Spiritual Aspects of Sustainable Soil Management - Principles of Sustainable Soil Management in Agroecosystems - page 261

that restoring the sacred to the land involves applying the principles of sustainable
agriculture, some of which are ancient. All of these principles are those of deep
e colog y.
The relevance of ecology to sustainable management of environments was
identified by Hillel (1992). Naess (1973), credited with coining the term deep ecol-
ogy , differentiates shallow and deep ecology. He sees shallow ecology as a fight
against pollution and resource depletion with the main objective of preserving the
health and affluence of people in developed countries. Deep ecology—in common
with spirituality—sees the world as a network of phenomena that are fundamen-
tally interconnected and interdependent. Deep ecology is integrative (Capra 1997).
Thinking is intuitive, holistic, and nonlinear. Values are of conservation, coopera-
tion, partnership, and quality. I believe that adopting more of this type of thinking
and values will improve our soil management. This involves a paradigm shift from
hierarchies to networks, and a good metaphor of this is the soil itself, where all crea-
tures work together so that the soil teems with wildlife (Lewandowski 1998). Root
hairs thread through the spaces in the soil, bacteria and fungi decompose vegetable
matter, bacteria hunt protozoa, slime molds consume bacteria and fungi, soil fungi
intertwine and live with roots, and nematodes and earthworms work down veg-
etable and mineral material. To develop sustainability, we need to reconnect with
ourselves, with the soil, and with the environment. Indeed, to regain our humanity,
Capra (1997) believes that we need to reconnect with the whole web of life to reach
an understanding and awareness from within. This reconnecting is the spiritual
grounding of deep ecology. Deep ecology, in common with spirituality, holds the
sacred.
11.3 SOIL AS A METAPHOR OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR
As well as a model of the networks of deep ecology, I see more straightforward
parallels between the structure and life of soils and those of ourselves, our com-
munities, and our families. Just as soil has three basic layers, it seems to me that
ourselves can be seen as containing three layers. The top layer, at the surface, is the
visible character of the person and is self-absorbed. This character, the one we like
to project, is strongly determined by many absorbed external stimuli in the same way
that organic matter affects the nature of the topsoil. The bottom or third layer is the
bedrock or ground of being, contains traits inherited from our parents and ances-
tors, and is where our inner life connects with a greater reality, the basic creative
Power, Spirit, or God. It is the equivalent of the parent material of the soil. The layer
between these two, equivalent to the subsoil, links them and is our personal uncon-
scious. This unconscious is a whole world supporting and surrounding our conscious
lives and contains our emotional inner images and ideas that influence our actions
unconsciously, our “inner soil” (Patzel 2010). These three layers of character are
similar to the three types of self—identified by McIntosh (2008b) as the conscious
self (top layer), the shadow self (subsoil), and the deep Self (parent material). The
shadow self is so-called because it is what we cast on others. He states that “for full
awareness we need to bring together the conscious self, through the shadow self, into
the Godspace of the deep Self.”