To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul. – Simone Weil
My cousin put this quote on my Facebook wall yesterday saying it was something that reminded her of me. A lot of time over these past few years have been spent figuring out what grounds me and what to do about it.
What grounds me? I rediscovered last summer that this grounds me
I remember laughing about this fact years ago when I was riding all the time the only stable thing in my life is my horses. Over the years I’ve thought about that statement and refined it (I was in my early twenties at the time and if you’d told me I would be moving away from Calgary I wold have laughed hysterically)
Being home grounds me. Home in the larger word than just a house. Home where family is. Home at the ranch. Home where I look outside and see the barn. Home where I walk outside of my house and the first sound I hear is the gentle zerbert sound of a horse sneeze. Home where little Melissa ran around and played with her sister and cousins in the same yard her mom played and in the same yard her grandpa played.
Like roots attaching into the ground I can feel myself grounding back in here. A different and more purposeful grounding than I had before when I took it for granted.
This morning while driving home from the school drop off I had to pull over and take in the view of the mountains. It was breathtaking and I felt my soul smile as I stood outside of the car breathing in the morning air. As I stood there I thought about being grounded and being home and sticking my roots in.
But then when I got back in the car the song Sweet Caroline by Neil Diamond came on the radio and it brought me to Rhode Island summers. We had some beautiful summers there at the beach and driving to Newport and to Boston That song is the song they play at the Red Sox games and Jacob became such a Red Sox fan there.
I realized we had left roots everywhere we have been in some way, shape or form.
One of the churches in Roanoke had this on their sign: bloom where you are planted and it became a mantra of sorts for me during my time there. I tried (perhaps too hard) to bloom and flourish no matter where I was. I have to say though, there are certain conditions that are absolutely better for growth than others.
Learning about Ayurveda has taught me that a lot of my sense of being ungrounded is a Vata imbalance. I knew this, I studied this. I practiced a Vata pacifying lifestyle And yet no matter what I did I remained unbalanced.
Calgary physically is about the most Vata aggravating place on the planet. It’s dry, windy, and cold, cold, cold.
I knew that a lot of my imbalance had nothing to do with anything physical. I could live in a Vata pacifying place, eat Vata pacifying foods, and practice Vata pacifying routines and it wasn’t going to solve my problem.
My issue was and is spiritual And it’s being balanced in this most Vata aggravating of places. Where my roots are.
Happiness moment: a little couch nap this afternoon with Ella the Cat being a purr machine on my chest. Part way through she rolled over, leaned down to where Dottie the Dotted Dog was lying, balled her paw into an unclawed fist and punched her a few times in the head. When Dottie looked up, Ella rolled over on her back and cuddled up to me so Dottie knew she was missing something. They pretend to hate each other but they actually have a pretty special friendship. Shhhh don’t tell anyone.
