I love to talk dirt, compost, mulch, loam.   Good soil is more than a growing medium for plants.  When soil is alive plants can thrive in it without much in the way of water or amendments.  Weeds are easy to pull and the plants you want are vigorous enough to quickly shade out weed seedlings.

So, what goes right or wrong with soil?  I live on glacial till which means my soil is layered sand, rock, gravel and clay.  I removed my topsoil because it contained toxic levels of arsenic.  My challenge has been to rebuild non-toxic topsoil.  Now, I’d just as soon not mow, so I don’t try to improve non-garden soil. 

When I started gardening here sixteen years ago, I imported manure, some topsoil, some fill dirt, basically anything I could find that didn’t contain toxins.  I dumped this mix into raised beds and covered it with straw.  It worked.  The manure and straw broke down, so I began to see some good-looking dirt. 

Next, I got cancer.  I didn’t get much done in the gardens.  The beds I let go to weeds actually survived better than the beds along the driveway that I weeded.  Some years we cut the weeds in some beds and let them lie.  This spring I dug up one of the neglected beds and found deep healthy soil.  My problem is the two beds along the driveway.  Each year while sick, I hired two young men to weed these beds and dump the weeds in a compost pile on the back of the property.  I sprinkled alfalfa meal, bone meal and greensand around the plants and ignored the dirt.

After five years of removing organic matter and not replenishing it, the soil turned hard and lifeless.  My plants are spindly and yellow.  Because my subsoil is sand, rocks and gravel, water drains through so fast it leaves dust trails behind.  Earlier this year I tried to dig holes for some dahlias.  I couldn’t get the shovel into the ground.  It needed a pick.  Even the crab grass refused to invade these beds. This is not soil for a perennial bed.

Clearly, something must be done with these beds that are the first guests see when they come to visit.  They are also my best full sun beds and should be supplying my cut flower business with bushels of beautiful roses, lilies and perennials. 

As Mother Nature would have it, the beds did grow weeds.  I even found some vetch twining among the grasses and dandelions.  I could have dug everything out and imported new soil.  I didn’t want to spend the money, and I really want to break up a thin layer of clay above the rocky layer. 

I am a great fan of Ruth Stout and layered lasagna beds.  I try to compost everything.  I decided to leave the weed roots in the ground.  I didn’t see anything that appeared too invasive and perennial.  Hopefully the roots will rot in place and break up the soil.  I cut down the weeds leaving them lie on the ground in the bed.  In some places the cut weeds were about six inches deep.  Next, I watered so the dead weeds were nice and wet.  I threw on a little blood meal to help speed along the composting process.  My next layer is paper and cardboard.  It is time to compost old bank statements, grocery bags and those boxes from Amazon--mostly the boxes from Amazon.  I have a thin layer of dead dirt from plant pots.  Finally, I’ve layered six inches of organic straw over the top of the paper and dirt.  I’ll still need to water to help with the composing and feed the tough roses and Flox that have survived the neglect and hard dirt. 

I can make manure tea to pour on the layered mulch to add microbes to the mix.  I doubt that the soil underneath knows what a microbe looks like.  I do have a precious source of microbes that I use like gold.  When I change the duck’s drinking water, the old water is full of muck that must be growing something.  My roses love the stuff.

I will continue to toss organic matter on these beds, especially trimmings from my flower business and trimmings from the vegetable beds.  I have a plethora of Kale that reseeds itself where I don’t want it.  It will at least be useful as compost.

I’ve used this process all over my gardens, so I’m confident that by the time I need to plant the fall bulbs, I’ll be able to dig the soil.  It won’t be great dirt yet, but it will be better.  By spring, I should have a nice layer of nutritious fluffy topsoil.  It will take several seasons of mulching, manure tea and refraining from over-digging before the topsoil will gain any depth.  It will happen because, given care, soil can heal.

Once, someone told me I was living a hundred-thousand other people’s fantasies by living on a small farm on an island and writing novels.  I think those hundred-thousand need to do a little reality check.  Yes, I live on a farm on an island that is heavily forested, so that my gardens do not have near enough sunlight.  Yes, I write novels.  My publisher and cover artist are too busy to prep my latest for publication.  I may have to start over finding a new publisher.  Life can just be hard wherever you live and whatever you do.

