Humanure

So, with gardening season coming up, I've been reading up on composting. And I came across this funny term: Humanure.

It's exactly what you think it is: human waste composted into usable, nutrient laden soil. It is not, however, raw sewage (commonly called night soil when spread over crops), if you may be thinking it is. Did you know you can even get or make your own composting toilet? It's great for the earth as it uses little or no water and prevents the contamination of ground water.

I'm having a strange fascination with this process. Not so much in a gardening or raising crops sense, because let's face it, that just sicks me out, but in a personal progress kind of sense. I like this idea of taking the worst parts of yourself, the waste, and refining them into something that can nurture and enrich not only your own life but the lives of others.

This reminds me of a quote I read recently in one of Debbie Macomber's books: The grass is not greener on the other side of the fence; it's greener where it's watered. It's the same idea, I think. You can think something else will be better, if I just went here or saw this or had that, then I would be happy. But if we take the time to examine in ourselves what is really wrong and what we are really unhappy with, and then fix it by culturing and tending to it, then we can, I don't know, be invicible or something. And you know, you don't even have to be unhappy to see value in this process, just willing to nuture others.

What do you think?