We recently led a workshop called Finding Your Soil Voice for the Soil Nexus Project as part of a wider digital seminar on soil. Participants brought some soil that meant something to them along with them and we asked them a series of questions to encourage creative and emotional responses to soil. We asked them to share the first words that popped into their head when asked the questions and some of them were kind enough to share their responses with us.
Soil is a vital subject of study to ensure the sustainability of life on our planet and at Soil Voices we feel that a crucial part of this process is reconnecting to the soil ourselves. Reminding ourselves how soil makes us feel when we interact with it is an important part of prioritising care of soil in our minds. That is why we work to find narratives that bring soil back into the heart of human storytelling culture. Caring about soil emotionally is an important step towards caring for soil practically.
Go and find some soil near you and take a look at the questions from the workshop below. Take a few moments out of your day to jot down your instinctive reactions to the questions and please do share them with us by tagging or DM’ing us on twitter or instagram or by popping us an email.
Got your soil? Then let’s begin…
How does your soil feel when you touch it? Put your fingers right into it, what does it feel like?
Raise some soil up to your nose. What do you smell?
Have a look at the soil in your hand or in the ground. What do you see?
Then moving on to you…
How did you feel interacting with the soil right now? When you touch it with your fingertips, when you smell it, when you look at it. How does that make you feel?
Finally, what memories does interacting with the soil just now evoke? Does it take you back anywhere?
Some of our participants kindly shared their answers with us which are below in the images. Let us know your answers and we can add them to the growing collection.
