Twist the Leaf

“Behind every crazy woman is a man sitting very quietly, saying, “What? I’m not doing anything.”
― Rachel Harrison, Play Nice

“We know that a staggering number of organisms inhabit the soil. But most of the species that have been identified remain virtually unstudied. A mere 4000 species of bacteria are formally recognized, for instance. Yet as soil economist Elaine Ingham explains, one teaspoon of forest soil can a billion individual bacteria split among 40,000 species. The bacteria share the teaspoon with 20,000 species of fungi, which when stretched out, could extend 150 km (93 miles). In healthy agricultural soil, there are about 600 million bacteria in a teaspoon, along with 10,000 protozoa (single celled organisms such as amoeba), and 20-30 beneficial nematodes. The majority of these organisms have not been identified by scientists. A generous estimate is at perhaps 5% of the species of soil animals have been identified.”
― David Suzuki Amanda McConnell Adrienne Mason, The Sacred Balance: Rediscovering Our Place in Nature

“Remembering is not always a light shone into darkness. Sometimes it’s a claw reaching out and dragging you back.”
― Rachel Harrison, Play Nice

“We plant seeds in humble dirt, not in the clouds. And so, we plant ourselves, our messy, flawed selves on this mortal earth, not in the rarefied air of heaven. If we're lucky, something wild and beautiful grows out of that soil.”
― Thrity Umrigar, Missing Sam