• We humans, given our growth and impact, have become an equivalent of the geological forces that have shaped the earth over its 4.5 billion year history. Where can we turn for guidance on how to be such a force? To […]

  • We humans, given our growth and impact, have become an equivalent of the geological forces that have shaped the earth over its 4.5 billion year history. Where can we turn for guidance on how to be such a force? To […]

  • In my own personal deep time, I spent 5 of my earliest years in a woodland paradise, connected to the most elemental, ancient beings on the planet: trees, dragonflies, water, moss, mushrooms. I roamed woods, […]

  • Bees were here with the dinosaurs. Their relationship with flowers is 130 million years old. Paleolithic cave drawings all over the world show figures climbing ladders to get to the honey guarded by buzzing bees. […]

  • Thank you so much, Joyce. I’ve been reading about dirt’s importance in our gut, and how much we need to literally eat dirt. But the idea that we are inhaling precursors to serotonin while gardening is a new and very wonderful thought. No wonder it feels so good to play in the dirt! Love all these ideas. Loved the video on your home page. I, too,…[Read more]

  • Thank you, Jennifer! As always, love your enthusiasm.

  • Astrophysicist Carl Sagan once said, “If you want to bake an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.” He could have said the same of mud pies, though it wouldn’t have sounded as delicious. But […]

    • Fantastic post Betsey about the formation of dirt it’s key role in cosmic evolution, crucial for the evolution of plants and animals on land!

    • Thank you, Jennifer! As always, love your enthusiasm.

    • Brilliant telling and insights —I guess you can say you are Giving Us the Dirt on Dirt!

      Dirt can even nourish us in other ways:
      In an article in Gardening Know How, Bonnie L. Grant explained that certain microbes commonly found in soil have an ability to raise serotonin . Artificially-manufactured serotonin is the stuff that does the job in Prozac and other popular antidepressants. People who “dig in the dirt” may absorb the microbes by inhaling them in dust or through cuts or scratches in their skin – or if they accidentally swallow some in the process of planting, weeding, or harvesting. The effects are noted to last for up to three weeks.
      For musical companion teaching song, please check out Earth Pledge from the CD Grass Roots! by Earth Mama at http://www.earthmama.org
      Thanks for beautiful photos with the story.

    • Thank you so much, Joyce. I’ve been reading about dirt’s importance in our gut, and how much we need to literally eat dirt. But the idea that we are inhaling precursors to serotonin while gardening is a new and very wonderful thought. No wonder it feels so good to play in the dirt! Love all these ideas. Loved the video on your home page. I, too, balk at mosquitos, but I come around, however mystified by earth’s need for them!

  • We can see deep time, and gain perspective from its daily presence, in the rock structures we travel by and through. The vast, open book of history that is now Utah is an excellent way to ponder Thomas Berry’s v […]

  • Learning, on yet another election night, that progress is not only not remotely linear, but that the way is often bewilderingly and heartbreakingly tortuous, I was reminded of Wendell Berry’s poem, February 2, 1 […]

  • A celebration of the great beauty and deep wisdom of the unique, magical landscape of southeastern Utah. A place full of stone tablets holding both the vast breadth of our planet’s history, and the simplest of commandments.

  • Thank you so much, Jennifer. Discovering Terri in one of your Resource emails brought me not only the joy of reading Terri, but the inspiration to share posts with your amazing community.

  • Now that I’m free to wander and find native plants and flowers wherever I go, I often remember the spirit of a place by the plants that I saw there. They tell me a complex story about the place they’re in. The […]

    • What a gorgeous site Betsey and fantastic insights into the essence of flowers and their relationship–emergence out of–place. Please do post some of your blogs on DTJN as well, just as Terri MacKensie does as well. Thanks for your love of flowers. So inspiring.

    • Thank you so much, Jennifer. Discovering Terri in one of your Resource emails brought me not only the joy of reading Terri, but the inspiration to share posts with your amazing community.

  • Betsey Crawford is now a Contributing Member 8 years, 4 months ago

  • Betsey Crawford became a registered member 8 years, 5 months ago