Happy Earth Day 2018!!!
It's Earth day everyday here, but I thought it would be fun to share two of our greatest passions on this special day...
Creating Soil and Soil-Bathing
“The 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.”
― Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture
"If we have declared a war against the soil itself, the we have literally declared a species level suicide."
~Earth Activist, Vandana Shiva
The same goes for declaring a war against the microbes in our guts and on our bodies...with antibiotics and sanitizers.
I'll be the first to admit...I'm a dirt bag. And I'm proud of it!!! No anti-biotics or hand sanitizers for me!!! Here's why...
Creating Soil
Did you know that there are around 1 million living critters in just a tablespoon of living soil? And there are more living beings in the soil than there are walking on the soil?
And BTW, dirt is not the same thing as soil. When the conditions are right, no pesticides or tilling, there is a living food web beneath your feet.
My beloved teammate, 
Here's a recent post we made on how we use our compost to create living, nutrient-dense compost tea for foliar sprays.
Another cool thing about composting is that seeds just sprout so easily in the compost bins. This is an image of a seed sprouting from a store-bought avocado. I pull these out every few days and pot them.
I personally feel an obligation to this practice. To give back to our Mother. In the process it is a way to inoculate our bodies with beneficial bacteria and grow the most nutrient dense food available. This is how we nourish our inner and outer gardens to their fullest genetic potential. This practice is what I refer to as "soil-bathing." And we get to do it everyday :)
Soil Bathing
Recent research has shown that a beneficial bacteria in the soil called "m. vaccae" actually improves mood and immune system function.
And for those of us parents who are choosing to build our children's immunity naturally, this is the cheapest and most effective way to do so, in addition to sun-bathing.
For more info on the health benefits of soil check out this article.
In fact, most skin problems (from acne to eczema) are related to the skin microbiome and may be a result of changes to this ecosystem due to our modern lifestyle causing imbalance in pH of our skin and increased toxicity.
Our modern lifestyle assaults our gut microbiome through antibiotic overuse, consumption of foods that disrupt gut flora, and overuse of antibacterial products. These same factors can alter the bacterial balance on the skin and can even be damaging.
I love this article by "Wellness Mama" detailing why we want bacteria on our skin.
We're taught that the sun causes skin cancer, but we are rarely educated on the microbiome of the skin that, when healthy, provides a natural protection from UV rays.
And that's just a fragment of what we know of the benefits of soil bathing and soil creation.
On a spiritual level I feel that the soil IS our soul. And ironically there's only one letter difference between the two words.
It is where we find our ancestors and can be viewed as a form of "soul retrieval" to connect with this living substance in gratitude and remembrance.
In this article I discuss this concept in depth.
Hope you enjoy the symphony of soil on this day and many more to come!!!
How's your garden growing?
Aloha belovend Earthlings!
Pachee and Family