Beautiful description of the smell of spring soil and the petrichor. I adore both. The spring peepers are beautiful sound I look forward to every spring. The most intriguing thing to me is "symbiotic entanglements of fungal mycelium, tree roots and microbes." Some people think the Earth is a sentient being. What do you think of that?
Good question, Gail! The more we learn about how deeply interconnected all of life is on the earth, the more our ideas of “sentience” expand and deepen. Certainly many generations of people before us had the sense that all the world and its components are sentient. I would rather err on the side of the possibility of sentience than dismiss it as if I knew.
Wonderful, Elizabeth ❤️ thank you for being there in your apartment, reading this piece. So glad it evoked that fragrance for you! I love the image I have in my mind of that and of your lovely smile. Much love to you! 💖
Thanks for this. All sorts of things fire in these sensing words. Good note on synesthesia as a stunting concept of a much larger networking of the senses that we have become alienated from. I wonder if the clean compartments of the sensual is a left brain thing and synesthesia a right hemisphere way and an earlier natural resting face of the sensual. That parts per trillion business on the scent of wet earth is fascinating. We are all dowsing with the fork of our souls every moment, well-chasers like the camels. Will look up that work by Young for sure.
Oh man, Michelle, you are blowing my mind. I love that we're both meditating on soil at the moment (not surprising given the season) and your deep dive was so pleasurable!
I love this essay! The smell of rain and earth is the smell
of spring, something else l'm missing so much right now
during a sojourn in the city, away from my home in the
country and all the sensory harbingers of spring that
usually mark the season. There is earth here for sure,
but all the other urban smells seem to obscure it's scent
and I'm also spending most of my time indoors. Thanks
for such a great explanation of why l've always loved that
scent of green so much. l'm anxious to get back home
and stick my nose in the earth
Soon you’ll be able to feeling walk out and inhale deeply. ❤️
Beautiful description of the smell of spring soil and the petrichor. I adore both. The spring peepers are beautiful sound I look forward to every spring. The most intriguing thing to me is "symbiotic entanglements of fungal mycelium, tree roots and microbes." Some people think the Earth is a sentient being. What do you think of that?
Good question, Gail! The more we learn about how deeply interconnected all of life is on the earth, the more our ideas of “sentience” expand and deepen. Certainly many generations of people before us had the sense that all the world and its components are sentient. I would rather err on the side of the possibility of sentience than dismiss it as if I knew.
Beautiful piece, Michelle. I’m close to smelling The Earth just reading it in my apartment.
Wonderful, Elizabeth ❤️ thank you for being there in your apartment, reading this piece. So glad it evoked that fragrance for you! I love the image I have in my mind of that and of your lovely smile. Much love to you! 💖
Thanks for this. All sorts of things fire in these sensing words. Good note on synesthesia as a stunting concept of a much larger networking of the senses that we have become alienated from. I wonder if the clean compartments of the sensual is a left brain thing and synesthesia a right hemisphere way and an earlier natural resting face of the sensual. That parts per trillion business on the scent of wet earth is fascinating. We are all dowsing with the fork of our souls every moment, well-chasers like the camels. Will look up that work by Young for sure.
". . . dowsing with the fork of our souls . . ."
Gorgeous, Andrew!
Oh man, Michelle, you are blowing my mind. I love that we're both meditating on soil at the moment (not surprising given the season) and your deep dive was so pleasurable!