Honouring the Earth as Mother

Soil has never been just dirt. In many cultures, soil is seen as mother,  a giver of life, a provider, and a protector.

From the very beginning of human history, people across the world have looked at the ground beneath their feet and felt something sacred. Soil has never been just dirt. In many cultures, soil is seen as mother,  a giver of life, a provider, and a protector.

In India, the earth is personified as Bhumi Devi, the Earth Goddess. In Buddhist traditions across Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar, she appears as the Earth Goddess who bears witness and protects life: known in Thailand as Mae Thorani, in Cambodia as Neang Thorani, in Laos as Thorani, and in Myanmar as Wathondara. The Ancient Greeks called her Gaia, the primal mother who gave birth to all life.

What is striking is that cultures shaped by different traditions, separated by vast distances, arrived at a similar intuition: the earth is not only a thing to be used, but also a mother to be honoured. This shared image reflects a deep human feeling that soil nurtures us just as surely as a mother nurtures her child.

The Forgotten Connection

For thousands of years, this reverence guided how humans lived. Farmers treated the soil with gratitude. Rituals honoured the earth before planting and after harvest. People understood that their survival depended not only on what they took from the land, but also on how they gave back.

In our modern world, that connection has faded. Concrete now covers much of the ground. Food arrives wrapped in plastic, disconnected from the fields it came from. Soil is too often treated as a lifeless resource, something to be used, extracted, or built over.

And so the soil suffers. Every year, the world loses billions of tons of fertile soil to erosion, pollution, and overuse. When soil dies, it can no longer hold water, nourish plants, or capture carbon. Crops weaken, floods and droughts intensify, and the very systems we rely on for food and stability begin to unravel.

Every year, the world loses billions of tons of fertile soil to erosion, pollution, and overuse.

The truth is simple but sobering: when we stop respecting the soil, we harm our own foundation. If the soil collapses, life as we know it collapses with it.

A Mirror for Ourselves

When we pause to reflect, we see that soil is more than a resource. It is a mirror of our relationship with nature. Healthy soil smells like rain and teems with unseen life. Degraded soil is dry, cracked, and silent. Which kind of soil do we want to leave behind for the generations that follow?

Perhaps the ancients were right to call soil ‘mother’. They recognised the reciprocity between human and earth. We take, and we give back. We eat, and we honour the source of our food.

Coming Home to the Ground

Our bodies are built from its minerals, our breath depends on its cycles, our future rests in its fertility.

To respect soil is, in the end, to remember who we are. We are not separate from the ground beneath us. Our bodies are built from its minerals, our breath depends on its cycles, our future rests in its fertility.

Next time you touch the soil, whether in a garden, a forest, or even a potted plant, pause for a moment. Feel its texture. Notice its scent. Imagine the generations of life it has nurtured before you, and the generations it could nurture after you.

Respect begins with awareness. And awareness leads to action. If we learn to see soil once again as our mother, care will follow naturally. And in caring for her, we care for ourselves, our children, and the living world we all belong to.