The Things We Step Over

Most of the world exists below eye level.

We are terrible at noticing it.

We walk over soil without looking at it.

We step across cracks where plants emerge.

We pass ants carrying things many times their own size.

We ignore moss.

We ignore lichen.

We ignore tiny flowers because they are too small to compete with the enormous ornamental ones humans have decided deserve attention.

We look upward.

Trees.

Mountains.

Clouds.

Birds.

Stars.

All of those things are worth looking at.

But the ground is where the real evidence is.

Look closely at a patch of soil and it stops being dirt.

It becomes structure.

Roots.

Fragments of leaves.

Mineral particles.

Moisture.

Tiny tunnels.

Fungal threads.

Insects.

Decomposing material.

Life in various stages of becoming something else.

The forest floor is not the bottom of the ecosystem.

It is one of its busiest layers.

This is one reason I find the ground so strangely compelling.

We tend to imagine ecosystems vertically.

Tree above.

Shrub beneath it.

Grass beneath that.

Soil underneath everything.

But the relationships do not stop at the surface.

Roots extend downward.

Fungi extend sideways.

Water moves through pores.

Animals burrow.

Microorganisms break things apart.

Nutrients circulate.

What appears to be a boundary is usually just a place where our eyes stop.

The same is true in human environments.

We design what people see.

We often forget what everything depends upon.

The decorative garden is visible.

The soil beneath it is not.

The tree canopy is visible.

The root system is not.

The building is visible.

The watershed beneath it is not.

The finished landscape is visible.

The organisms supporting it are not.

This is why I think observation should begin at the ground.

Not because the ground is more important than everything above it.

Because it tells you what the rest of the system is doing.

Where water gathers.

Where it disappears.

Where plants survive.

Where they struggle.

Where roots encounter resistance.

Where organisms are active.

Where disturbance has occurred.

Where something is beginning to recover.

A landscape leaves evidence.

You just have to learn how to read it.

Sometimes that means kneeling down.

Sometimes it means getting your hands dirty.

Sometimes it means noticing the tiny thing you almost stepped on.

There is a strange humility in doing that.

You become aware of how much exists without requiring your attention.

The world does not become more alive because you noticed it.

You simply become more aware that it was alive all along.