Rich as Dirt

You're lower than dirt. Dirt poor. Dirt cheap. Eat dirt. Treated like dirt. 

We use and abuse it, call it names, walk all over it and still we expect it to sustain our precious lives. The vibrant greenery with luscious flowers and charming tendrils gets such attention but we forget what provides all of the nutrients needed to create the beauty we see. It's like praising a talented child and ignoring the immeasurable time, money, energy, and support parents most certainly deserve.

I can't say that all dirt in the world looks like it belongs in the Garden of Eden I imagine in my head. Ever watered old house plants and have inches of water sit at the top for days? Ever see a bare field with hundreds of acres of dirt after a torrential rainstorm? I’m picturing myself walking through one of those abused fields. Step by step my boots create a cloud of smoke, disintegrating each speck of dirt into thin air like it was made up of nothing. Shallow craters in the ground where I step. A dust ball rolling in the wind. Not even a worm in the ground to claim home to this land.

Good thing humans come to the rescue with Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Calcium! It certainly doesn’t exist in nature and without humans all land would look like this desert. Or would it?

I’m picturing myself walking through that same field before a monoculture was developed. Chickens, free to flock and fly and forage. Humming a tune of delight as they discover the worms and bugs beneath their feet. Cows using every muscle in their tongue, lips, jaw to pull a fresh bouquet of greens from the earth. Rabbits burrowing into the ground, pulling up a deeply embedded root system to create a new home for her kits. So much life above ground cannot exist without an expansive underground world that most don’t realize exists. Billions of creatures creating an enormous amount of elements and nutrients that we use to survive. Billions of creatures working together to feed the grass that feeds the herbivores, that feeds the omnivores, that feeds us.

Long before the US Dollar or the bartering system, this was the currency that made the world go round. The fertile land is what allows us to eat, to breath, to explore, to invent. Modern ideas aside, this is the wealth we should all aspire to have. We should have a handful of fresh eggs to gather each morning. We should have a plethora of greens to pick for dinner. We should have gallons of fresh milk to collect and drink.

We should all aspire to be rich like this. To be rich as dirt.