s i x
Humus is what makes soil soil as opposed to plain ol’ dirt. It is comprised of fully broken down organic material, it binds soil particles together, helps retain moisture, acts like Velcro to keep minerals and essential nutrients from leaching into the water table, and performs any number of other literally life-giving functions. Poetically minded farmers commonly refer to it as the soul of the soil.
Like soul, humus skillfully evades concrete definitions. When trying to pin down what, exactly, humus is, one inevitably finds a sentence such as this one: “It is difficult to define humus precisely because it is a very complex substance which is not fully understood.”
Also like soul, the role and importance of humus becomes much clearer when it is absent. A soil without humus is nutrient poor, cannot hold together, and does not have a structure that permits the right balance of air and water required for root growth. Lacking humus, soils ultimately tend towards desertification.
Only the fundamentalist and the most overconfident theologian claim to know, precisely, what soul is, but we all recognize its absence. We talk of soulless suburbs and soul-crushing jobs. We are in broad agreement that gospel music has soul and that elevator music does not.
Therefore, I am going to sidestep trying to define soul, but I will say that I think the metaphor of humus is apt. Soul nourishes human life, it binds things together. I sense its presence in people, places, and things that are authentic and vital, supple and resilient. I sense its absence in excesses of abstraction, in rigid dogmatisms, in brittleness and inflexibility, in coldness, in a lack of imagination and humor.
Perhaps most importantly for our discussion today, soul carries with it intrinsic value, an sense of dignity and worth, and a sense of deep belonging.
Humus and soul: both so enigmatic, both so essential to human life, both on a prolonged retreat since the moment that humanity began to rely more upon the grain than the apple.
