“A Miracle We Can Cultivate in Our Own Backyards.” – Elephant Journal Article by Aaron William Perry

By Aaron Perry | Food

Jul 10
Couple Holding Hands in Garden

When was the last time you had a sexy encounter in the garden or near the compost pile?

Or a delightful afternoon with your family playing with soil, plants, compost, and water while being bathed in warm sunshine?

Friends, I am excited to exclaim that the time is nigh!

Fresh off the 14th annual AREDAY (American Renewable Energy Day) conference here in Colorado, I am flowing with enthusiasm for the cultural transformation that is underway. We are on the frontier of an amazing awakening, one that is bringing us back to our roots while simultaneously expanding our mental and spiritual lives.

It’s fun, sexy, joy-filled, and absolutely, contagiously awe-inspiring!

And it’s about soil.

Soil is the chalice, the vessel from which life-energy flows to our bodies in the form of food, and through which we are connected to all of the elemental, cosmic, and biospheric energy that animates life on Earth.

Soil is life: Yours and mine. It is life for everybody we know. Every person alive right now. And every person who has ever lived.

What is going on with soil today?

We have been waging a global chemical warfare on soil (and people) since the World Wars. We have depleted and released billions of tons of previously soil-bound carbon into the atmosphere—exacerbating the climate-changing feedback loops set off by our relentless fossil-fuel burning.

We need to rapidly transition to renewable energy—solar, as opposed to ancient and stored. And we also need to rapidly build and restore soils the world over: farmlands, grasslands, forests, and yes, even our own yards and neighborhoods.

When we build soil, the complex communities of microbes (each handful of living soil has billions upon billions of organisms—each handful!) breathe in carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it in the soil. This is known as “sequestration”—a big, fancy word that means depositing and storing something in a designated place. In this case, it’s depositing and storing carbon from the atmosphere in soil. The primary and essential task of our generation is to reverse climate change through these sequestering techniques.

It is time to build soil!

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About the Author

Aaron William Perry is a writer, public speaker, impact entrepreneur, consultant, artist and father. The author of Y on Earth: Get Smarter, Feel Better, Heal the Planet, Aaron works with the Y on Earth Community and Impact Ambassadors to spread the THRIVING & SUSTAINABILITY messages of hopeful and empowering information and inspiration to diverse communities throughout the world. He resides in Colorado where he is continually in awe of the weather, appreciate of the singing birds, and entertained by the antics of his backyard, free-range (and free-thinking) chickens.