The Rune of SoilTruth
The wise man build his house on rock.
The Rune of SoilTruth. The arrow symbolizes the upwards movement of self-correction and Truth. The courage to step into the mud and meet yourself. To lift and open the Heart. The roots symbolize the downward movement towards Soil. The call to ground the body to the Earth. Connecting to ancestral and traditional wisdom.
I know the feeling of wandering in the desert, feeling ungrounded. I know the loop: looking for the next thing, and when it comes, being happy until the next craving starts. It is a never-ending loop of needing more to sustain a never-ending thirst. I bought a lot of things, thinking that it would give me lasting happiness, but it never did. Stop building your life on Sand. Build your life on a strong foundation of inner contentment.
Build your house on Rock
Matthew 7 in the Bible, says that the wise man builds his house on rock, and when the storm comes, it stands. The foolish man builds on sand, and it collapses. Be aware of what foundation you are creating your life on. The soil and truth are your foundation.
Grow your vegetable garden on the "rock," and not "sand." Balance the soil content with sand, silt, and clay to hold nutrition and moisture. Nurture the soil with organic materials, so that bacteria, insects, and other animals can thrive in the garden. Create a living ecosystem for vegetables to grow from. The soil in the garden is the "rock" you build your garden on top of.
Self-correct, and then change course. The soil does this, and so must you if you choose to build your life on the Rock. Put a plant into the soil in the wrong season or with the wrong nutrients, and it communicates it back to you. Listen to how the soil self-corrects, and observe the organisms that live in it and how they cooperate with each other. The same is happening with yourself, as long as you do not block yourself from truth.
Cultivate a healthy relationship to Truth to create a good life. Cultivate a healthy soil to create a good garden. Care for one and you care for the other.
Soil and Truth are both self correcting.
Self Correction
You are where you are because of your inability to learn from your mistakes and correct your course. When did you last self-correct and how did that impact your life? In a positive or negative way? Any times where you did not self-correct? How did that play out?
Being more aware and actively self-correcting brings profound, positive impacts to your life. Align yourself with Reality and do not force your need on it. Listen to what the soil is telling you.
We farm the soil extensively, focusing on taking rather than giving back, and it is becoming a desert. Stop this. This is a clear sign that something is wrong. The soil is communicating its truth. Are you listening? Let go of your beliefs if you are shown or understand they are not healthy. You have the ability to change course and it starts with listening to your heart. See the soil as a part of you. By not taking care of it, you are directly not taking care of yourself. You need trees to breathe. Trees need healthy soil to thrive. Soil needs time to recuperate. Break the chain, and break life. You are the soil, because you are literally made up of its content.
Nothing is in and of itself bad. Read that again. Nothing. It is your perceptions and judgments that make it so. All values are the rock and they will bring you home in the end. It is impossible to make a mistake. A weed is not evil; it is simply a plant in the wrong place. If I am growing tomatoes, the dandelion competes. If I am feeding pollinators, the dandelion is an ally. Choose the values that feel right, and bless the opposite. It is what allows you to know yourself.
Use your body to self-correct and to sense when you are off course. This is intuition. You are off course. You do not have a strong foundation. Your intuition is telling you to create it. A strong foundation feels like being secure and standing on something solid, and looks like moving in a direction you feel is true for you. Create the foundation and guide yourself forward with greater capacity and a clearer direction.
Nothing delivers this better than Values.
They are the currents in your river, driving you toward the ocean. Choose your values. They determine the direction of your flow.
The Four Currents
You sit comfortable in a river inside a forest. You hear the wind gently blowing in the trees above you. The water softly runs around you. You hear the birds sing their beautiful melodies and smell the rich flavor of the clean water. Underneath, you sense the foundation and bedrock of the river. This is SoilTruth. This is you actively self correcting. Without this foundation the river could not exist.
You look around in the river and feel that it contains different currents. Some are stronger. Some are slower. Some go around in circles. Some go deep and some shallow. You feel the currents against your body.
The river you sit in represent your life. Whatever you do, you cannot get out of the river and it always flows. This is outside your control. But what is inside your control is the bedrock and currents. Currents represent values you choose and integrate into your life, and determine the direction you move towards.
Values are the strongest hammer in your toolbox of life. Choose them carefully, because they represent the version you are becoming. How do you choose values? Feel into what is important to you and what your body tells you. You feel it in your belly when the right ones arrive.
The values I choose to integrate into my life and become my currents are Seasonal Living, Regenerative Community, Wild Self, and Radical Integrity.
Seasonal living: From linear to circular
This is the Story of Linearity. Imagine a world with no forests. The ocean is acidic. Long stretches of deserts cover the earth. Every nutrient is extracted from it. Air is toxic and you have to buy it. People are walking around with masks to filter out the poison spewing from the giant factories. The rich live in cities, and the rest reside in the Junk Cities. The core value here is linearity. Nothing is reduced, reused and recycled, but rather bought new, used and then thrown away. Stuff moves away from the cities, and into the Junk Cities. Nothing returns. Nothing heals.
This is the Story of Circularity. Now, imagine the opposite. Abundant forests. Clean and healthy oceans. Land is used with stewardship and not extraction. Air exists in plenty. No one has to buy it to breathe normally. No masks. No big factories, vomiting out poisons for the sake of the newest “thing”. People live together. Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. Things are created to be used anew, not to go to a landfill. The core value here is circularity.
Two values with two directions. Which one do you choose?
