“Another phenomenon often accompanying the work of recovery is the mirroring of inner and outer worlds. […] Why are people in recovery prone to know this reflection of inner and outer? Recall the wholeness of the world and how its cycles and passages are continually flowing through us as “moose becomes me, and I become moose.”

“In a civilization virtually founded on severance from wholeness, we have little opportunity to know this reality—yet as we come into personal healing, we also come into alignment with the wholeness of the world.”

~ Chellis Glendinning, My Name is Chellis and I’m in Recovery From Western Civilization 

For a long time, much of humanity suffered from severance: disconnection from homelands, family, ancestors, food sources, one another. Beyond this, though—for many people on the planet, especially those who chose cars and concrete over walking barefoot on soft soil—lay a pervasive disconnection from the actual, palpable energy of the Earth herself.

This relationship happens below intellectual awareness: we perceive it with our animal selves, we feel it in our bodies. Disconnection from the earth means disconnection from the body, and vice versa. We can re-establish this connection, though, simply by bringing our awareness to whatever part of us is touching the ground.

Try it now: bring your awareness to your feet, or to the pelvic bones on which you sit. Feel the point of contact between your body and the ground. Do you notice a slight humming, a quiet electric vibration?

Notice the sensations there. And as you keep reading, return to that sensation, that hum. Soon, you won’t even need to think about it. You might even start feeling more relaxed. It’s like plugging into a socket; it’s the completion of a circuit. Our bones are like prongs of an electric cord, and the Earth is the outlet.

Right now, in a very real way, you’re connecting your body with the vast power and knowing of the planet.

Our bodies, bones, muscles, nerves, blood, and fluids vibrate in sympathetic resonance with the Earth. This is called “entrainment,” and it happens, for example, when the bowing of a cello string causes a string of the same pitch on a cello across the room to vibrate. This happens between our bodies and the earth too.

We can start to enter into entrainment simply by bringing awareness to that humming vibration where our body touches the ground. Though it’s such a simple action, the effects are enormous: in essence, you’re tuning the “voice” of your body to that of the Earth.

In grounding ourselves, we open into the source of magic.

We no longer try to break free from gravity and the exquisite, nourishing flow of energy between ourselves and the planet—rather, we acknowledge the power of that flow and how connecting with it empowers us.

As we feel our body on the Earth we slow down. As we ease into the connection between our feet and the planet, we literally discharge the intense, speeding vibrations of our daily lives and cars and phones and minds and computers.

We gather our energy in from off in the air where it’s been trying to take care of a million things in the past and future. We gather it back to the present, to the physical ground. We listen more deeply. We re-enter the infinite wisdom of our deep nature.

As we open up into the vast, flowing body of which we are simply a limb, a soft extension, we experience synchronicity in every moment. Just as the trillions of cells in our body operate in constant synchrony, we too can feel ourselves as a cell in the vast body of Earth. When we entrain with the planet, we open up a channel of co-creativity with Earth and every being on and within it.

Our sense of self expands as we feel ourselves as an actual part of this enormous planetary body, and we realize that all things on the planet are available to us and collaborating with us because they’re literally part of us.

We tap into the source of abundance and answers. Our sense of compassion towards ourselves and each other expands, for in connecting with Earth’s body we feel and experience every other being on the planet as part of that body as well.

In her book Dreaming the Dark, Starhawk writes:

“Our personal energy field is never wholly separate from the earth’s energy field. We are each a ripple in the earth’s aura. When we connect deeply with that greater source of energy, we can renew and replenish our own vitality constantly. Anything negative we encounter can pass through us into the earth, as lightning can be grounded.” 

In aligning with the planet’s energy we know ourselves as part of that energy—every bit of us. The earth does not separate herself from but rather includes the whole of us—our joys, dreams, and loves as well as our remannts of fear, defensiveness, and scarcity. In reuniting with the planet’s energy we can start to feel like mothers to all beings on the planet—and to feel completely taken care of and connected at the same time.

We find the strength and serenity to see fear and separation with compassion, to include it in the whole, and to feel the immense inner ocean of life, creativity, and connection. It may feel like a tidal wave at first, or like a trickle.

That’s good. Let it come.

It is time to release our collective guilt over past disconnection from ourselves and the Earth. Let’s funnel that energy instead back into the relationship, into re-opening the connection. This is a simple and powerful act.

It can happen right now, in this moment, wherever you are.

We can bring our awareness to that humming sensation between ourselves and the planet, the ground that’s always with us. We can drop our anxiety and fear into it with gratitude to be transmuted, transformed, and reborn, composted in the core.

And in response, we can feel come up through us a certainty, a relief, a voice of enormous wisdom and creativity. Our bodies translate this intrinsically. The body understands.

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Assistant Editor: Heather Hendry/Editor: Bryonie Wise

Photo: Bryonie Wise