wherever we grow crops. Sequestering carbon needs to be a worldwide priority and biochar can help life thrive, if we learn to grow soil rather than abuse it.
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