I can't leave the house without getting my feet dirty. There is earth everywhere. Not imported, transplanted, water-sucking lawns, but dirt: dusty, muddy, dirtying. It gets on my clothes and doesn´t come out. It becomes caked on my sandaled toes, to be brushed off before entering the city landscape, where only manufactured gasoline-exhaust dust is socially acceptable.

Around my house grow trees and plants that from this same dirt that produce edible items ranging from the mundane root vegetable to sweet, juicy, tropical fruits. Stores do exist for luxury items like milk and the oil that my host abuelita uses to fry everything in sight. I tend to seek out the grocery stores more often than the locals, not quite weaned off of their abundant wealth of imported choices. I enjoy feeling an attachment to the earth, and I am truly excited to begin an organic garden, compost pile and composting latrine when I move into my own little place.

There are endless ways to become re-attached to your own parcel of the planet:

1. "Live Consciously, Buy Wisely, Make a Difference" - Check out the New American Dream.
This is a comprehensive site of ways to "green" your life. Save fuel resources by buying from local merchants (find your closest stores and markets with this map!). Turn the Tide by making nine simple lifestyle changes, including replacing one car trip a week with an alternate mode of transport.

2. Don't know any alternate transport methods? Find them and become an advocate for public transportation. It will not only contribute to the health of the environment, but an improved tranport system can improve your own health as well. If you can't get there by public transport, think about carpooling or ridesharing. Of course, there's always walking or biking, if you are lucky enough to live in such a place where such things are possible without risking your life. If there are no sidewalks, form a group to lobby for better walking conditions!

3. Turn waste into yummy foodstuffs. Fancy bins aren't neccessary to compost organic wastes, and there's even indoor non-smelly wormbox methods if you don't have space for a pile. No better organic fertilizer to be found (except maybe the future compost from my sawdust bucket toilet that will most definitely make for some extra-juicy tomatoes next year).

These are just a few options to quench that Earth-Zen craving you didn't even know you had. There are a world of ways to break those Wal-Mart Superstore-inspired habits, even inside the confines of the ultra-comfy cushions of the American consumer society. Be inspired by the dirt.