I’m learning a lot about the earth through grounding myself, literally going out pretty much every day and putting my bare feet on the natural ground (for more about how and why I do this, check out my other grounding posts).
I’m getting a feel for the different seasons. The cool, wet soil of early spring, often still hard from the winter freeze. The gradual warming and thaw, the earth more forgiving as spring turns into summer. Then there’s the crunchy, dry heat of late summer grass under my feet, lingering into fall. Eventually autumn ushers in a brief reawakening of the earth. The grass turns green and springy, the warm soil forms to my feet. Then the leaves fall and the earth is crunchy on the surface. Finally winter brings the snow and ice, often I have to dig under the snow to find a small patch of hard, cold earth.
The earth is strangely similar feeling in winter and summer, not in temperature (obviously!), but there’s a hardness to both seasons. The freeze brings the hardness to winter, and the dryness brings it to summer.
I’m also getting a feel for the time of day. I like to go out at different times during the seasons (though you won’t catch me grounding myself at night in the winter…I’m not that crazy!). Mornings are often wet with dew. There’s a quietness to the earth as it wakes. Midday groundings are usually quick, a quiet moment for me to let the tingles in my feet awaken and to take a few deep breaths before I get back to the business of the day. I don’t always have time to stop and think for too long about what I’m feeling.
I think I like twilight groundings the best, though it’s probably the time of day when I least often go out (it tends to be the busiest time of day with the family). I’ve always enjoyed the energy of twilight. The last burst of activity from the day animals, the night creatures starting to peek out of their daytime slumber. The sky is stuck between night and day, a lightness lingering in the east and the stars begin to shimmer. The earth is buzzing with all that has happened during the day but not ready to settle into night.
The quiet moment or two I take to ground myself not only connects me to the earth, it connects me to myself. I don’t need to think, I only need to remember to breathe as my feet touch the ground. I wait until the tingling starts, give it a minute to soak in. The longer it has been since my last grounding, the longer it takes to get that feeling but the greater the impact. Sometimes it’s good to skip a few days to regain the newness of grounding. But I never wait too long to get back out there and connect.
What a lovely post! I think it’s so awesome that you do this–makes me want to start! 🙂
Feet firmly planted… you give it a literal dimension.