Elmod The Earth Person
Reaching a warm hand back to my younger self
My name is Elmod. El means "God" in Hebrew. Mod means "Courage" in Old Germanic. Together, they forge "The Courage of God."
I chose this name because doing what I feel called to do requires the biggest amount of courage I can muster. To go into the body and its tensions and feelings. To welcome and stay with them. To meet my own layers of fear, and ask what wisdom they are here to whisper. To become inwardly sane. To set healthy boundaries for myself, so I do not destroy the world.
I spent years feeling separated from my feelings, people, and the earth itself. I thought my inner child was broken and that my job was to fix it. To become whole and pure again. This made me continuously reach for ideals and push away the things I was disgusted by. I still catch myself doing it, but now I am aware.
This whole notion of brokenness is a lie that makes you start off down in the hole, instead of above it. We were not broken to start with. We are an original blessing. Stop looking at yourself as broken, and stop trying to fix what is already whole.
At the core of my being lives a Hobbit. I love feeling the soil covering my feet and hands. Smelling and tasting its rich minerals and nutrients. The garden is my spiritual sanctuary where I practice returning to the rhythm of the Earth and integrating a seasonal way of interacting with myself and the world. Grow abundant and healthy vegetables together with a regenerative community and create balance in your life.
Through many repetitions I learned to dance vividly around a roaring fire together with other people. I remembered that it is okay to care for myself and let that guide my choices. I learned that it is safe to let the wild self out and offer him space. Space to play. Space to laugh. Space to explore.
I also learned to live in integrity. Not perfectly, but consistently. Being in integrity with my thoughts, words and actions, so that my body feels safe to trust that I will return to it. No matter the circumstance and situation.
Being an Earth Person is not a label, but a realization. I realized that I am the Soil, and that the Soil is Me. I realized that there is a thread between my father and mother, my birth and my body. That what I am made of is the soil, but in another form. This makes me the same as you. And you the same as me. Forming the basis for an Earth Family.
Stand with me. Dance openly and vividly around the roaring fire. Hold your body with warm, caring hands, just as you would hold your own homegrown spaghetti squash, whispering to it:
"I am finally here. Feeling, seeing, and hearing you. Let us join together and create true magic in the world."
Your brother welcomes you.
SoilTruth
The foundation of any river
In Matthew 7, the wise man builds his house on rock, and when the storm comes, it stands. The foolish man builds on sand, and it collapses. Build your house on the rock. This means to grow your vegetable garden on the rock.
Balance the soil content with sand, silt, clay and organic matter. Create a living ecosystem where bacteria, fungi, insects, animals, plants and humans can thrive. Center your life around self-correction so that you slowly over time starts correcting your own path. I did not listening to the signals of the soil, but also that of my own feelings. I neglected taking inn information and self-correcting, and circled for a long time in a destructive loop. Stop doing this.
Soil is Truth
The soil communicates its truth back to you. Through the signals it gives. Plant a seed in the wrong season or with the wrong nutrients, and the seed and soil will communicate that it does not work. The soil creates the perfect condition for life to flourish. This is because it self-corrects, and the same is true for us. By self-correcting towards our own truth, we are acting as the soil. A life built on this "rock" is a life of self-correction, remembering, and listening to what the Earth is telling us.
SoilTruth
I have created SoilTruth to mean the rock on which I build my house. It is the bedrock from which the river flows on top. Without a good foundation, any plant will over time struggle to grow tall and stand well. The same is with both of our lives. Without self-correction as the foundation, any values can become corrupted and fall with the age of time.
Build here.
The Core Values
The currents in the river
For a long time I drifted without any clear direction and meaning. I felt powerless. Filled with self-doubt and insecurities. It felt like an empty body without any inner spark. I know how it feels. To move out of it, start moving in a direction your heart is urging you to go. Start listening inwards to the currents in your own River of Life. I do this through choosing core values that serves as guiding principles in my own life.
