Soil: keeper of the dead, giver of wealth
âThe soil is the great connector of lives, the source and destination of all. It is the healer and restorer and resurrector, by which disease passes into health, age into youth, death into life. Without proper care for it we can have no community, because without proper care for it we can have no life.â -Wendell Berry
In rebuilding a relationship with the natural environment, I realized everything starts and ends with soil. And in a pantheon of natural forces, soil transcends, the archetype of a deity of the dead and the underworld
Itâs not just dirt, Soil is a collective being. In just one gram of soil can live 10 million bacteria [x]. Soil is home to the unseen. In its dark depths lives all sorts of minerals, microbes, fungi, and small creatures essential to our existence, but mostly out of view. These minions of the soil toil as the Great Decomposer. From fallen leaves, animal droppings, to the leftover kill of the coyote, beetles and bugs: in a great orchestration the collective soil transmutes dead matter into the nutrients for life. Working together the soil makes this life force available and assists in delivering it with the help of mycorrhizal relationships and others. Most all death (sans some humans) will meet soil in one sense or another and it is soil that is responsible for managing the dead, the transition to the afterlife, and offers possibly of resurrection.
My relationship with soil is quite intense and personal. I learned from a school of gardening that focuses on building and raising soil using no-till techniques to harbor a thriving soil community and thus a more productive garden. My wealth and wellbeing comes from the soil, in the form of food, and I n exchange it must be treated with respect. Much of my time is spent with the soil, working with compost, collecting mulch, cleaning animal manure, and gardening of course. This time spent is offering dedication to the soil which facilitates learning itâs lessons
The soil also plays an honored role when it comes to burying the remains of our animals. We try to use every last gift they bless us with but there are always unusable parts that are offered to the soil and we let it work its magic. The soil takes the bones and remains and transfers them to new life.
Burial plays a crucial role in my path: a way to give offerings to the land and harnessed as a useful form of magic. A direct connection to the soil, the underworld, and unseen forces. Along with bones, herbs, roots, charms, other gifts and ingredients (all safe for the earth) are buried and used to form bonds with these entities and execute spells and rituals.
There is no better time to honor this deity of the dead then during the Halloween season. As it is the end of harvest: decaying plant matter is given to the compost, blood to the earth, remains buried deep underground. The gardens are given compost, manure, and mulch to nurish and protect the soil. We are more in touch with the unseen and death is fresh on the mind. But soil is honored throughout the year. In midspring when planting begins, during summer when it is full of life meditating with its energy, or frozen solid in winter sleeping under the snow, there is always value in being connected to death.