To be fully aware of the forces playing out around and through us includes the smallest of transactions in a place. In my place there are billions of bacteria, millions of miles of mycelia, hundreds of thousands of worms, and thousands of other kinds of tiny creatures all dedicating their lives to supporting the rest of life in this place. It is these smallest of organisms that cycle life, taking old life and making it ready to be new life, holding the resources that life creates and that support life in this place.

It is on the base of these smallest of transactions that all of the grass and trees, fruits and vegetables, birds and mammals, and my family stand. These smallest of transactions take place in the soil, create the soil – are the soil. So I don't spend much time composting – I mulch. Instead of painstakingly building compost piles of precise mixtures of carbon and nitrogen – and periodically turning them – to produce the nutrients my fruits and vegetables need, I lay the grass I cut around my plants – and the soil organisms make those nutrients – while being soil. I feed the soil and the soil feeds the plants in this place.

If we rob the soil of last year's leaves and grass, if we plow fence line to fence line, if we spread poisons, we reduce the number of organisms, the number of species of organisms and the number of transactions in a place. Then life itself, the ecosystem, is diminished in that place. In my place, we honor the gift of the smallest among us.