Porosity

[pɔːrˈɑː.sə.t̬i]

Related terms: Bodenlos (German), Borders, Earthbound, Flows, Fluxes, Grenzen (German), Poetics of Relation, Permeability

Porosity describes the quality of being full of holes; being porous; things seeping through, light scattering, permeating, the notion of something being wholly open to things (in all meanings of the word) both entering and exiting at once. Capable of being passed through – like a border or a territory. All borders are porous – we need to have these boundaries in order to make sense of the individual variables entering and exiting through these borders. Leakiness is a central quality for the terrestrial. A holobiont is a porous unit, constantly leaking and absorbing, being part of and separating.

       The ground is porous and made up not of a single heavy mass, but of a soil which is totally permeable. This porosity is vital to the health of the ground, which affects not only that which grows from it, but the entire system of atmospheric cycles from the ground to the sky and back again. Industrial agriculture, fracking, oil drilling, and mining are ruining the porosity of the Earth’s surface, thereby disrupting the cycles of the weathering process.