Life in the Soil

Naturopathy By Director NIN


Life in the Soil

One of the foremost premises of naturopathy is: ‘soil is
primary - not the microbe’ ….that is to say that we are not
affected by microbes so long as the soil is healthy and, vibrant
with vitality. Here soil is our own inner body.
Stretching this logic further; let us take a look at the soil, a
thin layer of material covering the earth's surface, made up of
mineral particles, organic materials, air, water and living
organisms. Soils provide readily available nutrients to plants
and animals by converting dead organic matter into various
nutrient forms.
Merriam Webster dictionary provides another definition of
soil i.e. is to stain or defile morally / corrupt / to make unclean
/dirty.  Looks like, we are trying to prove this definition of
soil more appropriate than the real soil i.e. the earth element.
More than 75 % of Earth's land area is already degraded,
according to the European Commission's World Atlas of
Desertification, and more than 90 % could become degraded
by 2050. This process of desertification can occur naturally,
but is often caused or accelerated by human actions. Humans
can accelerate this process by overgrazing, poor irrigation
techniques, diverting rivers, and deforestation.
The anthropocentric world in which we are living now is
defiling soil by various activities that are not needed at all in
the first place. On one side, the earth’s resources are getting
depleted, on the other, the toxic untreatable wastes are piling
up. This double burden is covering the surface of the soil

(earth) making them infertile, alkaline and saline, ultimately
into deserts.
Land degradation and desertification can affect human health
through complex pathways. As land is degraded and deserts
expand in some places, food production is reduced, water
sources dry up and populations are pressured to move to more
hospitable areas, thus triggering the spread of infectious
diseases.
History tells us that highly evolved societies have perished
and are remaining under the crusts of earth; now covered by
sand dunes. The entire Middle East and the Thar Desert in
India are such examples leaving us perplexed as to how such
complex knowledge systems got collapsed. Notably, the
Roman civilization also declined as the soil fertility reduced.
It is time to remember the prophetic words of Gandhiji “Earth
provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every
man's greed”.
Let us come together to reclaim nature by going back to
‘Nature’; that alone will bring life into the Soil.

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