I started the day with my hands in the earth. To feel a connection to what we came from and what we will return to at the end. The rich earthy smell of well composted dirt. The grainy feel of the worm litter dirt, the pounding of the rock hard dry dirt that has resulted in the weeks with no rain.

Dirt gives the nutrients to the plants and the earth knows exactly what plants will grow for each kind of dirt.

I am working on a new volunteer project now that my plans for my normal volunteering has been interrupted. Just like dirt, I can change.

There is a local Biological garden that is within walking distance from our house. When they turned tulip fields into a park several years ago a group of local people envisioned a local biological garden on some of the park land. They received approval from the local government and started the work.

I was a fan from the start and watched as the volunteers transformed it into a beautiful productive huge garden that first year. They sold the produce from the garden to anyone who wandered in from the parks trails.

Part of the original garden was a small garden that was created from brick with a tree in the middle.

Each morning for about a week now I go and get connected to the Earth. I pull at the weeds, beat the soil loose from the clumps of really hard dirt that has suffered from the lack of recent rainfall, I feel the freedom and silences of the early morning in the garden. I meditate on the current crisis and the people I love with my hands caked in dust and dirt.

I hope on this Earth Day my readers were able to do the same. There is one sure result from this current situation. The earth will survive, the dirt will continue to be dirt and nature will heal any damage us humans have inflicted upon it’s wonderful surface.

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