The Things of Ashes, Dust, and Pilgrims

It rained yesterday.

The short, gloomy day of celebrating my birth. It's funny for me to be born in the short days of fall when I crave the long, warm days of summer. I watched as the browned fall leaves of my Momma's large sycamore became heavy with water, fell to the ground, and formed puddles along the edges of her driveway.

A rainy autumn leaf rests delicately on vibrant green clover, capturing the serene transition from fall to winter.

I can barely remember my age when someone asks, but there are constant reminders that I am just a pilgrim passing through. The earth itself... the ecosystems... the society... it all reminds me of the years I've spent wandering and watching it… the things of earth.

I've been thinking a lot in the past few years about legacy. Especially on days like yesterday, where I am torn between the duty and weight of all my work and the panic-inflicting to-do list.

But then there is Moma. She needs me right now. Forty-nine years ago, we started this journey together, and today, for even the simplest of tasks, she needs me.

I breathe deep, and the smell of the earth filled with rain is renewal. Life-giving. It's a world full of something different, and we all recognize it.

The Science of Memory

Science has a name for that feeling. The earthy scent after rain or from turning soil comes largely from geosmin, a compound made by soil microbes.

Humans can detect geosmin at incredibly low concentrations, which is one reason the smell feels so vivid and "alive."

The scent triggers ancient parts of the human brain tied to memory and belonging.

For many of us, this aroma isn't just pleasant—it evokes home, renewal, and the living earth.

It's so strange and beautiful—the way God and life and memory form feedback loops. How all things work together for good for those who love and ask for eyes to see.

The science of soil literally triggers memory. After the rain, after a plow turns, after the compost is finished, as you run a spade across the ground to furrow a row ready for planting, the geosmin becomes a memory.

A person walks down a tranquil, tree-lined path on an autumn day, donned in green rubber boots, with fallen leaves scattered along their route.

The scent of fresh earth rises like something ancient and good, calling us back to where we came from. In that moment, the land speaks, and the soul remembers its language.

The Land Remembers

This is what Wendell Berry meant when he wrote that the land is memory—that the soil is a living record of human action.

"The soil is the great connector of lives, the source and destination of all. It is the healer and restorer and resurrector, by which disease passes into health, age into youth, death into life. Without proper care for it we can have no community, because without proper care for it we can have no life."— Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America.

A vibrant, close-up view of soil microcosm showcasing a network of mycelium intertwined with earthworms, tiny insects, and colorful microorganisms, capturing the complexity and beauty of underground ecosystems.

How we should treat the soil is not different than how we should treat each other. It is a moral and cultural act.

It is an ancient act.

Ashes, Dust, and the Sacred Cycle

"For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." -Genesis 3:19

A reflection of humility, our return to the earth, and the spiritual cycle of creation, fall, and renewal.

Ashes symbolize repentance, mourning, and the residue of what was. Dust is the raw material of life, the stuff we are made of.

Soil represents both origin and return—where life comes from and where it goes.

A striking aerial view of a farmland at sunrise, showcasing a vivid contrast between a lush green field with grazing cattle and a recently burned, charred landscape divided by a central dirt road.

By caring for the soil, we honor this sacred cycle. In regenerative farming and our composting, ash and dust are reminders that death and decay are not endings, but transformations that feed the next generation of growth.

Ashes and dust—the end of one thing, the beginning of another. What fire consumes, the soil receives. What the earth breaks down, life builds again.

In Tending the Soil, We Tend Our Legacy

The land remembers both care and neglect. Erosion, compaction, or depletion linger long after the person who caused them is gone. Likewise, good stewardship—healthy soil, planted trees, well-managed pastures—blesses generations to come.

When people say "dust does not forget," they are capturing the belief that the earth holds our history. It doesn't keep score like a judge—it simply carries the record in its body.

"Dust to dust" is about our return to the soil. "Dust does not forget" is about the soil's memory of us.

Long after our hands let go, the land remembers. The ashes of yesterday enrich the soil of tomorrow. Dust does not forget.

It is where we come from and where we return. In tending the soil, we tend our legacy.

It Was Momma

It was Momma. She taught me first to appreciate soil.

We always had a pile of compost from food scraps and soil to encourage worms. We'd rake leaves and pine straw and tend to the beds with layers of composting materials.

She has always tended to the most beautiful gardens and flower beds. This was how she fed us growing up. It was important.

I used to hate it. It was manual labor, growing up.

Funny how those things become your joy.

"Get Your Attitude Right"

Young plants thrive as they are delicately watered under overcast skies, promising growth and abundance in the garden.

If I was frustrated or discouraged, or had a bad attitude, she would always say, "Go get your hands in dirt and you'll get your attitude right."

And she was right.

So now, pulling weeds, building flower beds, growing food, and tending to soil... it's one of the biggest parts of who I am. Something I just can't help but do.

The Noise and the Connection

I think people disagree on many different ways to do that, but it's funny how all of that's just noise. We compartmentalize things so much as a society, but in reality, all these things are connected. All the things of life play a part in who we are and what we become. From how we care for each other, how we care for the natural world and how we care for ourselves—mind, body and soul.

And yet, sometimes it's the fear of things that defines us—on how to tend, how to handle, what to do with. I think one of the most important things is just that we do it.

We sink low and with hands full of love we make divots and holes to cradle little bits of faith-filled life, placing them there for safekeeping while growing-hope. Hope for nourishment for those of us who walk that sacred ground above and hope to all of the organisms below making that ground alive.

We're drawn to the soil, to that smell—to the geosmin—on purpose. It was meant for us to be there, to breathe in that scent of living microbes, to remember and to want to tend to it. To want to be a part of it.

Nurturing growth: Gentle hands provide essential water droplets to a young seedling, illuminated by the warm glow of the rising sun.

To want to be a part of all the things, because we were all meant to work together. People and animals and microbes, all of life. Trees and plants, oxygen and nourishment from the ashes and dust to feed the pilgrims traveling across soil that will always remember... it was all meant to be.

This isn't just our livelihood. This is community care. This is life-sustaining work.

Join Our "Hands in the Dirt" Community

My mother's advice still holds true. If you believe in the power of getting your hands in the dirt, we invite you to follow our journey.

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