Connecting with the earth

I just came back from an eight day trip to a country in the Middle East, where I was given an opportunity to offer seminars, as well as to visit a few places. Visiting the region was a totally new experience for me and I’d had no idea what the place looked like or felt like before I left UK.  It turned out that I had the most memorable time, and I came back inspired and fully replenished.

I noticed there was a totally different kind of energy there from what I’m used to. I felt a sense of strong vitality in the land, people and food in general. For example, everything I ate there felt not only delicious, but also rich and nurturing. With no food in the fridge after the trip, I went to a nearby cafe in London yesterday morning. Although the place boasts of offering some posh looking salads with a middle eastern twist, which I ordered, the lack of vital energy in their food compared to the ones that I had gotten used to eating for the past week was shocking. I also noticed that the people who were cooking and serving at the cafe looked not as friendly and a bit depressed, so I’m sure that also gets reflected in the energy of their food.

I also felt the people in the country — women, men, and children — are very warm and earthy. People who are familiar with the idea of chakra system would say they have very healthy base and sacral chakras. I don’t think it was only my projection. When I told the group I was teaching, “You guys are so earthy!”,  they answered in unison, ‘that’s right, we really value earthiness, we call it ‘(I’m afraid I can’t remember the word)’ here.” One person even told me, “I feel my feet are connected all the way down to the core of the earth.”
How many people in Japan or the West, I wondered, can consciously and congruently say “Yes, I’m connected to the earth”? I couldn’t help but feel a bit envious.

As we live a modern life, walking on the road covered with asphalt, being surrounded by things made with plastic and eating artificial foods, we are losing connection with the land and the sense that the earth is alive. In many myths, we find the theme of
‘death and rebirth’ with heroes going into the underworld and coming back up renewed. No matter how heavy, dark and difficult, going through the journey inside the earth gives our mind and body resilience and powerful transformation. Otherwise, any noble
ideas or so-called spiritual practices would be ‘ungrounded.’

As I study homeopathy, I notice that most of my body symptoms both past and present are related to the lack of minerals, which also means the lack of connection with the earth.
The trip to the country inspired me to bring more awareness to my connection to the earth by meditating on the sensation of my feet being rooted in the ground, going barefoot more(weather permitting), eating more mineral rich food, and of course, offering gratitude to the earth knowing also that I’m a part of it.