Leyla Aylin, M.A.
Apr 7, 20202 min
Updated: Nov 22, 2021
Suffering brings us to our knees
pulls us down
into the dirt, into the earth,
into the ground of our being
Low, lower still
into the fertile depths,
where our humanness is born
-- human, coming from the root humus
coming from the word soil:
We are the People of the Soil.
And what is soil,
but a decomposition of what has gone before
has already lived
with the potential of what is to come
invisibly, patiently waiting.
It *hum*bles us to be there
in that dark and damp knowing,
in the source of where
we first came and will return.
Centuries we’ve spent
trying to rise out of this dirt
Felt our humanness “dirty”
as if dirty is such a bad thing
as if the earth is such an awful thing
to be covered with.
It’s easy to empathize though
with why this was,
this desire to transcend,
anyone who has suffered would know why:
It hurts, sometimes unbearably so,
to be human.
Yet,
if we sink low enough
in our pain and sorrow and grief
we can lay an ear to the earth
we can hear all the lives within and upon it
we can hear the dead, too
our ancestors who understand now intimately,
better than we living ever could,
the cycle of life and death, in all its pain
and all its peace.
With our ear to the ground
we can hear the tree roots
twisting and tangling together
each distinct, but also one.
We can hear the whispers of the mycelial network,
sharing stories, sharing wisdom.
With our ear to the ground,
we can hear the earth’s secret songs,
that only those that fall so low can hear,
the most ancient lullabies
songs we didn’t know we always knew.
There in the dirt, watered by tears
dark with our suffering,
if nothing else, and sometimes there is nothing else,
we can be made more human.
- Leyla Aylin / www.leylaaylin.com
Midwives of the Soul