We apply the term in a derogatory manner to ourselves, and think: “I am full of shit.” And where does the great spectacular reality, the physical reality of our earth, spring from? Why is shit not considered sacred and blessed and glorious? We think of shit, unfortunately, as the antithesis of good; and when we play around it or with it, we think we are being childish at the best, and wicked at the worst.

A child sits, perhaps three years old, with his finger stuck up his ass, feeling the shit that warmly runs down, and that child knows that shit is good. Then, give him credit!

We think that the soul is a white wall nothing written upon it, and so our idea of sacrilege is to shit upon it, not realizing that the shit and the soul are one, and that the biological is spiritual; and that flowers grow from the shit of the earth. And in a true communion, all things of this life return to the earth, and are consumed and rise up again in a new life that is never destroyed or annihilated, though always changing form.

So, when we shrink from such words or such meanings, why do we shrink? Because we do not trust the biology of our being or the integrity of our soul in flesh. We are people. We are made of the stuff of the earth, and the dust from the stars has formed into the shit that lies in piles — warm piles that come from the beasts and the creatures of the earth. And the shit fertilizes the flowers and the ground, and is a part of it.

This does not mean that we should use such a word to make other people uncomfortable.

Our soul and our flesh are wedded together. One is not “better” than the other: Both are good. Both are, and we are both. The heritage of the earth, in our terms, is ancient and yet ever new, and when we write, we write with our intelligence and our wit. Yet if it were not that we shit once or twice a day, we would not be writing anything.

Yet when we laugh, we laugh because we still think the word is beneath us, and we are being sneaky or smart-alecky–or we think I am–by speaking so freely.

When We say “soul,” we do not snicker.