Living Soil

Hello humans.

Did you know that the word human
comes from the Latin humus,
meaning living soil?

You are living soil.

Your nerve cells function
because you are made of
calcium
and sodium
and potassium—
all rich nutrients gathered together
through the weaving of
dirt
and air
and water
and fire
and time.

You are living soil.
And this is not a metaphor.

The reason you can hear me right now
is because the copper-coated speakers
are transmitting a frequency
to the calcium-coated bones in your ears,
giving you the capacity
to experience what we in English call
sound.

You are living soil—literally.
And you should be in awe of this
exquisite,
erotic,
poetic,
dynamic interplay
of your own being.

Are you in awe
when you look at yourself in the mirror?
Do you swoon
in delight?

My name is Khloe Simone Valdry.
My name was given to me
by my African-American parents
who were born
in the former French port city of New Orleans.

And there they fell in love
with a perfume
that was created by a fashion house
which was created by an Egyptian Jewish
Sephardic woman
years before they were born.

And this fashion house
sent perfumers across distant lands
to gather together
rose petals
and luchi
and lily of the valley
and honey
into a fragrance so beautiful
it made my parents swoon
in declaration
that my name would be
Chloe.

Forces beyond our control
conspire to bring our names into being—
to bring the names,
the melodies,
the sounds
by which we are called
into being.

And I am in awe
of this magic.

And so I stand before you today
to deliver you a message
in the name of our beautiful home,
the earth—
our pachamama,
our madre tierra.

I stand before you in her name
to remind you
of your lineage
and to celebrate with you:

For how wonderful it is
that we get to inhabit these bones
for such a short period of time.

What a privilege it is
that we get to be stewards of the earth.

Perhaps the fate of our species
depends on our willingness
to be stewards of the earth
and to remember
that we are living soil.

But in order to remember
this requires
that we slow down
and that we get present.

And there are things to do
and places to be
and emails to check
and deadlines to meet.
And we have to go go go
ever upward.

We have to scale the company
and fly to Mars
and build the skyscrapers.

Excelsior.
Ever upward.

Excelsior is another Latin word
that means ever upward.

But sometimes
I feel our ever-upward mentality
is something we cling to
in order to escape reality—
something we cling to
to avoid the present moment,
something we cling to
to cope with our suffering
and our pain.

Yet still
the invitation of the earth remains
closer to you
than your jugular vein.

Remember, she whispers,
you are living soil.

Remember, she says,
you are my kind
and I am yours.

Just move
a little differently.
Just shift
your choreography.
It’s all muscle memory.

Come on—
don’t you remember me?

I am vibration
shaking open your sensory glands.
I am breath
breathing you.

Your diaphragm contracts
and expands.
Right now as you breathe
it contracts
and expands.
In this very moment
it contracts
and expands.

See—
even your flesh and blood
knows how to dance.
But of course
you are living soil.

And everything you see
and everything you own—
every book,
every candle,
the carpet I am standing on,
the microphone that is transmitting
the sound of my voice to your ears,
and my voice,
and your ears—
it is all from her.

It all comes
from the earth.

But again, again,
it is so easy these days
to be distracted.

Are you like me?
Are you easily distracted
by your mobile device?

I want to try an experiment for a second.
Can everyone take out their phones?

Now, this is a bit of a risk,
so we’ll see what happens here.

But take out your phone
and look at your phone.
Look at your phone.

And maybe you're seeing notifications.
If you're seeing notifications,
please stay with me.
Don’t get swept away.
Don’t get caught up.
Stay with me.

But just notice
that your phone
is made up of computer chips.

And these computer chips
are made up of silicon.

And silicon
is a chemical metalloid
that comes from sand crystals
that conduct energy.

This device
that we are so enchanted with
is a configuration
of
sand crystals
that conduct
energy.

The next time you find yourself
tempted to make fun of a hippie
who collects crystals—
and I am one of these, by the way—
the next time you find yourself
doing this,
I want you to remember this moment.

Because anytime you find yourself
spending hours scrolling on Instagram
or checking emails,
you have become enchanted
by sand crystals
that conduct energy.

And if they're still out,
you can put your sand crystals away.
Thank you, magnificent human.

I ask you again:
When you see yourself in the mirror,
do you swoon in delight?
I think you should.

And when you sip your coffee
in the morning,
do you bow your head
in reverence
to the soil
and the fresh earth
that nourishes you
with her life force?

Do you wake
knowing that you are
this same life force?

Do you love
your finite flesh
as it moves across
this finite earth
and breathes
this finite breath?
I think you should.

I was born and raised
in the Judeo-Christian ethic
and made to memorize scripture
as a child.

And lately,
I’ve been contemplating
the book of Ecclesiastes.

And I learned recently
that the first verse
of the first chapter
does not say,
as we in the West have mistranslated it:
Vanity of vanity, all is vanity.

But in the original Hebrew it says:
Fleeting, fleeting, all is fleeting.
Finite, finite, all is finite.

And that’s a different thing entirely.

Because if something is vanity
then it’s meaningless.
But if something is fleeting
then that means
it comes
and it goes.

If something is finite
that means
it passes
just like the seasons.

And that
is what makes it sacred.

And that’s what you and I are, humans.
We are sacred.

So bow your head
in reverence
and learn to fully take in
the fleeting,
finite weight
of your own dust—
the living soil
that makes you
you.

It is the same living soil
that your coffee beans come from,
and your sand crystals too.

Learn to praise this.
Be grateful for this.
Write poems and songs
in celebration of this—
because it will be gone
in less than a blink
of an eye.

And when you rise
in the morning,
bless the dirt
and the air
and the water
and the fire
and the time
that makes this possible,
that makes you possible,
that makes us possible.

Learn to love
each other.

For we are living soil—
and the fate of our species
may very well depend
upon our ability
to remember.

Thank you.