dirt – סלומה

I lost my best friend of 18 years on the 19th of November… she passed away in my bedroom at home from old age early in the morning. So many mixed emotions about it still 😦 I love you Mini ♥

The latest land dispute in China has resulted in a very strange site: a
single gravestone currently sits on top of a mound of dirt ten metres
high in the middle of a construction site in Taiyuan in north China’s
Shanxi province.

“A single acre of soil can contain 2,400 pounds of fungi,
1,500 pounds of bacteria, 900 pounds of earthworms, 890 pounds of
arthropods and algae, and 133 pounds of protozoa. The soil teems with
life, as does the dead body (inside its sausage casing of keratin, or
dead skin). Microscopic sorcery takes place when a body is placed just a
few feet deep in the soil. Here, trillions of bacteria living inside
you will liquefy your innards. When the built-up pressure breaks the
seal of skin an orgiastic reunion takes place, in which our bodies merge
with the earth.
We owe our very lives to the soil, and, as William Bryant Logan said,
“the bodies we give it back are not payment enough.” Though, presumably,
they are a start.”

— From Here to Eternity, by Caitlin Doughty

A
natural burial is the act of returning a body as naturally as possible
to the earth. To achieve this, it is recommend that the body not be
embalmed or cremated, but instead buried in a simple casket or shroud,
in a protected green space.

Another image of a green burial – or natural burial. (A
burial alternative that allows the body to be returned to the earth and
naturally recycled into new life without the use of toxic embalming
fluids, metal caskets and concrete vaults).

In English it’s called caterpillar fungus, but it’s better known
throughout Asia by the Tibetan term, yartsa gunbu, which means “summer
grass, winter worm." The fungus sells for $50, 000 a pound and has been nicknamed ‘The Himalayan Viagra” due to it’s medicinal properties and rise in China as a status symbol.

A crater recently discovered in the Yamal Peninsula, Siberia.

In a bizarre dispute, a skyscraper has been built around a tombstone in the city of Taiyuan, the capital of Shanxi province in China. Building developers bought a cemetery with an eye to building a series of skyscrapers on the land. Prior to construction, locals were paid to relocate the graves, yet one family refused the proposed terms, forcing developers to build around the landmass.