Composting Yourself

This is an awesome article about zen and shit:


Growing Ground

Cultivating compost in the murky depths of a monastery toilet, Steve Krieger learns to break down his raw material, inner and outer.

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IT BEGAN AS A FINE PLAN: replace the primitive outdoor toilets at our rural, monastic-style Zen Center. The head monk at the time was an idealistic German, and he made the final call to install composting toilets. CTs are based on a beautiful principle. It’s a principle with great metaphorical as well as practical value. The way the toilets work is, you crap down a long, narrow chute, and it accumulates in a large, plastic box. Once a week you shovel a bag of wood chips into the box. Eventually heaps of rich, earthy soil appear. This manure, or “humanure,” makes primo fertilizer for your gardens. What you took from the earth in food, you return to it as food. Beautiful, right?

http://www.tricycle.com/issues/editors_pick/2458-1.html