Earth: Processing Like Compost
What do you find yourself processing over and over? How do you integrate these learnings, these journeys? Have you ever made compost, literally or metaphorically?
1. Nitrogen (green stuff and food scraps) 0.33% + carbon (brown stuff and dry leaves) 0.67% + sprinkle water, leave to decompose, and aerate/mix regularly = rich, chocolate cake-like, humus aka compost. Congratulations, you’ve just made earth, one foundational element of all life.
2. From earth we come and to earth we return, they said. As if it was some form of consolation. They opened her simple wood coffin and placed a few handfuls of soil inside to symbolize this. I thought perhaps it could keep her company.
3. So then you lay down under the trees, watch them sway. Fall into a special sleep, feel their roots come up all around you. Feel the mycelium wrap itself around your core and pull you under. Try not to panic.
4. “And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” - Anais Nin
5. Lose touch with reality. Let the mycelium take you underground. Allow yourself to be buried alive. Meet your inner child. Discover that everything decomposes slowly. Disintegrate completely.
6. Allow the disintegrated pieces to touch every atom of the earth, connect with every being above and below ground. Allow grief to consume you. Meet your matriarchs and see them sing your praises. Sing along. To make compost, much has to die. To make life, many have to be let go.
7. On and on, I will be one of them one day for others. Above or below. An enzo is an incomplete circle, drawn over and over, for the beauty of imperfection. Journeys are continuous, life is cyclical. See the same things over and over, be affected always.
8. What grows from compost? Watch as the sunflowers grow from your chest. Watch yourself become chocolate-cake soft, full of nitrogen and carbon, love and kindness. Watch your lovers bloom. Witness what compost can make. Decide to become the softest compost, the softest landing space, nurturing and caring. Become slowly, the way all processing happens.
9. “How did the rose ever open its heart and give to this world all of its beauty? It felt the encouragement of light against its being, otherwise we all remain too frightened.” - Hafiz
10. Disentangle yourself from the roots, pull the energy back into your core, collect back your tentacles. Put the pieces back together. Come home to yourself. Decide to grow food. Decide to nurture people. Decide to love yourself. Layers upon layers, I am soil.