What’s your Strongest Memory of Dirt?

With World Soil Day set to take place on 5^th December, I’d like to ask you a question....

What is your strongest memory of dirt? Of soil? Or maybe it's of mud - sloppy, splashy, damp earth turned to liquid that can land on your face.

"Little things" like this, small moments, you might think are a completely different conversation to the big stuff - like climate change... or the future of the planet. But ‘little things’ like sticking our hands in dirt are part of a bigger story, a story of sustenance, of connection.

When we see with all our senses - not just our eyes, but with our hands, tongues, hearts and cells… we make an undeniable connection with our more-than-human-world. As Neuroscientist, Buddhist Erudite and Mindfulness Guide, Ben Isbel says: "We can forget information; we can't un-experience an experience."

This is all about relationships. Connection and nourishment are not just what plants and animals we eat for sustenance, medicine and joy. The true quality of our connection and nourishment is defined by the relationships between each element in our food web and supply chains, and our relationship with it All.

The same is true for the raw materials grown to go into the soap and self-care products we all use. Dr. Bronner's has become a spearhead for a revolutionary tool in product accountability and transparency - Regenerative Organic Certification, or ROC - a certification that says the ingredients in this bottle or bar of soap have been grown using practices that are good for the planet and good for us all. More on ROC soon, first let's recap on what we mean when we say, "Regenerative Agriculture".

Head of Special Operations for Dr. Bronners, Gero Leson, in his book ‘Honor Thy Label’, says 'Regenerative Agriculture loosely refers to the growing of field and tress crops and the grazing animals in a way that increases the biodiversity of species while enriching the soil ... increasing soil fertility and moisture holding capacity, and resilience to increasingly frequent catastrophic weather events - notably drought and deluges. ‘

Conventional agriculture contributes to approximately 15% of Australia's annual fossil fuel emissions, while simultaneously depleting our soil’s ability to cycle carbon down out of the atmosphere. In a follow up report, ‘The State of the World’s Land and Water Resources for Food and Agriculture 2021 – Systems at breaking point’, it was stated that “agriculture bears great promise to alleviate these pressures and provide multiple opportunities to contribute to global goals”. What does this mean? Regenerative agriculture can play a role in resolving our climate crisis.

For me, regenerative ways of growing listen to millennia old knowledges and allow them to come into new ways of being with the ecology of each landscape, bio region, human kin and our more than human kin. Regeneration is to listen and to allow; to test and trust, to move beyond modes of domination and depletion towards collective vitality and clarity for us all.

As Writer and Philosopher Aldo Leopold put it, "A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the (biotic) community. It is wrong when it tends to otherwise".

And in his iconic book 'Call The Reed Warbler', Charlie Massy shares, "Indigenous Australians - evolved a long-lasting approach to land use but then how a different human mind - the Mechanical - usurped this long-term approach and helped to precipitate us into the Anthropocene"… the eighth great extinction. "Regenerative farmers enact some form of transformation in themselves and begin to move from the Mechanical towards and Emergent Mind: to truly beginning to understand themselves and their place in a Gaian Earth and her systems”.

OK, back to ROC - Regenerative Organic Certification. We all love a short cut that helps us think less and relax more. For me, that's what seeing a ROC label on a product does. These handy labels are now on the beloved bottles and bars of Dr. Bronner's soap and have started hitting stores here in what we now call Australia. Regenerative Organic Certification helps us, the people buying, overcome the paradox of choice with a power of choice, providing us with shorthand answers to an increasingly overwhelming number of questions about how things are grown and the systems behind what we buy.'

So, when you buy a Dr. Bronner's soap with a ROC label on it, what can you be sure of? As outlined on the Dr. Bronner’s US webpage, What is Regenerative Agriculture?:

“At its core, regenerative organic agriculture is a whole system approach to farming and land management. That means it doesn’t focus on a single practice, but rather on creating balance across the entire ecosystem. Three big principles define it:

1. Healthy soil that stores carbon, holds water, and supports biodiversity.
2. High animal welfare standards with real pasture access—not factory-style confinement.
3. Fair treatment for farmers and workers, including safe conditions and the pursuit of living wages.

And ROC isn’t just an idea – it’s a rapidly growing movement:

• 2,600+ ROC products are already available across food, fiber, and body care.
• 319 licensed brands are committed to the standard.
• 19.4 million+ acres worldwide are certified under ROC.
• 67,000+ farms and smallholders are part of the supply chain.

Every ROC purchase is a vote for a different kind of agriculture:

For the Earth: Healthier soils draw down carbon, improve biodiversity, and help farms withstand droughts and floods.

For animals: ROC’s standards go beyond the minimum, ensuring animals are treated with dignity.

For people: Safer working conditions, fair pay, and stronger communities are all part of the package.

And because ROC is built on top of organic, you don’t have to choose between values. You get it all in one trusted seal.”

Isn't that a relief to hear? In a world of increasing confusion, at a time when we are at tipping points in humanity and planetary boundaries, isn't it wonderful to know we trust the fabric of care in something?! I feel it.

So, this World Soil Day, my personal challenge to you is to go outside, run some dirt through your fingers (make a mud pie!) and remember the sediment inside the stars, inside us all, by using all five of your earthly senses. They will not fail you, I promise...