The start of the process, whether you are new to it or have been going at it for a while, begins with a harvesting. Even the most lifeless soil will be harvested and used. This soil is pretty lifeless. I grew up here in a city where my grandparents took care of their lawn. There were always grasshoppers and worms and slugs and all sorts of life in the ground. Snails, lion ants... What bugs do you remember seeing often that you no longer see anymore? Well, now it is completely vacant it seems. Only with the occasional and rare beetle. Today we harvest out this vacant soil and spread it to the highest levels of the permiter (around permanent trees and the perimeter itself) where erosion is controlled. We will excavate to the "undisturbed earth." In my case undisturbed earth will be defined by where my pick axe collides with an unbreakable root. The unbreakable roots will guide you, the water. And you will redirect all other roots that are breakable, accordingly. Meanwhile, what it takes to get there is excavating the vacant (lifeless) soil so that water can flow in direction along the undisturbed earth.

I pulled this out of a group of "weeds" at the edge of a formation. It never touched the ground. The leaves prove it — clean undersides, no soil line. It rooted anyway. All along the stem, in every direction. Here's what undoubtedly happened. Nearly everyday, I'd been raking wood mulch from high ground down to low, and every stroke throws dust. Not much — you barely see it. But it moves on air and it lands on everything, and it kept landing on this stem, day after day. Trillions of tiny hands, placing particles one at a time exactly where the plant utilized them. The roots came out looking like hair with static in it. Standing out, not reaching down. Because what it was reaching for was already all around it. So it isn't just what the mulch does when it sits. It's what the mulch does while it's traveling. You already know this. You've seen dust find its way onto everything in a room you were only walking through. People say this looks like too much work. They're watching the rake. One person, one arm, a lot of strokes. But the rake isn't doing the work. One stroke throws dust, and the dust rides the wind. Wind carries it further than I could. Rain pulls it down into places I'd have to dig to reach. Thousands of tiny hands finish what one stroke started. I'm not just moving the material. I'm handing it to something already moving. That's why it's less work, not more. The whole system was going to move anyway. We just have to get in step with it.

1. Flat Earth and global Earth theories are true at the same time. (Think atoms vs. waves) Both exist both are true. 2. Consciousness is reality. Whatever the conscious or collective conscious believes determines physical reality. Even math breaks down to chaos and a mental construction not a physical one. If enough agree on a solution it becomes accepted. 3. Size is relative and eyes are deceiving. If we stood on a single atom, the next atom could look a million miles away. But zoom out and we're just walking on a floor made of atoms. See what we just did there? What looks like an edge is only a horizon. Meditation: Take a space you're not in right now. If you're in your room, or kitchen, picture the living room. Greet it, acknowledge its wisdom. Ask that space to go back — before your house existed, it was just jungle or forest. Then before that, what was here before there was ever Earth, when it was just space? Darkness? Did tiny asteroids pass through? Big ones? And before that — was the empty space always empty, or was it land once, another planet sitting where your feet stand now? Infinity says that at some point everything will land in the space in question, with periods of absence in between. It will tell you it's forever changing and the moment you greeted it it was also already gone, saying goodbye, or just the same but new. Now feel where your feet stand and imagine the earth beneath them goes on forever. All of a sudden divinity makes real sense and becomes present. Flip the switch off and where you stand becomes a global island again but only because the peripheral lights are turned off. Meditation cont'd: now imagine you stand on a single atom... it should appear round and a very long distance to the next atom. One you cannot jump to. Come back and realize those atoms suddenly touch and form the ground you stand on again. Did this work? Please comment below.

It's the night before yard waste pick up here. I look for pillow soft looking bags. That's how you know they are filled with something consistent whether it be leaves, grass, top soil, or a mix. The focus is on leaves but the grass is gold. In urban areas like where I live, the grass clippings are replacement for manure that has to get mixed with the large amounts of carbon. It's been a couple of weeks since I began a new Plant Nation Garden Model in a highly urban location where I have yet to see it be done before. If you can find a source for carbon, obtain it. Maybe your city will bring it by the truck load (mine did once) maybe they offer piles of fine and course mulch free for pick-up (get your five gallon buckets.) Sawdust from woodshops. One you and I both have is yard waste pick up. That day of the week everyone puts out what they've collected from their yards. Sometimes, you get rewarded with an awesome find. This week an enormous dragon fruit plant was discarded. I plan on planting it but it is also easy to sell it in parts or do both!