Someone recently commented on life going so fast that their feet weren’t feeling the ground. I instantly replied that it was a sign that they needed to move to a situation where they were swishing dirt or sand through their toes – basically my telling them to ground themselves.
There’s a book I bought a few months back about grounding that I think is a really interesting concept. Put simply, our bodies have enough electricity happening that we need to ground ourselves on a regular basis. Similar to nutrition, our bodies can go without wonderful attention for quite a long while, but the idea is that if we happened to give our bodies that better attention we could improve things for ourselves.
The book concentrated on inflammation as one of the primary effects that would be alleviated if we only grounded ourselves on a routine basis. Granted, inflammation is the body’s reaction to something, so I’d rather fix the original problem than fix “inflammation”. But I think the implication is that grounding will do that.
By grounding, you have to have some connection between your body and the earth itself. Sneakers or shoes on concrete doesn’t count. I didn’t finish reading the book because the content was on repeat every other chapter, but I like the idea.
This subject ties in to one of my current house projects, which is to extend a raised garden bed in my backyard. The ground in my backyard is all concrete except for under the existing raised garden bed in the middle of one wall. My idea was to extend it to the end of that wall and down another wall in an L shape.
After getting all the stone blocks, bags of cement, bags of compost and top soil into my backyard, I built the wall and connected the existing garden bed. Before I could dump the compost and top soil into the rest of the garden bed, I needed to do something about the ground so there could be drainage. For whatever reason I’ve avoided buying a specific type of drill the past few years despite several occasions where I needed one, and finally I got it and drilled holes into the ground so there would be drainage.
The only reason I mentioned the buying of the drill is to note that this wasn’t an overnight process. Getting the stones and everything else into my backyard took time and beat me up a bit. My backyard is only accessible through my house and while I’m good to carry a load, I’m still a lightweight and my exertions have a cost. During all this, the question of what to do about the drainage was on my mind, and it wasn’t until this past weekend that I was at the point of solving it. A hammer and a chisel did nothing, so I went out and bought a rotary hammer drill with a good masonry bit. I made the holes necessary so drainage will be available for this side of the garden. I need more dirt and compost and then I can plant this weekend which is a little late to plant but better late than never.
The comment I made to someone who needed to ground themselves was because they felt like life was going too fast and would enjoy going to the beach and twiggling their toes in the sand. But I was thinking of grounding in a different context while writing it. The expression people use about “keeping one’s feet on the ground” is used for mental attitude to not live above your means. I think it needs to be expanded to include this concept of electrical grounding which may be as much spiritual as anything else.
I worried my future plants wouldn’t have a chance to have drainage, which is just another way to say ground themselves. Electricity goes both ways – grounding dumps the charge into the earth.
I live in a very unnatural world, and my feet are never outside of shoes or sneakers. I work in a high rise office building working with computers. I do lots and lots of walking every day, but while my heart and cardiovascular system gets a good workout, my knees and lower back take their beating as they always do.
Maybe my next project should be to drill some more holes in my backyard so maybe my body gets a chance to ground itself with my tomato plants. And then I can contemplate the notion of whether or not we’re getting something back coming in the other direction from the earth. What a concept that is.
Matt "Quiddity" McGovern's Blog 