Thank you for this beautiful reflection on the holiness of dirt. When I taught gardening classes to kids a few years back, the lessons on compost bordered on the spiritual. It was miraculous to watch children awakening in real-time to a deeper understanding of the life-death-life cycle, and where they fit into it. I love the way you’ve brought millipedes, as real animal and also as metaphor, into the picture. I’ll be thinking about that one for a while.
Thank you Ryan for spending time on this. I can only imagine how fulfilling it might be to watch children awaken to the awareness of life and death through soil. We share a profound connection to our great green mother, I wonder how many more decades before we collectively agree that she exists not be extracted from but to live in relationship with.
As she circles her last moments, I've been revisiting much of the wisdom of Joanna Macy, and I can see that you've been blessed with a knowing and a seeing not dissimilar to hers. It's so important. This kind of clarity. Thank you for sharing it 💛
Wow I never heard of Joanna Macy, thank you for introducing her to me Chloe. She has such beautiful pulse of animism flowing through her work.
Thank you, it is such an honour to be seen by you in resonance to such awakened souls. I am so overwhelmed and grateful to be in the field of your love and adoration dearest friend. 💜
Wonderful as always, Swarnali. Such beautiful writing and grounded thoughts.
“It is the slow erosion of genuine goodness in ordinary people that worries me.” Like the ever growing garden this will return when the powered classes stop spreading division and hatred. Goodness isn’t eroding, it’s hibernating :)
“Goodness isn’t eroding, it’s hibernating” I love this perspective Jonathan. It implies the strength of goodness might weaken but it never extinguishes. I am more likely to believe in a world that is still intact at its foundation of values and ethics, a world that won’t stop spiralling forward towards integrity and kindness. Thank you so much for bringing in optimism to this conversation my friend 💜
"nothing is too broken to begin again." The global events of this year, and especially this summer, feel so broken to me, but I hope you're right, Swarnali. This was gorgeous writing.
Yes Sarah, the world is a raging wildfire of madness right now but the least we can do is hold on to our own dear hearts and stay softer, kinder for times when life will call us to be the yielding ground for the future hope.
I was in southern Poland for 3 weeks recently and one of my first observations was how eerie the homogeneity of culture felt. Yes, this populist rhetoric gets masked in many cunning forms.
I’ve been revisiting Joanna Macy’s work too and she emphasizes the act of Naming. I think you are accurately - and beautifully and boldly - naming the seeds of the hostile reaction to immigration.
And at the same time, we are here planting the opposite any time we give the earth and all her tiny beings our heart-felt presence. That was stamped all over this poetic, life-and-death-affirming piece. Thank you 🙏🏼
Lydia, what a great insight this is! Yes most of the world right now, is a battlefield between conservatism and liberalism but what we truly need to hold together these breaking thresholds is an insight so deeply profound and real that it surpasses the pulse of all sectarian politics. We need the understanding of heart, mind, and deep ecology in order to stumble our way deeply into interconnected living.
Thank you for arriving to this conversation at such a significant time. And thank you for adding your insight. 💜
And about Joanna, how poor we are at her loss and yet how rich when we delve into her liberating work. May her teachings lead us out of the darkness of modernity.
Thank you for this beautiful reflection on the holiness of dirt. When I taught gardening classes to kids a few years back, the lessons on compost bordered on the spiritual. It was miraculous to watch children awakening in real-time to a deeper understanding of the life-death-life cycle, and where they fit into it. I love the way you’ve brought millipedes, as real animal and also as metaphor, into the picture. I’ll be thinking about that one for a while.
Thank you Ryan for spending time on this. I can only imagine how fulfilling it might be to watch children awaken to the awareness of life and death through soil. We share a profound connection to our great green mother, I wonder how many more decades before we collectively agree that she exists not be extracted from but to live in relationship with.
Hope you have a peaceful and safe week ahead 💜
Wishing you the same 💚
As she circles her last moments, I've been revisiting much of the wisdom of Joanna Macy, and I can see that you've been blessed with a knowing and a seeing not dissimilar to hers. It's so important. This kind of clarity. Thank you for sharing it 💛
Wow I never heard of Joanna Macy, thank you for introducing her to me Chloe. She has such beautiful pulse of animism flowing through her work.
Thank you, it is such an honour to be seen by you in resonance to such awakened souls. I am so overwhelmed and grateful to be in the field of your love and adoration dearest friend. 💜
Wonderful as always, Swarnali. Such beautiful writing and grounded thoughts.
“It is the slow erosion of genuine goodness in ordinary people that worries me.” Like the ever growing garden this will return when the powered classes stop spreading division and hatred. Goodness isn’t eroding, it’s hibernating :)
“Goodness isn’t eroding, it’s hibernating” I love this perspective Jonathan. It implies the strength of goodness might weaken but it never extinguishes. I am more likely to believe in a world that is still intact at its foundation of values and ethics, a world that won’t stop spiralling forward towards integrity and kindness. Thank you so much for bringing in optimism to this conversation my friend 💜
"nothing is too broken to begin again." The global events of this year, and especially this summer, feel so broken to me, but I hope you're right, Swarnali. This was gorgeous writing.
Yes Sarah, the world is a raging wildfire of madness right now but the least we can do is hold on to our own dear hearts and stay softer, kinder for times when life will call us to be the yielding ground for the future hope.
Thank you friend for listening deeply 💜
I was in southern Poland for 3 weeks recently and one of my first observations was how eerie the homogeneity of culture felt. Yes, this populist rhetoric gets masked in many cunning forms.
I’ve been revisiting Joanna Macy’s work too and she emphasizes the act of Naming. I think you are accurately - and beautifully and boldly - naming the seeds of the hostile reaction to immigration.
And at the same time, we are here planting the opposite any time we give the earth and all her tiny beings our heart-felt presence. That was stamped all over this poetic, life-and-death-affirming piece. Thank you 🙏🏼
Lydia, what a great insight this is! Yes most of the world right now, is a battlefield between conservatism and liberalism but what we truly need to hold together these breaking thresholds is an insight so deeply profound and real that it surpasses the pulse of all sectarian politics. We need the understanding of heart, mind, and deep ecology in order to stumble our way deeply into interconnected living.
Thank you for arriving to this conversation at such a significant time. And thank you for adding your insight. 💜
And about Joanna, how poor we are at her loss and yet how rich when we delve into her liberating work. May her teachings lead us out of the darkness of modernity.
Dirt is so very sacred. From which everything came and everything returns. Thank you for this gentle, reverent meditation on our one true mother.
Thank you for arriving here. I genuinely love your work and have been following your space for sometime now. Yes to the sacredness of dirt. 💜
Aww, thank you Swarnali. 🙏
Beautiful. 🩶
Thank you Jo 💜