When I had the flu this spring, hubby got up on the garage roof and proceeded to fall off onto the concrete apron in front of the garage.  He is still limping and the need to take care of a sick hubby when I had the flu caused the virus to take on the symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis.  Hubby still isn’t up to doing chores, so I am stuck with more chores than I feel well enough to do.

Such is life.  I wonder if everybody has these spells where everything seems to go wrong.  I see some who struggle more than we do, but I see many, many more who seem to sail through life without crisis piling on top of crisis. 

I don’t like the idea of Karma, which would indicate that I somehow earned the pain I am in.  What horrific thing could I have done that makes it so hard for me to grow a few flowers and vegetables?  If my current state of pain is due to Karma, I must be horrified that I could do something so cruel as to have earned this.  I certainly do not remember any such heinous acts on my part.

Christianity gives us grace instead of Karma.  We do not get what we deserve.  That isn’t much help either.  Okay, by grace I do not deserve the pain I face.  What happens next?  I am still in pain.  I wonder if the medication I took will ever take hold and solve the problem.  Right now, it seems to be adding anxiety to the pain.  Charming. 

So, at the end of the day, when the pain will not go away despite the best doctors can do and despite the best spiritual practices available, what can a soul do to find comfort amid the pain?

I really have no idea how to solve my dilemma.  Each day, I get up and water the gardens and try to write.  I tidy the house and make certain hubby has food.  I take my medications hoping that tomorrow will be better.  I am at the point where I don’t know what better would look like.

I have a horrible suspicion that my life really is what others would consider a fantasy.  I suspect that many would trade their grinding routine and poverty for my pain and anxiety.  It isn’t much of a trade, but I can understand the desire to be free of poverty that sucks at the soul.  I understand the desire to be free of drudgery so that one can find meaning in life.

Sometimes, I think that we may be going about this whole life business from the wrong perspective.  I visited a Tlingit community where the elders talked about the old life where everybody worked hard all summer to harvest and cure food for the winter.  In the winter, they sang, told stories and made art.  Somehow I saw more balance in the lives of those who spent half of the year making art. 

I don’t know the key to finding balance in my life.  Perhaps balance has something to do with living in the present, finding joy in what is immediately before me instead of longing for the gardens my imagination planted.  Perhaps every day should be spent making a little art.  Perhaps by rebelling against the dictates of a life of dreary toil and making art we can change the nature of our existence to include more beauty and peace.  

This is what the Lord requires, that you love mercy, act justly and walk humbly with your God.

Graduations seem to be a theme in our family this year.  This past weekend, we flew to California to attend our daughter’s graduation from Fuller Seminary.  She received her Master’s of Divinity. 

I found the ceremony itself uplifting and talking to our daughter about her degree encouraging.  In my world, I am exposed to pop theology almost as much as I am to the massage I hear from my own church.  Let me be clear, the media representation of Christianity is a lie.  Pop theology is a lie.  My experience listening to the president of Fuller and the graduates they produced reinforced my own understanding of my faith and our scriptures. 

I know many people seem to follow the lie.  I know the church has always had some bad teachers and those who would exploit those who wish for a connection with something outside of themselves.  From the very beginning people wanted something different from God than a simple connection to the infinite.  This is really what those stories in the Bible are all about, people trying to make God in their own image and it never working for them. 

I liked that the emphasis the speakers placed on our mission in life is for justice.  They talked about justice in how we shop, how we interact, and how we represent ourselves to our world.  They talked about justice in our interactions with other countries, our own community and our families. 

My daughter explained that for her class work she was limited in which translations of the Bible she could use.  She must use a translation with gender neutral and inclusive language.  The NIV was forbidden as having too many errors.  She spent many classes reading from copies of the ancient texts.  The emphasis was on avoiding the mistakes of scholars who over the centuries tried to make God in their own image or the image of their culture. 

The people I listened to validated the need to care for our earth and our environment.  I never heard a condemnation of any particular group, while many emphasized the need to communicate with and include all people in our community ministry.

