What can we learn from the soil about our fundamental interconnectedness?

Curated by Editorial Fellow Dr. Akilah R. Martin and Board Member Orrin Williams

Artwork by Malika Jackson

Welcome to the conversation!

Each day we walk on and over a powerful sacred gift thousands of years in the making: Soil. This life-giving and life-supporting substance is the largest terrestrial resource formed via a nexus of transference and exchange between mineral matter and organic matter with the participation of fauna, flora, microorganisms, fungi, water, fire, gas, and air. Soil as our intercessor continuously defines the story of resilience and the formation of resilient relationships. As beings and communities of this Earth, our health and wellbeing is invested in the Earth through the very soils underneath us. We must realize that healthy soil is not a given. Now, as ever before, we can achieve greater wellbeing by noticing and partnering with the soils where we live. Join us for a journey to the foundation of kinship.

Organic Layer: Fleeting Layer of Organic Matter

Craggy grey mountains dominate this painting of a mountain landscape, with several peaks rising under a pale blue sky. Evergreen trees dot the base of the mountain range, and a verdant meadow stretches in the foreground. Below, we see layered soil horizons down to the bedrock.
Artwork by Malika Jackson

by: Nateo Carreño

Topsoil: Soil Independence and Story Holder

A woman wearing an intricately decorated bright red gown and headwrap stands with hands clasped. She has turned her head and we see her face in profile as she gazes over her right shoulder. At her feet are fungi and mushrooms rooted into layers of soil.
Artwork by Malika Jackson

Top Soil: Eluviation and Movement, Soil in Flight

he watercolor painting of a tree with roots reaching wide into layers of red and yellow soil. The tree has a trunk of dark brown bark and green oval leaves. The branches of the tree reach around in an arc they are holding the globe of Earth, with bright blue oceans and green continents; and the African continent at the center, facing outward.
Artwork by Malika Jackson

Subsoil: Roots Communication and Message Pathways

The watercolor painting embodies the spirit of African descendant women holders of ancestral knowledge of Mother Earth, her skin, and the soil. They are walking in a sacred circle. They wear colors resonating the earth and sky, against a golden yellow background with a painted arc of a rising sun above their heads. Their bare feet touch the soil and they are energized by the waves of green, brown, gray, red, and blue of the layers of roots, soil, and stone gifted to all by the interactive forces of Mother Earth, Father Sky, Grandmother Moon and Grandfather Sun born from the cosmic dance that birthed the Cosmos, the source of all life.
Artwork by Malika Jackson

Contributions coming from Erika Allen, Liz Carslile, David Pellow, and Claudia Ford.

Subsoil: Soil Independence and Story Holder

A feminine figure stands on layers of soil. She is dressed in a golden yellow gown with yellow flowers and bright green vines twining up the skirt. A golden halo like the sun surrounds her head and in her hands she holds the world, with the African continent facing the viewer.
Artwork by Malika Jackson

by: Erika Allen

Subsoil: A Shared Message in Minerals

At the center of the painting, a Black child with short hair and wearing a white shirt and blue shorts kneels at the surface of the soil. The child’s hands are packing soil around the base of a green, leafy plant. Below the plant, we see brown, tan, and orange layers of soil down to the rocky, gray and black parent material. Behind the child, a tall feminine figure stands. She is turned away from us, but looks back and down over her shoulder towards the child. She wears an ornate, bright blue gown and cape and her head is adorned with blue leaves like a crown. She stands barefoot on the soil.
Artwork by Malika Jackson

Parent Material: The Life Force and DNA of Soil

Soil Soundscape: Deep Into the Vadose Zone

Artwork by Malika Jackson
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