Jump to:

1. Begin Composting
2. PLANTING in SOIL
3. Holding Dirt
4. Make a Covenant
5. Sources and Resources

Experiential 1:
Begin Composting

Make your own soil!  If you have a small backyard or even a backporch, you can compost and begin to enjoy the results!  Order a composting bucket for your kitchen where all the table scraps go.  Purchase an outdoor composter from www.veggiegrower.net or go online and view all the possible indoor/outdoor options available from Gaiam. 

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Experiential 2:
PLANTING in SOIL

Now you can use your composted material, which is a rich soil amendment, to experiment with growing food, herbs or flowers! As Spring approaches, it is a perfect time to become more familiar with the soil and her rhythms.  Find a plot of dirt in your backyard, or if you don’t have a backyard plot, find a space in a community garden or put a few pots on your window sill or porch and fill them with dirt.

Amend this little plot with good soil—either bagged soil, local manure, or your compost. Plant some seeds, and watch them grow!  Nurture them with water and emulsified fish oil and keep them warm with a little straw or cut grass.  Happy sowing and reaping!

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Experiential 3:
Holding Dirt

This prayerful meditation with sister soil was experienced many years ago at a Sweat lodge ceremony.  It was a part of reconnecting with the earth upon which we were sweating our prayers and honoring her presence and gratefully offering up our thanksgiving. (CAC staff member)

1. Begin by finding a place in your backyard or at a favorite place in nature where you can be alone.
2. Sink your hand into the ground and grab a fistful of soil.
3. Carefully observe and examine it, sniffing it, seeing its color, feeling the texture.  Remember that there is a universe of living beings in one square cubic of dirt!  Give thanks to the Creator for this rich, living soil.
4. Now find a place where you can lie down flat on your back or sit propped up against a tree, where you are in contact with the earth.  Feel your weight against the earth and her living beings, such as rock or tree.
5. Close your eyes and go into a silent meditation with the soil you hold in your hand. Be there in silence, emptying your mind and feeling your whole body, your breath, the feeling of soil in your hand.
6. As it rests there, is there anything that comes to your heart or your mind?
   Are there any memories that arise? Any thoughts that come to you?  
   Just let these memories or thoughts drift by as ships on a great body of water. Watch them.
7. Is there anything you want to ask of sister soil?  Is there anything she might be saying to you through your sense of touch, sound, a visual image, words?
8. Is there anything you wish to say to sister soil?
9. Finally, thank the earth and the soil in your hand, give gratitude for her purpose and life.  Return your handful of soil to her new place as you return to your life renewed.

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Experiential 4:
Make a Covenant

Make a covenant, a promise, to honor sister soil by not using chemicals or pesticides which destroy and deplete her.  Find alternatives for organic gardening and care of the earth by doing research and exploration of local sources.   Make a commitment to eating local, organic produce and food which are grown by local farmers within a 100 mile radius, so that they don’t need to be shipped over long distances using cheap petrol. Check out the Center for Action & Contemplation’s SUSTAINABILITY website and learn how we are also trying to live in right relationship with sister soil. 

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Sources and Resources

• veggiegrower.net - Veggie Grower Gardens - portable micro-intensive gardening units
• Plants of the Southwest - a gardening and sustainability resource in Santa Fe and Albuquerque
• Farmer's Markets in New Mexico
• The CAC's Sustainability page
• Compost Research Page
• Biodynamic.net    Biodynamic and Organic Gardening Resource Site.
• Gardening in Clay Soil. By Sara Pitzer.  Pownal, Vermont, Storey Books, 1995.  A Storey Country Wisdom Bulletin.  32 pages.  
  Storey Books also offers Gardening in Sandy Soil.
• Improving the Soil.    By Erin Hynes.   Rodale's Successful Organic Gardening: Improving the Soil.   Emmaus, Pennsylvania, Rodale Press, 1994.  Index, 160 pages.  ISBN: 0-87596-617-9.
• The Nature and Properties of Soils.   By Nyle C. Brady.  New York, Macmillan Publishing Company, 1984. Ninth Edition.   Index, glossary, 750 pages. 
  Mr. Brady is a professor at Cornell University and member 
  of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).