Seasonal Living
I used to live on the treadmill of consumer society. Linear production from buying new, using it and throwing it away. Filling up landfill after landfill. Not just filling the earth with more junk, but also my own capacity and inner clutter. This is a recipe for a gray life. Stop doing this. It poisons the planet and yourself. Your body is screaming at you for balance and recuperation. Give yourself room to breathe.
Align with The Wheel of the Year. Create a circular life connected to the seasons. Celebrate the solstices and honor the equinoxes. Turn with the moon and the earth. When you stop fighting your own current, you will find your strength. This is the antidote.
Regenerative Community
I used to believe in stories that said I was meant to live alone, and never truly manage to be in any flourishing and healthy relationships. I struggled with this for a long time and I know how it is to feel deeply separated from other people, nature and the earth. Shift your thinking and attitude. These are stories you have attached your identity to. They are not real. Stop believing in them! I know, that now they are very real and that it sometimes is impossible to even think about another way, but can you allow yourself the possibility to believe in something else? Just for a moment?
Regenerate means to generate anew. Start regenerate the relationship you have with yourself. Always start with yourself, and then extend outwards. Do this through becoming truly curious about how a healthy relationship with yourself feels and looks. Take inspiration from others, but do not follow them. Follow yourself because the answers always reside inside you.
Give more back to nature than you take from it. Do it together with people, animals, plants, insects, bacteria, and other organisms. Do the actions that give your body the proof that you are choosing to live with a community. Do not think that you have all the answers, stay humble and listen to the fear that is inside you, and your elders. They have wisdom to communicate. When you work enough with yourself, the community will come by itself. It is not possible to truly live in a regenerative community, if you are not first regenerative within yourself.
Wild Self
From early childhood I blocked my my throat from expressing its voice. I lived inside a cage of my own fear of peoples reactions and judgements. Blocking my own capability to declare and make a stand. I was carrying all this extra weight on my shoulders and tensions in my body. I know you want to lightly run barefoot in the forest and dance naked around a roaring fire. To do this, you must stop blocking your wild self. From every choice you do that is making yourself smaller, you are letting the cage rot you from the inside.
I know it is difficult. How can I dance openly and vividly on the dance floor? All these questions and thoughts coming up that makes it difficult to relax and have fun. First, create a space where this part of you can be felt, seen and understood. Before this happens you will just suppress and block it even more. Then, create moments when you dance with others, just for your own enjoyment. This creates a shift where your body learns that it is safe.
When you allow yourself to play and have fun, just for your own sake. Then you express your wild self. When you run barefoot around in the city playing “Do not step on the lava”, you are expressing your wild self. When you tell your own truth, based on your own experience, you express your wild self. When you do from a place of joy and openness, you express your wild self.
Do it from a place of joy. Do it from a place of openness. That is the way.
Radical Integrity
For a long time, I did not align my thoughts, words, and actions. I did not live with inner integrity towards myself. I thought about the heroic speeches I was going to have, but moments later shut the door on the opportunities. I said I wanted to commit to relationships, but ran away when it got difficult. I did not apply the actions to back my thoughts and words. Many times I did the opposite. Slowly, over time, I built my house on sand. It is challenging to live with integrity in a world that is lying and being shallow. Stop lying to yourself and become radical with your own integrity.
I know your frustration. Why do it? Is it not easier to live without integrity? The more difficult a game, the more fun it is to play. You get to decide. Live in integrity until it becomes habit and instinct. Then it becomes the rock you build your house on top.
Set healthy boundaries so that you have the capacity to truly be with yourself and others. Not just other people, but also your own garden, fungi, bacteria, insects, plants, and animals. Make your thoughts, words, and actions match, so they serve the version you feel like becoming. In a world where the integrity of society is rotting away, the only sane thing to do is to be radical with your own integrity.
Here is the Rune of SoilTruth. A deeper dive into SoilTruth and the Four Currents. I dare you to not just skim through the words, but truly integrate them into your body.