For a long time I lived under the lie that my worth was placed in how much I accumulated, and in how many activities I was doing. This is a sickness that I am waking up to and realizing how deeply is ingrained in my habits and body. The more I was grabbing. The more I was worth. The more I was doing. The more I was worth. No boundaries. No circularity. Only linearity. This created a comparison mindset, which created stress in the body, and in the end reduced life quality and life span.
Stop being part of the rat race. Stop buying new things you do not need. Stop taking part in the overconsumption society. Choose to walk away. Walk away, into another way of living. Choose circularity over linearity.
Your worth is not placed in how many things you own or in how many activities you do. It is a lie. You are not a human doing. You are a human being. The earth does not earn its worth by producing. Neither do you. Rest is not laziness. Rest is rhythm. To rest and say no to overconsumption and stress in a world that has normalized it, is a rebelious decleration of courage, discipline and self-love.
Seasonal Living is a way into the circular life. It is the spiritual cornerstone of your life. Connect it to the Wheel of the Year. Honor the solstices and equinoxes, and celebrate the turning of the seasons. Center your garden around this value. Work with the seasons. Plant when the earth says plant. Rest when the earth says rest. The more you align yourself with your garden, the more you align yourself with Mother Earth. The more you align yourself with Mother Earth, the more you align yourself with Who You Really Are. Which is rhythmical.
Regenerative Community. From Alone to Together.
This is the Story of Aloneness. Imagine you are completely shut off from everyone you meet. Energetically and emotionally. You do not have the ability to connect with anyone, and also are not being understood. No connections are being created and sustained over time. You feel often isolated from the world. Not the voluntary, but the involuntary. You work and pay the bills, and talk to people, but do not feel a human connection to them. You are physically with people, but never being able to connect to them. Nothing works. Nothing connects.
This is the Story of Togetherness. Now imagine something else. When you see a person, you see a part of yourself. You see the common humanity. Instead of separation you feel a sense of belonging together. There is an openness in the body and a sense that anyone can be family. You talk to people because you feel a connection to them. Not from a place of need or duty, but because it genuine feels good.
I felt separated from others and nature for a long time. Deep insecurity. Not believing in myself. Self-douth. Little courage to stand up for myself. Not believing that I am support to live with others. How it feels: Like closing in my body. Shutting myself down. Energetically: Energy not flowing outwards. Not being able to be in relationships. Relating to others believing that I am not really supposted to be with them.
Solution for me. Embracing the idea that I can be with other people. Increasing self-worth, self-beliefe and self-love. PLace myself in a community. Do the actions that prove the opposite. Feeling in the body: More open and spacious. Energy flowing out and I am more open towards people. More natural trust.
Regenerative Community is a way into connection with other people and the Earth. Choosing to give more back to nature than we take from it. Doing it together with people, animals, plants, insects, bacteria, and other organisms. It is to choose to regenerate the land, but also the inner land of the body. Not to necessarily fix anything, but to create more beauty in the world. When I offer high-quality compost to the garden, more beauty is created from the grown vegetables. When I offer genuine love, affection, and care to my body through the repeating practices of being with it, I create more capacity and beauty inside myself. Which naturally flows outwards through everyone I meet and touch. To be regenerative, is to create more beauty in the world and be in awe of its magnificence.
Regenerative Community is the value of connection and choosing to give more back to nature than we take from it. Doing it together with people, animals, plants, insects, bacteria, and other organisms. It is to choose to regenerate the land, but also the inner land of the body. Not to necessarily fix anything, but to create more beauty in the world. When I offer high-quality compost to the garden, more beauty is created from the grown vegetables. When I offer genuine love, affection, and care to my inner child (which I call Joakim) through the repeating practices of being with him, I create more capacity and beauty inside myself. Which naturally flows outwards through everyone I meet and touch. To be regenerative, is for me to create more beauty in the world and be in awe of its magnificence.
Wild Self
Wild Self is the value of expressing inner truth. It represents the wolf that howls to the moon. The man who dances openly with a flying skirt. And the truth dared to be expressed. It looks like the inner child that has space to be allowed to play and have fun. There exists a wildling inside all of us, which wants to be free to express itself. For me, it works as a burning flame in the bottom of the stomach that radiates an aliveness when I do not block it. It looks like climbing that tree when I feel like it. Helping that person, because my heart went out to them. Stating my truth not to put it over others, but because I felt it was important to say. Anything that instinctively wants to be expressed, moment to moment.
Radical Integrity
Radical Integrity is the value of wholeness that is integrated. Integrity for me is to align my thoughts, words, and actions. Doing it radically is to really do it, and I mean really. Not half-ass, but full-ass! Have you met someone who said one thing, but then moments later did something else? Or promised something and did not follow up? Or expressed a value, but days after seeing the person doing something which did not align with it? That is not being in integrity. I am also not trying to be or say that I am perfect, but this is what my inner flame is telling me to express. To radically choose to align my thoughts, words, and actions towards a single direction. I am not doing it for the world, but for Joakim, so that he can genuinely feel safe. Because when I and Joakim are aligned, nothing is impossible. The point is to move in a direction of living more and more in integrity, with yourself. Expanding this to a community of like-minded people. Oh, boy! Then momentum and movement are really built!
These four values rest on top of the grounding value I call SoilTruth. For me, this is the rock that Matthew talks about. It us the bank in the river the water is flowing on top. It is the high-quality sail that guided the ancient warriors over the ocean. It is the nutritious soil that creates true abundance for life to flourish. It is the self-correcting mechanism that guides us all back to living a heart-lifting and earth-grounded life. Is not this the most important? To make sure we live in harmony with each other and Nature?
