nature perspective series: soil
Image from Google
We often view history from a purely human perspective, forgetting that the events that shape our story do not happen in a vacuum. In this series, I explore the often forgotten perspective of nature during major historic events. Here, we get a small glimpse into the quiet, pained view of the spirits of nature in the North American landscape as it witnesses the transition from Indigenous communities, through colonialism, and into present day.
I am the foundation for which all life on land sits upon, my dark ebony layer wrapping around the Earth like a hug. I host a wide array of life within the darkness, a whole web of life living and breathing just beneath the surface. I am a part of a sacred dance that has taken place since life began, a life-giving exchange where energy flows back and forth between the above and below, a cycle which has no beginning or end. I lovingly cradle the Earth’s plants in a nurturing embrace, protecting their winding system of roots in the safety of my darkness. And in a mutual respect, the variety of plants return what they take and shelter me from the harshness of what happens above. The base of all nourishment begins within my welcoming arms and my health is intimately tied to all of land’s creatures.
But I am often taken for granted, for I appear as nothing more than dirt. They thought my gifts were a given, that the fruit that I bore them was not a result of care and reciprocity. When my plant inhabitants began to change, and water and nutrient hungry plants dotted my skin, that flow of energy no longer flowed both ways but instead it now sucked me dry. Once I was a moist and rich earthy blanket of life, but they turned me into just dirt. They would find a hearty and healthy patch of my fertile lands and use it up until they could not squeeze any more life out of me, then they would vanish, leaving my lands now dry and parched, only to move on to another piece of me. They kept roaming, raping my lands of their life until I could give them no more and began to breath dust. With no life to hold me down, my lifeless dust rose into the air and engulfed them with my pain and blanketed them with my fury. But they did not hear my cry, and now they artificially keep me useful for their needs with chemicals that seep into my core and host only the life they choose for me. Gone are the days of my wild varieties of plant inhabitants and the symbiotic balance of life exchange, instead I remain a shell of my former self with dry and cracked lips and chemical burns marring my skin.
Image from Google