Dawn's Notes
Try A Little Dirt - May 2017
by Dawn Phelps, RN/LMSW
I remember sitting under our big maple trees in Tennessee with my older sister Joy when we were children. We had “cooking” to do, so we mixed some fine, silky dirt with water, stirring it into a gooey brown paste with a stick. Then we pressed our wet mixture into small pies.
Next our pies needed to “cook,” and we had to rely on the hot Tennessee air to dry them out. While they dried I wondered how they would taste. Later that day, after our pies were dry, we tasted them.
Our little round dirt pies had no resemblance to a real pastry, and when I bit into my pie, a strange, earthy taste hit my tongue—no sweetness! The pie was gritty, and I immediately spit it out, and it took a while to get all the grit out of my teeth. That was the last time I tried to eat a mud pie!
As I grew a little older, my love for the dirt changed from making mud pies to growing things in the dirt. While I was still small, my parents planted a garden each year. After the tomatoes ripened, it was fun to pick a warm tomato off the vine and eat it without washing it. It tasted oh, so good!
When we were old enough, my siblings and I became a part of the gardening process. Each of us had our own little garden plot to plant and weed. We felt a sense of ownership, responsibility for planting our seeds and caring for the plants.
Beginning very early, I had a “grow-vegetables-only” philosophy. There were ten mouths to feed at our house, so it seemed wasteful to spend time growing flowers. I knew it took a large pot of mashed potatoes or a quart of home-canned green beans for just one meal, so growing food was serious business!
Growing flowers seemed frivolous, a waste of hoeing and watering, since flowers cannot be eaten. My experience with only growing vegetables continued until 1988 after my father died. That spring I decided to grow my first flower garden in his memory. I planted daisies, foxgloves, and carnations. Oh, the spicy smell of the carnations and the bright colors of the flowers!
That beautiful flower garden permanently smashed my no-flower-growing belief, and today I am still hooked on growing flowers. I have flowers growing all around our house—bright yellow Stella D’ Oro lilies, purple salvia, pink bee balm, red knockout roses, and multi-colored hollyhocks.
I can vouch for how therapeutic dirt has been for me throughout my lifetime, beginning when I was a child, making mud pies under the shade tree with my sister, followed by growing vegetables, and now flowers as well.
Research confirms that it is good for children to play in the dirt. Even though I do not recommend that children eat dirt, it will not harm them if they taste it. Children can be kept “too clean,” and miss out on contact with bacteria, microbes in the soil, that can help build strong immune systems, maybe even reduce a child’s chance of getting asthma.
Digging in dirt can also be therapeutic for soldiers returning to the U.S. from Afghanistan or Iraq with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. According to an article written by Ken Olsen in the American Legion Magazine, March, 2017, getting soldiers to grow things in the soil may help reduce their chances of committing suicide.
A program called Growing Veterans began five years ago in Washington State. Veterans work the soil, plant seeds, and care for vegetables. Veterans bring “life into the world” and help “sustain their own lives” by growing plants, according to Olsen. “After being around war and death, it is pretty cool and therapeutic,” Olson concludes.
Contact with the dirt can be therapeutic after a loss. Planting and tending flowers or vegetables gets a person outside in the fresh air and sunshine, and exercise is good for the body and spirit.
Planting seeds and plants in the soil can help plant hope for healing in a grieving heart after a loss. Dirt therapy is good for you. If your heart is hurting, it may be time to try a little dirt. Plant a flower or a tree in memory of your loved one, and plant some hope for yourself.
“To see things in the seed, that is genius.” Lao Tzu
Call about the next "Living Life after Loss" Group at:
Meadowlark Hospice 709 Liberty Clay Center, Kansas
(785) 632-2225
Dawn Phelps, RN/LMSW, Group Facilitator