Gene Rosow

THE LOST GOSPEL OF DIRT

 

DIRT! The Movie   (www.dirtthemovie.org) was inspired by William Bryant Logan’s book

DIRT: The Ecstatic Skin of  the Earth.

DIRT: The Ecstatic Skin of  the Earth

It connects our deepest positive multi-denominational religious values to the ground beneath our feet – among other amazing perspectives on the subject.  The book itself was written in a cathedral.

DISSOLVE TO: The front The Cathedral of St John the Divine  in New York. After services, writer Bill Logan stepped out the front door with a young woman he was trying to impress.  The Very Reverand James Morton greeted them and asked Bill what  he would like to write about.  Bill said “Well… about Dirt”, On the spot the prelate offered him a room in which to write such a book.  Which he did… (as well as wed the earthy young woman who came to services with him.) When published the book was graced by loud praise.   One reviewer wrote,  “A gleeful, poetic book…. Dirt is kind of a prayer.”   And Bill Logan went on to marry the young woman

When I set out to make DIRT! The Movie, with my producing/directing partner Bill Benenson I knew we wanted to be true to the book’s breadth:  Science, history, art, and philosophy, wonder and humor and a global perspective.

After reading the book and working for 8 years on the film and now bringing the film to audences, I am convinced that it’s time to renew our faith in soil as the living, breathing matrix of all life  -- and a source of our spiritual regeneration as well as physical survival as a species.  In the book, Bill Logan tells the story of St. Phocas, who became the patron saint of gardening by asking his Roman executioners to turn him into compost.  From a scientific POV Logan writes about the process underlying “dust to dust” – how we are literally transformed back into the dirt from which we came.  From an inclusive spiritual POV  DIRT! The Movie shows that religions around the world share the theme that our origins are in the dirt.  Jewish, Christian and Muslim traditions share the story that God scooped up dirt and blew in the breath of life. 

 

Our film adapted the spirit of the book:  we filmed with pilgrims going to The Sanctuario de Chimayo to feel the hand of God by touching dirt, and taking some home with them.

Our film suggests that our connection to dirt and the natural world goes beyond stewardship to interconnectivity and a deep spiritual connection.  As Okenagan writer, artist and teacher Jeannette Armstrong puts it: “ I am that river, I am that mountain, I am that dirt. I could pick a hand of dirt and that’s, that’s what my grandmother used to say.  She, she’d pick up a hand of dirt and she’d say, “this is my flesh.”

 

In taking care of living breathing dirt we are taking care of ourselves.  We are not only a species of stewards taking care of the natural world.  We are that and more. Dirt and rest of the natural world is also taking care of us.  We are integral to that world and what we learn from dirt and the rest of the natural world will save us too.  

DIRT! The Movie has been shown to hundreds of community groups, in numerous festivals, and on nationwide television via PBS.  ITVS:Independent Lens   After an 8 year journey from book to film to audiences, if our film inspires a congregation to dig up a parking lot; to reawaken the soil; and plant gardens to feed hungry people we will have honored the origins of the book, our film, and a connection to the lost Gospel of Dirt.

 

 

 

To see what you can do as an individual or an organization:  www.dirtthemovie.org

 

 

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