My daughter told me a story about a committee of local churches who over a period of several years, started a program where they meet with the local police, schools, social work agencies, and city planners to see how they can serve the needs of the community and have a voice in creating justice around the issues in the community.  This is one of the primary functions of the church, to be active in their community to promote justice.  I know this is not what the media would have our communities believe, but it is what the people in their local communities are supposed to be doing.

The topic of what local churches are supposed to be doing in contrast to the image of the church the media projects is crucially important.  As I watch prejudice against Christians growing and see more ignorance concerning what we are about, I am aware of what has happened in the past when a group is subject to prejudice and ignorance. 

I am aware that there are communities where those who purport to be Christians are vicious bigots.  I’m not concerned with the vicious bigots.  They will survive.  I’m concerned about the little old lady down the street who has spent a lifetime loving her neighbors, fighting for justice, feeding the hungry and encouraging the grieving.

Because those who may well decide that the ills of our society are caused by the church and Christians in particular are so very ignorant about who is who, I fear that they will kill the little old lady while ignoring the vicious bigots. 

Yes, the church over the past two thousand years has often sided with the unjust and the exploitive.  We do see injustice at the level of the institutional power elite.  The institutional power elite have very little to do with the little old ladies or the humble pastor who donates his salary to local missions.  Power elites in most institutions are going to be out of touch with human need.  Those people who are working in the food bank, or clothing bank, or on the street with at-risk teens, or the grief support group are very much in touch with reality and the needs of common people.

Please, before you go out hating, burning and killing, find out more about those whom you think you hate.  Find out who believes what.  Find out who may be systematically protecting you from tyranny and exploitation. You really do not want to kill the people who silently fight for justice.  

I read another article about quantum mechanics.  It started me thinking about reality again.  Reality is really very slippery, you know.  I understand that when I am home, I don’t know if my cash box at my flower stand is full or empty.  Both realities are possible.  When I go down there, it is empty.  Well, sometimes it is full.  Measurement or observation solidifies one reality.  But I wonder, do we humans live in alternate quantum realities that interact with each other and with the consensus reality of the world at war?

When I am at home.  I have peace.  My gardens produce enough for us to eat.  The only war we have here is the ongoing battle of keeping the deer out of the garden, and the raccoons out of the duck pen.  Like Schodinger’s cat the world outside my reality can both be at peace and at war.  It depends on how you measure that outside reality as to what you see.   If you measure a thousand different points around the globe, what percentage will be at actual war?  Can you measure a million or a billion different points and find that they are at peace at the time of measurement.  Are we a world at war or at peace?  The answer depends on your point of view, your choices and how you measure reality.

Say, we looked at a billion people for a ten minute period.  That is approximately 1 in 7 people.  We will let the excess be infants who do not have the power to direct their own actions.  So, say we circle the globe looking at our one billion people from five PM to five ten PM.  What are they doing?  Are they engaged in a war related activity such as watching the news, fighting with an enemy or preparing to fight or recovering from fighting? Wouldn’t most be closing up their jobs for the day, commuting, or stopping to pick up something for dinner or their child from daycare?  Many might be starting to cook dinner, others sorting their daily mail.  Perhaps some are catching a quick nap, or a snack.  What percentage of our randomly selected global population would be engaged in war as compared to those who are going about the concerns of their jobs and families? Are we a world at war, or are we a world at peace?

Now, of course, a certain percentage of the global population is at war.  They make their money from war.  They hope for a continuation of the killing in Syria, so they will continue to have a job making ammunition.  Others are actually about the business of killing other people.  Some of the power elite devote the majority of their time to planning, promoting, and executing war.  However, on a global scale, what percentage of the population do they represent?  Do we live in a reality where we are at war, or do we interact with an alternate reality where a power elite is at war?

I think we can choose our reality and how we interact with the war reality.  How do we keep the war reality out of our peace reality?  I suspect the answer may be as complex and simple as not buying into the war reality.  Those who hold the reality of  Iraqi children playing soccer, and Iraqi men chatting with friends on the bus on the way home from work, will be less likely to run off to the Middle East to kill those people.  The person who has an image of a Syrian woman baking bread and chopping vegetables for dinner is less likely to support a government that advocates killing Syrian people.  When we hold the images of peace in our heads, we are less likely to condone our government’s role in training and equipping groups such as ISIS.

