The health of the land begins with shit, with dead bodies, with body parts that fall to the ground. It begins with death, decomposition, decay. It begins with eating, metabolizing, excreting. That’s how it has always been, since the beginning of life. You feed me, I feed the soil, the soil feeds everyone, the soil feeds me, I feed you, you feed the soil, and so on.

Our relationship, both personal and collective, with shit, and more broadly with our waste products, reveals much about our relationship with the land - with our habitat - and much about why and how this culture is killing the planet. In the case of shit, this culture has turned what was a gift from us to our habitat - a gift of fertile soil, given in response to the nourishment our habitat gives us - into something toxic, something harmful. Something shameful. And that is a terrible shame.