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Worms,Compost,Bacteria
While looking to buy earth worms for my compost pile, I had a strange encounter with a store employee that "weirded me out" today.
Date: 6/25/2005 10:58:50 PM ( 19 y ) ... viewed 1899 times I had a weird day today. I had a chiropractic appointment this morning, and was feeling pretty good afterwards. I went over to Wild Oats to get some organic food, and then on into the PetCo next door to buy worms that Your Enchanted Gardener recommended for my compost pile.
When I walked into PetCo, I asked a young employee there if they had worms; at first she looked at me kinda funny, so I told her I wanted to get some for my compost pile. "OH," she said, and added that the store had some insects for feeding other animals but she wasn't sure about worms, pointing off in some vague direction. She then launched into a story about how her father told her that the soil is depleted of nutrients because of chemical fertilizers, and of how her father decided to bring life back into the soil by starting compost piles at his house, and making mulch, and how this has so much improved the greenery of his yard. I was getting excited about talking to her as I thought, wow, what synchronicity to walk into a big store like this, and the first person I talk to tells me about composting, and putting nutrients back into the soil!
Then she dropped the bomb on me. She said, "be sure you wear gloves and a mask when you're turning the compost, because of the bacteria in the soil. My father had a friend who had a cut on his hand, and bacteria from the soil got into the cut and went to his heart, and it killed him. Make sure you wear a mask if you're sensitive." I told her I'd heard of ranchers and farmers in the midwest sometimes getting sick from naturally occuring anthrax in the soil (usually skin infections), but no one dying of it, and as far as I knew there wasn't any anthrax in the soil in California. As if she didn't hear me, she repeated her story, again, for emphasis. Then another customer came in, and the employee turned to the person to assist her. Feeling very uneasy, I turned and high-tailed it out of the store, not bothering to look for any worms. I thought vaguely, "the Enchanted Gardener has worked with compost and soil for years and has never gotten sick from it. I've never heard of such a thing, wearing a mask, to work with soil! Absurd!" But this nagging thought was in the back of my head: Why did I bump into this person? I was so sure of a synchronicity---is what she said some kind of a warning?
Next I drove to the bait-and-tackle shop adjacent to my chiropractor's office, to ask if they had worms that would be suitable for compost. I talked to a grizzled elder fisherman there, and he said he could sell me some worms but they would be very expensive and I'd be better off going to a nursery and buying them in bulk, and that there were quite a few nurseries "up the street", adding that I could get ladybugs at a nursery, too, "you know, to take care of bugs naturally, and organic and all". His kindness surprised me, as well as his enthusiasm for the subject at hand. I thanked him and left.
I was feeling rather out of sorts by then, and decided to drive home. I tried to focus on my encounter with the fisherman, but as I drove, I was still feeling unsettled and rather irked by what the girl in the PetCo had said to me: "Wear a mask if you're sensitive". Yes, I am "sensitive", and she couldn't have hit a more "sensitive" spot in my heart. I started to yell in my car: "Wear a mask? Wear a mask! I have to wear a friggin' mask to avoid getting sick from chemical toxins! Wear a mask, as if the Earth's soil can hurt me? As if She's going to poison me as toxic chemicals do? I will not barricade myself from Her! If I have to do that, I'd rather die! I walk barefoot on the Earth through open blisters and cuts on my feet, and I haven't gotten sick! The opposite is happening! Earth contact is healing me! I am not going to wear a mask to work with the soil! How cut off from the soil, from the Earth, from the Mother would a person be to wear a mask and gloves when touching her Flesh!?! I don't want to be cut off from Her! I want to revel in Her soil! I want to lie naked on Her, and roll in Her soil! I don't give a rat's ass about soil bacteria! It's supposed to be there! It has its purpose! And if I die from exposure to soil bacteria, then I'll die from it! If it goes to my already wounded heart, it will find ample space to flourish and grow. I'd rather die quickly from soil bacteria than die a slow death from chemical poisoning!"
And then I cried.
I'm still recovering.
Love, Liora Leah
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"Compost's Up!" http://curezone.com/blogs/m.asp?f=309&i=25
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