La Terra Bruna

If I ever adopt a (new) religion, it is going to be one based on earth.

I think there is an old Buddhist saying (are there any new Buddhist sayings?) that goes something along the lines of the worshiper of the mountain looking upon the worshiper of the trees as a newcomer.

What inspires this particular post, however, is the ecstasy that comes from hard labor on the earth, even though in this case my goal is far from noble: I am digging up my backyard to put in a *gasp* lawn. Well, it is California native bent grass, so it is okay.

While I may suffer daily humiliations at the hands (leaves? roots?) of my weeds in the front yard, I do not think that they can wear me body and soul in the same way that the earth can. Weeds may be spry and stealthy, tiny but overwhelming in number, nimble and tenacious, but the earth can just take whatever you throw at it and barely show a scratch. And when you think you might have gotten the better of it, all you have to do is remind yourself that there is a virtually limitless supply of it lying just inches below your feet. So, who is fooling who?

And it is so fascinating. One of the few times I was utterly captivated by a lecture was when my Geography 101 professor talked about soil. What it is and how it is made still fascinates me. And to stand on top of it, and in it - think of Francisco Goya's Duel with Cudgels here and Michel Serres' use of it in introducing his idea of the natural contract - is to love it, admire it, and be humbled by it.

Della Solitudine

E godo la terra
Bruna e l'indistruttibile
Certezza delle sue cose

And I love the brown earth
And the indestructible
Certainty of its things

Carlo Betocchi (1899-1986)

There is also a beautiful ode by Sappho, obviously much more ancient, that speaks of 'la terra bruna', 'the brown earth', and even though it does so incidentally, I find the phrase to be the most beautiful in the poem.