Leisha That is not a dark statement; it is simply ecological truth.
We are born into matter and microbes, we move through seasons of growth and decay, and we return what we borrowed.
The illusion that we can engineer permanence, sterilize risk, or purify ourselves out of vulnerability is one of the great fantasies of modern life. We speak about longevity as though it were a contract. We speak about prevention as though it were a guarantee. Yet we are biological beings embedded in a biological world, and biology does not promise immunity. It promises participation.
Somewhere along the way, we left our nature. Not physically, because our bodies still breathe air and metabolize plants and host trillions of microbes. We left it philosophically. We began to imagine that we stand apart from soil, apart from decay, apart from the cycles that define every other living organism. We began to chase purity.
Purity of food.
Purity of water.
Purity of body.
Purity of ideology.
We filter, refine, sanitize, optimize, detoxify. We curate our diets with careful labels and pristine ingredients, hoping that if we can just remove enough contaminants, we will reclaim some original innocence. Yet the very pursuit of purity often reflects the same mindset that fractured the system in the first place: control without reciprocity, extraction without humility, separation without consequence.
Pollution and poison are not confined to distant industrial corridors. They circulate. They move through air currents and watersheds. They settle into soil and rise again through crops. They are present in places that appear untouched. There is no enclave so exclusive that it escapes the shared atmosphere.
There is no kitchen so intentional that it stands outside the global cycle of contamination. We may reduce exposure. We may make wiser choices. But none of us lives in a vacuum.
We are microbes in a shared culture medium. We breathe the same sky. We drink from the same hydrological system. We eat from the same planetary field. The idea that one can purchase exemption from ecological reality is a comforting myth. The biosphere does not recognize wealth or status. It responds to inputs and outputs, to balance and imbalance.
In the last while, I have been reminded in a quiet and personal way that no matter how carefully we live, no matter how much we understand about terrain, nutrition, and microbial ecology, we are still participants in a larger story.
Health is not a badge earned by discipline. It is a dynamic relationship with forces far beyond our immediate control. We can steward our internal ecosystems with devotion, but we cannot claim invincibility. None of us can.
When we speak about the microbiome, we acknowledge that diversity protects. Species richness stabilizes. Cooperative networks enhance resilience. Chronic stress weakens regulatory systems. Chemical overload disrupts communication. We accept these principles when discussing the gut, yet hesitate to extend them outward. And, I find myself knowing this and yet personally failing in this.
The soil microbiome operates by the same laws. A field alive with fungal networks, bacteria, protozoa, and arthropods cycles nutrients efficiently, buffers extremes, and supports plant immunity. A simplified, chemically dependent field becomes reactive and fragile. The difference is not mystical. It is ecological.
The same is true of human communities. Monoculture thinking narrows perspective. Hyper-competition erodes trust. Systems designed around relentless accumulation destabilize the very foundations they rely upon. When reciprocity is replaced with extraction, resilience declines. When diversity is replaced with uniformity, vulnerability increases.
We cannot isolate our personal health from the health of the land. The cabbage that becomes sauerkraut carries the microbial and mineral story of the soil that raised it. The grain that becomes sourdough reflects the biodiversity of its field. The microbes that colonize our intestines are influenced by the microbial communities of plants, animals, and landscapes around us. Your parents and grandparents are inside you and you children you give this too as well.
This is one continuous loop.
It would be comforting to believe that eating fermented foods could shield us entirely from the consequences of a polluted world. Ferments are powerful. They nourish microbial diversity and support regulatory balance. Yet they are not magical armor. They are living foods that themselves depend on living systems. If those systems are degraded, the protective web weakens.
Sometimes the obsession with purity distracts us from the deeper work of restoration. A sterile environment is not a healthy one. A body stripped of microbial diversity in the name of cleanliness becomes reactive and unstable. A landscape stripped of complexity in the name of efficiency becomes brittle and depleted. Purity, pursued without wisdom, can become another form of imbalance.
We are not meant to be pure. We are meant to be integrated.
Integrated with soil that feeds plants.
Integrated with plants that feed microbes.
Integrated with microbes that regulate immunity.
Integrated with communities that practice reciprocity rather than domination.
No one gets out alive, but that does not render our choices meaningless. It renders them sacred. If our time here is finite, then the condition of the systems we touch matters profoundly. The soil we degrade or regenerate will shape the bodies of those who come after us. The waterways we pollute or protect will circulate through future lungs and cells.
A civilization that imagines it can separate itself from nature inevitably wages war against its own biology. A culture that remembers its embeddedness begins to act differently. It plants trees whose shade it may never sit beneath. It builds soil whose harvest it may never eat. It reduces harm not to guarantee personal survival, but to strengthen the web of life that sustains everyone.
We are not external managers of Earth’s systems. We are expressions of them. Our bones are mineralized soil. Our blood carries elements forged in ancient stars. Our intestines host communities that mirror the complexity of forests and fields. To poison the land is to participate in our own diminishment. To regenerate it is to participate in our own renewal.
No one can claim purity. Not individually. Not collectively. We live in a shared atmosphere, a shared watershed, a shared soil. The question is not how to escape vulnerability. The question is how to live responsibly within it.
In the end, a society that protects its soil protects its own people. A people who honor biodiversity in their fields and rivers honor resilience within their own bodies.
We cannot step outside the web of life, and perhaps that is the most humbling and hopeful truth of all.
