Abstract
Traditional theological ideas, language and imagery tend to take their cue and inspiration from the Beyond: from heaven; the transcendent realm and all that is ‘above us’ that we might inspire to attain. But, given that all life arises from and is dependent upon the soil/earth, what possibilities might exist for new ‘ensoiled’ forms of thinking and practice? We are all earthlings and groundlings and our human qualities and spiritual sensitivities and aspirations must, in an evolutionary sense, arise from our connectivity to the soil and earth. What then can the soil and the life it contains teach us about living harmoniously as part of a community of planetary flourishing? This article will explore how a theology influenced by the soil – an ‘edapho-theology’ – might offer fresh perspectives for re-engaging with the need to create a sustainable future for all life on the planet.
Highlights
I am sitting in my garden during the Covid-19 lockdown
Where the bare earth is still wet and shaded under a nearby bush, I see a couple of worms emerging slowly and arduously from the depths below
It strikes me that the worms are entirely at one with the soil and, without it, they are nothing
Summary
Very stuff and ground of their being. The soil sustains them like a mother. She describes the various types of soil by their colour which may be ‘green’, ‘white’, ‘black’ and ‘red’: for each is a different blended balance of moisture and dryness, warmth and coldness that she calls ‘sweat and moisture and juice’.3 It is this combination of ‘humours’ that she understands creates the greening power that causes the seeds to germinate and so bring forth and engender different kinds of ‘fruitfulness’: the sweat bringing forth ‘harmful’ or toxic plants; the moisture, plants that are edible or useful; and the juice, the grapevines and fruit-bearing trees. It is unsurprising that, through her own deep connection with the soil as a gardener and herbalist cultivating plants with healing or entheogenic qualities, the ‘greening power’ of the soil, earth and ground are major themes in Hildegard’s thought She famously writes that ‘The Word is living, being, spirit, all verdant greening, all creativity’ and she tells her readers to ‘gaze at the beauty of earth’s greenings’. Back in that garden-orchard, humans recognised and welcomed their earthiness and their naked embodiment represented their at-oneness with the earth
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