Root to Rise! ~ Finding Your Ground

Have you ever witnessed the grace and power of a humpback whale breaching – its massive body clearing the surface of the sea and flying with the birds?

Have you ever witnessed the mysterious blooming of a moon flower that happens only at night when the moon is out?

Have you ever been delightfully surprised by the embodied belief and refined purpose of a swan as she takes to the air – her great white wings flapping as her webbed feet appear to walk on water?

Have you ever been blessed to witness the rising of the mists above a snow-covered lake as temperature and water molecules meet creating the perfect conditions for this beautiful expression of nature to unfold? (This is actually happening right now as I write. :-))

Have you ever felt like your life was filled with miracles and divine messages and everywhere you looked you saw hearts: heart-shaped stones, heart-shaped lichen growths on trees, heart-shaped puddles, and puffy round hearts in the formations of cumulus clouds in the sky overhead?

Have you ever been in the right place at the right time to witness a child go from being frustrated, confused, and stumped to the moment when they suddenly get it: their eyes light up, a smile dawns on their face, and their whole body leaps up (just like the humpback whale breaching!), their maleable brain all of a sudden shifting into a whole new expression of consciousness?

I could go on and on. Each of these is an expression of rooting in order to rise. Perhaps you have experienced some of these things, but not all. I've never witnessed a moon flower blooming. Oh, how magical that would be!

A TAGLINE FOR LIFE

All of these examples, the whale, swan, rising mist, awareness of miracles and messages, and awakening child, illustrate what you could say is a "tagline for life", an expression of life force – they all Root to Rise! Everything, absolutely everything in life, has had the perfect conditions – to root into the ground, or into the center of a "body", or into the core of consciousness. Each has "rooted" itself, whether consciously or not, into an "environment" in order to rise – to find expression, to manifest, to exist.

What nourishes these roots and the environment within which these roots are held determines the form, the quality, and the expression of what rises.

For success to happen one must plant their feet firmly on the branch and be focused on the destination before leaping off. This idea is the topic for this blog. It is a lengthy post, but a timely and inspiring one.

Reading time: 6 min. 45 sec.

(If you already know who you are, where you stand, or you don't have the time, I invite you to read the few paragraphs at the end of this blog, starting with the last bold-faced text before clicking away. They may very well help to direct your energy.)

Claiming your place in the world.

Choosing to stand empowered.

Giving voice to your truth.

This is what these times are asking of us.

Being fully here now requires deeply understanding where here is. How can we fully know this when here is now shifting in such profound and all encompassing ways?

At these times when our outer world is becoming so utterly unrecognizable, when the tower has fallen and our world of systems and structures has begun to literally breakdown, there is a wise intelligence within us that knows: that has felt these birth pains coming, that has prepared us by showing us our strength and given us the embodied tools to surf, to allow the waves of pain to wash over and through us, to inspire us... waves intent on reshaping us. The anger, the terror, the fatigue, the confusion, the feelings of worthlessness, the inner warrior's intense urgency to act, the overwelming yearning to escape, to hide, to "zone out", and even the act of choosing the quieter or more joyful path... these are all human responses to living through such intense times. It's been spoken already, and I'll say it again here: We chose to be here at this time. Our souls have a part to play in birthing this new world.

We know what to do. But first we must know where we stand.

What ground are you standing on?

What terra firma within you does your courage, your dream, your heart, your truth radiate out from?

What "soil" nourishes your roots?

What place witnesses you?

Do you feel supported, held, strengthened by the place where you are?

This time we're living in now is a time when it is vitally important for us to consciously choose to be fully present and rooted in the "ground" where we can be fully aligned with our truth. This is a time to claim what we know to be true and vital; and to create a world of diversity, equality, and beauty together as a community, where the sovereignty of every individual is fully expressed and honored; where we create a field of joy that becomes so vast that its presence alters the sweeping currents of control, and the waves of fear are softened upon reaching a shoreline where we all stand together, strong and true, radiating our uniqueness.

RECEIVING GUIDANCE

This message was first seeded in my mind during a yoga class a few weeks ago. Our instructor was building us up, preparing us to do the Crow pose, a fairly advanced pose that requires focus, balance, core strength, and the ability to maintain composure when you think you're going to fall. But to be successful we needed to first firmly root ourselves both physically with our feet on our block and hands firmly on the mat, and mentally by maintaining focus on each action required to reach success. If we didn't root first we would have difficulty rising into the pose.

With care, our teacher guided our bodies and minds in knowing what being "rooted" was before she asked us to "rise". We were given the time and opportunity to discover our "ground", both externally and internally. It was through this process that we were empowered to stretch our limits, to expand, to do something never done before – to become new expressions of ourselves, and to discover a new world as a result.

Ask yourself, in the world you are living in now, what ground are you standing on? Where is here? What quality of soil is holding your roots? Can you even feel your roots? Are you aligned with the place where you are now rooted?

All of life is interconnected. Life has shaped you and you're choices are always shaping life. Who you are is strongly influenced by the nature of your inner ground – your beliefs, ancestry, and conditioning; as well as where you are – the place on the planet where you reside, your small patch of earth that you live on and coexist with. The energies within you are influenced by the Earth's energies and human energies around you, and the reverse is true as well. It's a dynamic inter-relating, a weaving of terrestrial, cosmic, and human forces that in every moment shapes our lives infinitum. This is the relational realm within which geomancy works. This is the truth of our existence.

If we act before we are rooted we will exhaust ourselves; and we will not necessarily fully understand the impact the energies created by our actions will have on our current reality.

I hope you will take a closer look at your environment: the physical and energetic Earth beneath and all around you, and the human and non-human community alike, that surrounds you and within which you exist and to whom you contribute your essence. I encourage you to discover your inner ground, as well as become more deeply acquainted with where you stand within the world around you. Being clear in both regards strengthens your ability to claim where you stand, who you are, and what you believe in.

By rooting in this way, consciously and with a deeper knowing, together our roots will become interwoven with everyone else's roots, and from this place of shared strength, we will rise together, creating a field of joy that will midwife this new world of love, beauty, and diversity into being.

Be the whale.

Bloom in the moonlight.

Spread your wings.

Bring your unique joy to our communal field of joy.

A new world is being birthed!

Root to Rise!

Your soul has a vital part to play.