Having My Head in the Soil

There is that expression about dreamers -- that they walk around with their heads in the clouds. And they say of practical people that they have both feet on the ground. I'm a mixed metaphor. My head is in the soil.

Ralph Waldo Emerson's wise words are published on the wall in my bedroom, under a beautiful photograph of a spring morning in the foothills of Virginia: "Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads." I suppose he meant to look around you at what we have on earth and truely appreciate the spiritual value of it's natural beauty, and if it's your belief, consider the creativity of the divine hand that made it that way. But, I like that quote because it has a more literal meaning to me. I appreciate what really is under our feet at all times -- the soil.

I am a soil ecologist. A few days ago I went to the Second City comedy club in Chicago with some friends and during an improv sketch the ensemble asked the audience to shout out a strange occupation that one of your friends has. My sister of course yelled out before anyone had a chance to think about it, "Soil scientist!" The comedienne on stage responded, "Soil scientist? As in the ground?" And then they proceeded to enact the lost work of Jane Austen, "Pride and Soil Scientist", the story of two people in love, but one is too proud, and one is too obsessed with soil.

The funniest part of the sketch, I think, was that both comedians knew tons about the soil, but not how to talk about it. We were left in stitches while the comedienne spoke of her love being like the white flaky things, y'know, in soil that give plants their food. The other said that without her love, his heart felt barren like the soil in the tropical regions that isn't really good and doesn't grow a lot or something like that, y'know what I mean.

I think that's why I like soil science. Everyone knows a lot intuitively about the soil already. It's important, of course. Things grow in it. Farmers tend to it with reverence. The abuse of it caused great hardship during the Great Depression causing the ecological disaster known as the Dust Bowl. Without it we'd have a tough time growing food, having clean water, sopping up and breaking down pollutants. Everyone's played in it one time or another, unless you're a big sissy.

And plus, everyone will turn into it eventually, unless maybe you shoot your body out into the vacuum of space like Dr. Spock or otherwise go to great extremes to preserve yourself. I had a professor once with a ballcap with the letters "TNS". He said they stood for "Temporarily Not Soil."