(7) God יהוה formed the Human from the soil’s humus, blowing into his nostrils the breath of life: the Human became a living being.
Shall you get bread to eat,
Until you return to the ground—
For from it you were taken.
For dust you are,
And to dust you shall return.”
What does it mean about us that we are made of the dust of the earth? How we you playfully and accurately translate "Haadam" ('the adam') who was made from the 'adamah'? What words can we use that carry the connections of these two original Hebrew words?
the victorious shall enter through it.
(21) I praise You, for You have answered me,
and have become my deliverance. (22) The stone that the builders rejected
has become the chief cornerstone.
Why do we/the builders reject the stone? What do we reject that could/should become the corner stone? What does this have to do with our relationship to dust, earth, stone, each other, divinity?
Walt Whitman, This Compost (1867)
Behold this compost! behold it well!
Perhaps every mite has once form'd part of a sick person—yet behold!
The grass of spring covers the prairies,
The bean bursts noiselessly through the mould in the garden,
The delicate spear of the onion pierces upward,
The apple-buds cluster together on the apple-branches,
The resurrection of the wheat appears with pale visage out of its graves,
The tinge awakes over the willow-tree and the mulberry-tree,
The he-birds carol mornings and evenings while the she-birds sit on their nests,
The young of poultry break through the hatch'd eggs,
The new-born of animals appear, the calf is dropt from the cow, the colt from the mare,
Out of its little hill faithfully rise the potato's dark green leaves,
Out of its hill rises the yellow maize-stalk, the lilacs bloom in the dooryards,
The summer growth is innocent and disdainful above all those strata of sour dead.
What chemistry!
That the winds are really not infectious,
That this is no cheat, this transparent green-wash of the sea which is so amorous after me,
That it is safe to allow it to lick my naked body all over with its tongues,
That it will not endanger me with the fevers that have deposited themselves in it,
That all is clean forever and forever,
That the cool drink from the well tastes so good,
That blackberries are so flavorous and juicy,
That the fruits of the apple-orchard and the orange-orchard, that melons, grapes, peaches, plums, will
none of them poison me,
That when I recline on the grass I do not catch any disease,
Though probably every spear of grass rises out of what was once a catching disease.
Now I am terrified at the Earth, it is that calm and patient,
It grows such sweet things out of such corruptions,
It turns harmless and stainless on its axis, with such endless successions of diseas'd corpses,
It distills such exquisite winds out of such infused fetor,
It renews with such unwitting looks its prodigal, annual, sumptuous crops,
It gives such divine materials to men, and accepts such leavings from them at last.
What do you notice? what words are repeated often? Why? What was 'good'?
How do you imagine this garden?
Avot d’Rabbi Natan, Chapter 31 Composed in Talmudic Israel/Babylon (c.650 - c.950 CE) ְ
Rabbi Yohanan Ben Zakai used to say: "If you have a sapling in your hand and they tell you 'The Messiah is coming!' first plant the sapling and then go to greet them [the Messiah]."