In our newest Fire and Light podcast, “Alchemy of Earth and Soul,” Dave Denny and I talk about the “Green Moon,” the coming of spring and the season of Lent. We share some of the wisdom we glean from living close to the earth and paying special attention to the process of decomposition. As Walt Whitman wrote, “Behold this compost! Behold it well!… It grows such sweet things out of such corruptions.” Our contemplative practice for this month is to grow something green indoors if not outside, to “touch the earth,” work in the soil, shovel compost or manure if you can, and get dirt-y!

March is Women’s History Month in preparation for International Women’s Day on March 8. So in our conversation we discuss some of the women who inspire us: Sikh leader Valarie Kaur who created the Revolutionary Love Project and wrote See No Stranger; bell hooks, Black Feminist leader who critiques patriarchy with compassion; Naomi Shihab Nye, the Palestinian-American poet who embodies the nonduality of sorrow and kindness; and Desert Elder Lorraine Eiler. You’ll find vibrant quotations from these women on the Home page of our Desert Foundation web site, sandandsky.org.

As we come closer to the spring equinox and enter more deeply into Lent, when we celebrate our intimacy with the earth, do you wonder how the springtime alchemy of the earth and the compost pile connect with the alchemy in your contemplative life and your own soul? Read “Spring, Worms, and the Compost Pile,” if you haven’t already.