(Written1/21/2018 and Revised 5/8/2020)
Written more than 2 years ago now this piece surfaced as I was looking through my writings. Though the current pandemic has changed some of this dynamic I observed then, the time is now ripe to NOT go back to this mindless rootlessness that so many live in their daily lives.
After a week away house-sitting for my oldest son in Sacramento I arrived back in my home sanctuary overlooking Wolf Creek in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. I sat next to the creek where the water coursed down rocks to reflect on what I had experienced in the middle of the city in my time away. My reflections then….
There I found the sidewalks and streets most often paved over burying any connection with the surface of the earth. Noise and lack of kindness abounding in the disconnection to what gives us life.
Though trees lined the streets, yards contained flowers and other plant life, and a few parks were sprinkled here and there (often with paved pathways), most often I observed city people staying to the man-made surfaces and transportation with cell phones in their hands, technology all around, rubber soled shoes blocking the earth energies and noise everywhere.
Watching life versus living life.
Disconnection to the earth, to others, and actually to themselves. A disembodiment so profoundly present that the energy was wildly chaotic – over stimulation blasting nervous systems.
Sadly, my strong sense was that many have gone numb to even sensing this change in their bodies and minds.
Yet, we are interdependent with the very elements that create and sustain us. The elements that we cannot live without. The elements we have taken for granted. The elements that have been relegated to other.
I understand more clearly now why there is a revival of creating city and roof top gardens and making parks more available to every day use and recreation. A hunger for connection to something vibrantly alive, real – not virtual – energetically sustaining.
Beauty unfolding in front of us and within us.
Perhaps it was just me – a nature girl in the deepest parts of my being – but I am willing to bet those leading city based lives who don’t take time out to walk barefoot on the earth, wrap their arms around a tree, see shapes and colors come and go in the sky and clouds, place their nose close to flowers and herbs, talk to the animals and insects and generally touch home base on a daily basis are losing a significant part of being human.
I am speaking of Earth Roots here. When we lose our roots – our deep innate connection to the skin of this planet – we lose ourselves, it is just that simple.
Roots burrowing into the earth, activating deeper potential – beyond the normal, beyond the habits. An energetic and heart awareness of something holding and grounding each one of us into our lives.
To a creative lifetime purpose we have come in with.
A purpose of being that has been lost somewhere amidst the scattered attention on meaningless distractions and transitory “things”. Leading to deep inner sorrow, a sense of being “lost”, un-grounded, and dosed with habitual mediocrity.
Do we trust when we are off course? How do we even know if we don’t have roots to ground us in our daily lives. To give us someplace to come home to. To navigate from like a GPS that is forever there for us without the technology.
Can we find our way “home” by our senses?
That natural way of being that hears the trees breathe, takes note of the wisdom the creek teaches as it flows over the obstacles in it’s path, completely enraptured with the exquisite softness of moss, in a state of awe and wonder watching the miracle of a bee next to the hummingbird, soothed by the song of a bird nearby, aware of earth energy that pours from the soles into the soul.
Collapsing down onto the Earth in praise that we, as humans, have been given these roots to wake up!
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Copyright by Gaye Abbott 5/8/20, Natural Passages Consulting
GAYE ABBOTT lives and thrives in Northern California in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains where she communes with hummingbirds, flowers, plants and wild things. Communing with nature is her favored activity along with ecstatic dance, Wisdom Healing Qigong at sunrise and sunset, volunteering in her community, laughing out loud and enjoying her family and friends with great appreciation and gratitude!
BREATHING SPACES 