Living Soil Heals

I wrote my masters as a love song for Life. Since love songs are suppose to woo their beloved into deeper states of affection, I asked my parents if they would allow me to write it on the porch of a tiny house my father built with his own hands with trees from the forest I grew up in as a child. I would create beautiful words for an epic lover in the space where the seduction first began.

As a child, the space I sat upon now as an adult had been my Favorite Place. It was in a bend of Johnson Creek, where old and young cedars grew tall and warm from sheer banks and water clattered over the washboard bedrock of aggregated river stones cemented together with mud and time. 

In the place of growing childhood roots into the earth I returned to pen my passion for regeneration, reciprocity, Beauty and Life. 

I have always longed for connection, learning and Deep Being. As a child I often wondered why all people seemed to care about was DOING things when we were Human BEINGS. The disconnect between action and observation, dominating and tending was vast even then and often felt cloaked in a web of mundane acceptance of things that burned under my skin.

Like why did we dump poison on the earth when we depended on food grown from her body to live? What kind of life did that set us up to live? What kind of people did that make us for thinking we could take forever without tending now?

My Love Song ended up naming itself as so often happens when the spirit moves. People of the Living Soil-Practices and Perspectives for Weaving the World Anew...only that's a mouthful so I thinned it out and found that Living Soil gleamed out like a shiny tomato on the vine.

The academy ask me to answer their questions...What do I want to give to the world? I want to reciprocate Life. I want to sing songs into her soils and plants that rejuvenate them and unfurls their mystical photosynthesizing symphony of sugar spinning sorcery into the soil that feeds us. I want to craft cunning circles of poetry, movement, planting and coming of age where people gather to praise this magnificent Life we share on planet Earth. 

Living Soil is a practice of regrowing depleted systems on our earth, in our communities and within ourselves. From seeding regenerative agricultural principles into our collective consciousness to gathering on land to celebrate young men coming of age, Living Soil soulfully croons a way forward rooted in love, flourishing with beauty and drenched in abundance. 

The institute is both a virtual space and a literal one, grounded in Milwaukie, Oregon and featuring workshops and gatherings that re-harmonize us to sing Life Songs and nourish deep healing and seeding of a way forward for all of us. 

The verses of this metaphorical song are emerging through the rich growth of summer post graduation and will likely grow to include classes and collaborative practices which offer a place to plant regenerative ways of being in relationship with Life...from how to build soil rich in living organisms and vitality to community breath-work sessions, the Living Soil Institute will be a place to remember our way Home. Back into reciprocity with Life. Back into a deepening love affair with abundance, self-sufficiency and meaningful connection. Back into a state of belonging and being so we can rest, restore, regenerative and weave the world anew. 

Welcome home.