Re/turning to soil: becoming one-bodied with the Earth

This paper curates four experiential narratives and poetry by the five co-authors that illustrate epistemic and ontic shift from the Modern Western (ModWest) mindset to a holistic, embodied and animistic mindset. Coming from different cultural backgrounds, yet having been systemically influenced by the dominant ModWest views and values, each author has initiated an ongoing shift in consciousness, demonstrating how such transformations are possible. Affirming that a shift in consciousness is not simply a matter of cognitive change but is a thoroughly holistic process, the authors write in autobiographical narratives and poetry to capture and convey embodied and emplaced, experiential understanding and feelings, or ‘felt sense.’ Deep changes in the consciousness, such as these epistemic shifts, take the whole ensemble of “body + mind + heart + soul + spirit + the world” as the unit of change for learning. Through these writings, they sensuously and feelingly, existentially-and-spiritually and discursively explore possibilities of becoming one-bodied with the animate Earth. They call this the re-bonding project through which they address humanity’s first-order bonding rupture between Humans and the Earth community.