Reading the Ground — A Weekend with the Thirteen Questions

The soil under any place can be read. This weekend teaches the reading. We spend two days on one piece of ground in the Verkhovyna valley. The method is the Erdpuls practice: the Thirteen Questions to the Soil — a sequence of observations anyone can make with their own senses before any instrument is picked up. Day one — the body is the first instrument. Arrival and a slow walk of the ground. What the eyes find: colour, cover, what grows and what refuses to. What the hands find: texture, moisture, warmth, the crumb test. What the nose finds. The Thirteen Questions introduced one by one, asked of the actual ground under us. Each participant opens a field notebook that is theirs to keep. Day two — simple measurement is the second instrument. The same ground, asked again — this time with hand lens, test strips, thermometer, and a simple moisture probe. Where the instrument agrees with the hand, and where it disagrees — the gap between the two readings is where the learning is. We close with the question every Erdpuls initiative starts from: what does this place need, and what here answers that need? Who this is for. Adults and youth from sixteen up. No background in science or agriculture required — the method assumes nothing but attention. The working language is English; the workshop doubles as a live English-practice space, and Ukrainian is welcome alongside it whenever a thing is easier said in it. What you take home. Your own field notebook with two days of readings, a printed set of the Thirteen Questions, and the ability to repeat the full sequence on any ground you meet afterwards — a garden, a pasture, a school yard. What this funds. The cost breakdown below is complete — materials, meals, and a venue contribution. The facilitator serves as a volunteer, so no facilitator fee is included in the threshold. Any surplus flows to the Regeneration Fund, as with every offering on this platform.