The secret world beneath our feet
The connections we miss when we stay surface-level
Dear Rethinkers,
One of the things I love doing in this newsletter is sharing things I’ve seen and how they prompt me to think differently about something important. This week I went to see a fascinating exhibition called ‘Soil: The World At Our Feet’. As regular readers know, two of my passions are gardening and art, so anything that combines microbes, mushrooms and the sound of a cactus drinking is my kind of thing!
One of my favorite moments of the gardening year is late August, when you can put your foot on a spade, dig deep into the earth and discover the hidden treasure of newly grown potatoes. Part of the magic and joy is that you can’t see or know what’s there. When you dig down, the act of creation from the dark soil becomes visible. And that’s what the exhibition prompted me to think about; the power of discovering things beyond the visible, the unseen forces that everyday light and sight does not illuminate.
It made me think of Saint-Exupéry’s famous line from The Little Prince:
“What is essential is invisible to the eye.”
We spend so much of our lives looking up and out. We’re fascinated by astronauts that explore the infinity of space or by the likes of Jacques Cousteau who forever changed our understanding of the oceans. But when do we look down and think about the magical world beneath our feet?
If you’re someone who wants to see, soil is a journey into the unknown.
And once you start looking closer, an entire hidden world emerges — one that’s more alive, intricate, and surprising than you might expect.
Paid subscribers, you can keep reading for a deeper dive into how the invisible shapes our lives — and what happens when we learn to see it.