Earth Week: Going to Ground
There were a number of upsetting challenges affecting me in the month of January 2011. For details of some things on the farm you can check my other blog. In a nutshell, there was my dog getting caught round the neck in a snare, two hens dying mysteriously, my sweet cat Smudge disappearing, a dear older relative very ill in hospital, two friends dealing with cancer, not to mention the continuing news of floods and disasters around the world.
While all these things were happening, I was participating in an online course led by my Soul Coaching® mentor, Denise Linn, a course based on her latest book, "Unlocking the Secret Mysteries of The Body". It works very closely on the template of the original 28-day "Soul Coaching" book, but has been adapted to address issues surrounding our health and vitality, to help one tune into the wisdom of the signals our bodies constantly give us. I signed on for the program to participate with a group but also to observe how my mentor teaches online and addresses this class as it is another part of my own tool kit of programs I am authorized to offer as a Certified Soul Coach.
As I know from the practice of reiki, from my reading of much material on the mind-body connection and from living with a highly intuitive massage therapist and reiki master, the body is an incredibly good indicator for what ails you, not just physically of course, but internally...mentally, emotionally and spiritually.
So, although I have done the original Soul Coaching® program a few times, and even though I participated in this one less than throroughly, true to our great leader's design and knowing, it works on you in mysterious ways. Once you commit and at least read through it, things start happening, stuff starts shifting. In my case the things that came up were not so focused on the body however...it was all about my life path, re-evaluating career or vocational choices. I had some interesting aches and pains that seemed symbolic of what was going on in various aspects of my life. And it amazingly coincided with topics in the "Journey Through the Chakras" Meditation workshop my husband and I are also presenting in January and February in eight sessions.
As in the original Soul Coaching program, each week is connected to one of the four elements and the aspects of our life and psyche they represent. Week One, Air Week, is mental, and we are directed to consider how air affects us. During Air week, ironically, my dog almost got choked to death, I was "holding my breath" waiting the return of my missing cat and my husband had an asthma attack so strong he popped several ribs coughing and needed the chiropractor. In Water Week, about our Emotions, emotion certainly came up, sadness and worry about the cat, about other personal issues, about an ill relative and friends, and we had lots of snow (frozen water!).
In Fire Week about our Spiritual life, the smoke in the chimney backed up and came into the house and things challenged aspects of my own spiritual commitment, whether I was on the right path. I don't mean to scare people off from doing the program but it is indeed amazing what issues come up once one makes the commitment to do it.
So in the last week of the program at the end of January it was Earth Week, where we not only go into our physicality in a big way but we connect to Mother Earth, GROUND ourselves and prepare to take action. Indeed, thanks to the grounding, my own energy shifted, out of the "fire-yness" of a bit of a crisis (actually more of a lapse back into old patterns), and into a more settled, grounded approach. I used grounding techniques to help me get clear again on what I am doing here and to get out of the fear-based thinking that rears its ugly head from time to time, especially when some external things knock you off balance for a while, like Angus' snare, Smudge going missing and more recently another of our cats becoming ill (he seems fine now, thank goodness, albeit after a very expensive treatment.)
Always always, "go back to ground". How? Lie on the earth or the floor, hug a tree (really!), beat a drum or listen to low notes like Tibetan chants or First Nations' or African drumming.
Do yoga, or dance, to get into your body and out of your head. Another process is to simply sit in a chair, feet flat on the floor, palms down on thighs, and imagine roots growing down out of your feet and another one, a grounding cord, going down from your tailbone, anchoring you firmly to Mother Earth and then feeling her energy rising up through you. In many interpretations of the First Nations' medicine wheel earth is the element of wintertime, of grounding and an integration of knowledge.
Connecting with the earth takes us out of our heads, out of the mental/emotional space where our fears are "ungrounded" or "groundless", and gives us a chance to see clearly again. So after a stressful month on many levels, when fears and uncertainties started to overtake me, the lessons of Earth Week in my Soul Coaching program were the perfect antidote, reminding me to always go back to the earth and to my body, back to a safe and nuturing space where I could realize all was well.
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