Think about the realities.  Think about who you want to represent your reality and make yourself heard.

I think most people agree that the USA has some serious problems.  We are sharply divided on how to solve those problems, but we can agree that serious problems exist.  In Seattle, we like to use the word, sustainable, to describe systems.  The US monetary system has become unsustainable, which is the source of much of the unrest and name-calling.

How we change the economic pattern in this country peacefully becomes a relevant question.  Now, some people gleefully decide that they don’t want to make the necessary changes peacefully.  Their suggestions of armed insurrection are too costly, inefficient, and unthinkably destructive.  There is a more beautiful way.

One of the advantages of having studied social psychology is that I took a course about social movements.  Do you know that people have been making vast social changes peacefully for centuries?  We do it all the time.  Peaceful revolutions are not covered in history classes, but social scientists know all about them.  Most social change occurs peacefully. I’ve lived through a few social changes and watched how the principles and pieces worked together.

Social movements occur when the status quo does not meet the reality of the needs of the people.  Now, the power elite is invested in maintaining the status quo.  The Koch brothers and Waltons are not going to suddenly lead a movement that cuts their profits or monopolies.  The government is not going to offend their campaign contributors.  When someone is elected or appointed to a government office the power that appointment gives them aligns them with the money class and status quo rather than with the common people who voted for them.  Yet the population continues to grow.  Technology changes, and values about what is decent change with improving economic conditions.  The social changes necessary for a society to adapt to changes in population, technology and economics have to come from the common people.

Now some people are in a position to do more than others, but we all can take a few simple actions that will push the change along.  The first step, as my father use to put it, is, “turn off the damn TV.”  Our power elite controls our media and they are not going to help us.  Historically, social movements occur when people start talking to each other.  Listening to the TV is listening to the power elite.  We need to listen to and talk to our neighbors.

Turning off the TV gives us the quiet we need to think.  It may also give us the peace and time to plan a little get together for the people next door-nothing big, just a half hour to meet and greet.  This is where the real power of social change begins.  We need to start talking to each other.  We need to talk to our neighbors.  We will soon find common ground with people who we thought were different from us.  My neighbor next door is a social scientist, like me.  Another neighbor is a musician, like me.  Another neighbor likes to garden.  We are all Seahawks fans.  From this common ground we can move forward.

True confession time:  In my semi-rural neighborhood, we have seven houses that would make a logical unit for helping each other and becoming a force for change.  Mostly, we don’t speak to each other.  Currently, two of the houses are vacant.  One house is waterfront.  The owner is rich.  The people next door are elderly shut-ins.  The people across the cul de sac are a young Mormon family.  The final younger couple travel for work.  My health issues keep me from doing as I ought.  Still, we need to change these patterns and focus on our common ground. 

Our common ground should involve knowing each other well enough to help out during a crisis.  I should be asking the woman next door if she needs something from town.  The man across the cul de sac should be taking responsibility for plowing our driveway when it snows.  The rich woman owns a poodle too.  I should be taking my poodle to the other side of the fence for playtime.

The small activities I mentioned are the first baby steps toward social change.  When we get to know and trust our neighbors, we become invested in their well being which is essential to our own security.  I’m fairly certain that we can find enough common ground to support each other through some of the other changes we need to make. 

As a group, we need to help each other move our savings to the local cooperative credit unions.  We need to carpool.  We need to be taking care of others pets when they are away.  We need to be cooking communal dinners when the power is out and the highway closed with down trees, which happens at least once a year and may last up to five days here.  My neighbors could be eating the plethora of eggs my poultry produce.  We need to be learning from each other and valuing each other. 

These few small activities may not seem like a huge social change, but multiply the one gallon of gas my neighbor saves when I pick up milk and a prescription for her by a million such gallons saved by sharing errands and that will make a difference.  Teaching our neighbors to keep their money in our community rather than sending it to New York through their bank, will make a difference when multiplied by millions.  When we have a nation, where the common people stand together as friends and simply say no to injustice, change will happen with the added bonus of making some new friends.