Humus

The Earthiness of the Soul

Community of Voices

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Embodiment is the resource because it helps connect us to the greater resource, which is the earth the ground...what resources us most: the breath, the body, the ground. Embodiment is tapping into that resource that exists underneath and around us. - Prentiss Hemphill, For The Wild Podcast

Recent research has shown that the smell of humus exerts a physiological effect on humans. Breathing in the scent of Mother Earth stimulates the release of the hormone oxytocin, the same chemical that promotes bonding between mother and child, between lovers. Held in loving arms, no wonder we sing in response.

…

When I dig my trowel under a grass patch, the soil is different. The waste below is no longer pure white and slippery, but dark gray and crumby between my fingers. There are roots all through it. The darkening of the soil is humus mixed in; the waste is being changed.

- Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

The Sovereign God crafted the human from the dust of the humus and breathed into its nostrils the breath of life. and the human became a living soul. - Rev. Dr. Wilda Gafney, Interpretation of Genesis 2:7, A Woman’s Lectionary for the Whole Church, Year W

The message was absolutely primordial in nature and equally as humbling. I was dumbstruck the whole day after the dream, living in a contemplative state between embarrassment and true humility. They, the plants, were healing me. - Dr. Randy Woodley, Becoming Rooted

Humifying Humility

Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash

Have you heard of humus (pronounced Hue-Muss)? It’s glories were brought to my attention in Robin Wall Kimmerer’s book Braiding Sweetgrass, and Wikipedia helped me dive deeper. Here's some of what I found:

In classical soil science, humus is the dark organic matter in soil that is formed by the decomposition of plant and animal matter. It is a kind of soil organic matter. It is rich in nutrients and retains moisture in the soil. Humus is the Latin word for "earth" or "ground"

In agriculture, "humus" sometimes also is used to describe mature or natural compost extracted from a woodland or other spontaneous source for use as a soil conditioner.

Fully humified humus, on the contrary, has a uniformly dark, spongy, and jelly-like appearance, and is amorphous; it may gradually decay over several years or persist for millennia. It has no determinate shape, structure, or quality. However, when examined under a microscope, humus may reveal tiny plant, animal, or microbial remains that have been mechanically, but not chemically, degraded.

There is little data available on the composition of forest humus because it is a complex mixture that is challenging for researchers to analyze. Researchers in the 1940s and 1960s tried using chemical separation to analyze plant and humic compounds in forest soil, but this proved impossible.

I can't remember where I first heard this, but when I heard that humility is not thinking too highly or too lowly of yourself, I was stunned. Humility was always offered as the requirement of holy shrinkage. "Become an insignificant spec in a world full of three dimensional beings and you'll be closer to God." Now, thankfully, that sentiment doesn't even make sense to me.  Heather MacFayden said "True humility is to occupy your God-given space," and that too rang true and offered expansion. I felt like I could breathe into the space her statement created. I desire to be humble, but not the false kind that forces me to be less, different, or a mutilated version of who I was created to be.

Inspired by what MacFayden said, a grounded, whole expression of self and interconnection is a way I might describe humility.

As I nerded out about humus on Wikipedia and at the library, I found myself asking is humility the humus? Is humility what makes our souls viable for growth and flourishing? Is humility a conditioner to our soul? Like humus, humility is a process. It takes passing through many season cycles to experience full-grown humility.

Often, the journey into "a grounded, whole expression of self and interconnection" requires death. And it's not like death happens, you have a funeral, and humility is served at the repass. There has to be death and decay for humility to form.

My own sense of wholeness was preceded by the death of many things that were, at the time, informing my and some of my community's way of being. One death that stands out to me starkly is that of Certainty.  Certainty said it addressed my fears, but really it just lied about them. Certainty said it was keeping me honest, but really was torturing me with self-hatred.  Certainty, among other ways of being, had to be killed, buried, and allowed to decay so my soul-soil could be enriched unto wholeness.

Can you relate?

Please for the love of peat moss tell me you can relate.

Here's the thing about the death of the organisms that create humus and humility...they don't completely dissipate. In the humification process, it's described as "tiny plant, animal, or microbial remains that have been mechanically, but not chemically, degraded."

I haven't blocked out the presence of Certainty in my story - short of a case of amnesia I couldn't. But it has been composted down to a point where it’s a memory that contributes to rather than hinders the breath of Humility in my soul.

When humus becomes its complex self, there is no separating out the parts of its whole (they tried; see Wikipedia ref. above). Similarly, in the midst of the degradation and decomposing of what we *think* we know, often we acutely feel when these things are in the process of dying. Usually it's painful, sometimes extraordinarily so.

However, in being transformed, brought low to the earth, and integrated into the place of growth, many of the details become imperceivable. Chemically, everything is still there, but the mechanism of each part has given way to the collective function of the whole. This, I think, is the space where our humility is rich, fertile, and beautifully intact.

The alchemy of humility lies in the transformation of what is dead into a rich, conditioning composite for our soul-soil.

So what happens when things die, but they don't fully decay? Can there be a mummification of Certainty and other contracted ways of being?

Rather than letting Certainty break down so it becomes useful, life-giving, and alchemized into something rich and nourishing, Preserved Certainty may become asphyxiating nostalgia. No life, no air, no transformation - and every memory is tethered to something dead.

If you need it, take this as permission to let it die - whatever "it" is that has convinced you it's holding your hand when its fingers are actually wrapped around your neck.

And while humification isn't resurrection, it is the process and promise that nothing is wasted, that the seasons still cycle, and that even over the course of millennia, there is hope for life-giving growth after death.

---

This concludes the free portion for Of Earth & Of Stars. If you are a paid subscriber, keep scrolling :) There are four more sections paid subscribers receive:

3. Ritual of Connectednes

4. The Earthly Ones

5. You’re Gonna Want to Listen to This: Imagine Humility (Audio with Written Option)

6. What Has My Attention

PLUS: The accompanying podcast episode to this issue: Teaching The Garden

Upgrade your subscription by hitting the button below.

Also! Come hang out with me over on Instagram or Twitter!