Community + Biodiversity

You probably already know that the health of the soil is foundational - literally - to the density of nutrients in the food we eat. The condition of the elemental earth from which crops grow, from which the grass that livestock graze on, who then provide the meat and milk that many of us consume, is crucial to our own health and well-being.

You also probably already know that the condition of our own inner soil – our gut and digestive health – is foundational to countless processes, including our innate immune systems and the efficient absorption of nutrients from our food.

And I’m guessing that you’re aware of the direct connection between the health of the soil that nourishes our food, and our gut and digestive health, which impacts our immune and nervous systems – including our adrenal glands and endocrine systems, as well as our cognitive functioning and reproductive health.

So what is it that supports the health and well-being of the earth, the very soil that sustains life?

Well, let me start with what doesn’t support soil health: industrial farming practices and livestock rearing, which includes the use of toxic fertilizers, artificial hormones, and genetically modifying our food – aggressive instruments of enslaving homogenization and conformity - not unlike something out of a dystopian sci-fi movie.

To get more granular about it, these industrial agricultural practices rely heavily on monoculture farming. This type of farming is all about mono-crops – only planting one type of crop, for example only corn or wheat or soy – and then blitzing it with the aforementioned toxic fertilizers. This then not only infuses the crops with poison but also degrades the health of the soil, stripping it of all vital nutrients and vivifying life force energy.

So back to the question: what is it that supports the health and well-being of the earth, the very soil that sustains life?

The answer: Biodiversity.

The soil that is so foundational to our health is a living community that thrives on biodiversity.

A deliciously wild and verdant garden I got to spend some revivingly analogue time in recently.

The health of this subterranean community – which includes the efficient sequestering of carbon, significantly reducing its levels in the Earth’s atmosphere – relies heavily on the Indigenous science of permaculture, and on regenerative farming practices. These in turn rely heavily on the dynamism of diversity – on the innate and unique biochemistry of soil, plants and animals co-existing in organic reciprocity.

Diverse and symbiotic planting and the rearing of free-roaming, pasture-raised livestock creates a thriving, interconnected community. Beneficial soil microbiomes (which include bacteria), not blitzed out by the toxic homogenizing practices of monoculture farming, communicate with and nourish the rhizomes and microbiomes of plants and crops. Pollinators abound.

This then feeds, nourishes and supports the human microbiome and makes us parts of something bigger, of a Nature that we are inextricably a part of.

Here, a brief segue: If the accepted meanings that we humans assign to ourselves and our environment create the fabric of our reality, crucially our current culture, economy, science and technology, then my previous statement that we are inextricably part of nature would be rejected.

The Cambridge Dictionary defines Nature as:

“All the animals, plants, rocks etc. in the world and all the features, forces and processes that happen or exist independently of people such as the weather, the sea, mountains, the production of young animals, or plants and growth.”

At the root of our meaning-making of the world, we have set ourselves up as separate from Nature - the world-view of the colonizer. Nature is out there, objectified, exploited, separate, and, in keeping with the Cartesian paradigm - not us. From this springs the consensus reality in which we now live – and the dogma of imperialist science that seeks to control, homogenize and capitalize on this perceived otherness without accountability.

Noteworthy here is how this is the exact opposite of the universal Indigenous world-view of interdependence, which includes the human, and where she is in service to Nature, both within and without.

In Nature, a variety of life forms, replete in their individual groupings, their individual biochemistries, co-exist as part of a community, bringing the medicine of their own individual essence for the health of the whole. This includes the human who tends to the soil, to the crops, to the animals – who is a steward practiced in the arts of patience and nuanced discernment, not a judging, reactive bully, hell-bent on control and domination.

Community is not the goosestepping conformity of a greed and fear-driven monoculture, degrading the complexity of soil-soul microbiome within and without.

Community is the regenerative biodiversity of permaculture, in it for the long game. One of the foundations of the Indigenous science of permaculture is observation: Of being in participatory communion with the land, with the earth, with the microbiomes and bacteria and mycelium within it; with the plants and trees and animals; of learning to listen with the nourished soil of one’s own soul that is waiting to respond rather than react.

Biodiversity is affording each member of the community, from the bacteria in the soil to those in the human, the agency to create and coalesce around its own organic meanings, and bring the diverse richness of those meanings to share with the whole. Perhaps this could direct the evolution of mainstream science from the phallus of monolithic dogma – of being unquestioningly right at all costs - to the strength and vulnerable receptivity of acknowledging Mystery not as something to be feared and silenced but recognized as something that we are inextricably a part of, like Nature.

This is antithesis to the toxic fertilizer of fear and reactivity that destroys biodiversity and reduces everything into enslaved, soulless homogeneity; that demeans the symbiotic intercourse of life and death, joy and grief.

Wait, watch, listen. Tend to the biodiversity of your body’s soil by allowing the sovereignty of her individual needs and choices to be revealed to you, by allowing old ways to die and composting them so that they can regenerate into new life. And by doing so, bring your authentic gifts of wholeness, health and wisdom to enrich your community.

A bigger tapestry of mystery and meaning is revealing itself – and the microbiome of your uniqueness is crucial to its unfolding.

Stay open, stay curious,


Further reading + resources:

Tending the Peruvian Amazon: Planting Seeds of Reciprocity Between Human & Earth

Dr. Zach Bush's work

Evolutionary Biologist Brett Weinstein's Dark Horse podcast series