Roots for Reaching

"You're grounded!" These were the words I most dreaded in eighth grade along with "if you ever do that again, I'm going to send you to live with [fill in the blank with most intimidating relative or government agency.]" These days, all I want is to feel "grounded," to feel connected, established and strong.

Anyone that's ever taken a yoga class from me or my yoga teacher, J.J. Gormley Etchells, has heard us say "oil up!" In yoga and Ayurveda, we are taught to put pure natural oils on our bodies and food to connect with the earth element and to do poses like virabhadrasana and forward folds to feel centered and empowered rather than anxious or forgetful. They absolutely work! However, if that sounds a little voodoo to you, go outside and walk around barefoot! Plant a garden, and you will tend to the garden within.

The dogs are onto something with all of their digging, and I am not talking about a mole. "Earth yourselves!" as Dianne says at Graybear in Tennessee. Leading scientists in the U.S. and U.K. are catching up to this 5,000+ year old truth, reporting that children who learn to garden have improved well-being, learning, and development.

The most I ever felt so protected, connected, and at peace was upon apprehensively entering a cave at Blacktail Ranch along the Continental Divide in Montana, but simply sitting in the grass will work.

Connecting to the Earth is a metaphor for reconnecting to our own roots. Sitting in the cave where Pre-Ice Age Americans lived, reminded me of my roots, my immediate ancestors who worked, strived, and loved as hard as they possibly could and who gracefully grew azaleas, plums, and snap beans. I am reminded of the Spirit within who is the universal omnipotent root of us all, the "vine" from which we grow and are fed.

What are your roots and what forms your foundation? What is your legacy? Who are your roots?

Sometimes reconnecting with our family roots is as scary as crawling into a dark cave, but the vast openness, clarity, and deep understanding from going within, reconnecting, or momentarily looking back are well worth the dirt.

Like trees and plants, we cannot grow and reach without being firmly planted. In yoga (as in Christianity,) our roots for reaching are nonviolence (to ourselves and others,) truthfulness, freedom from jealousy or avarice, and ultimately the soul and Spirit proceeding through our actions... acting from our roots.

Let us feel our roots and reach for the sun. Namaste!

Partly Cloudy Days

When I woke up this morning to clouds and 70 degrees, I had some mild panic of what will become of the world if it rains on Memorial Day Weekend! Then, I noticed the cool breeze, a rarity in Mississippi that always reminds me of my Papa Utley's grave, and I remembered the day after Hurricane Isaac.

Sally (my canine soul mate) and I walked along the branch-covered street gleeful of the nice weather. Any other day, I would have thought in the cloudy dampness it would be better to stay home and not venture out, but, after Hurricane Isaac, it was a lovely day!

Of course, I heard myself and others giving thanks that Isaac was not Katrina. Life is the same as the weather. Annoyances and disappointments of everyday life can seem like the worst, but they are nothing compared to sickness and death.

At the risk of being completely cliche, it is the Hurricane Katrinas in life that make pearls of our scar tissue-covered hearts and make us appreciate the freshness and light of change and in cloudy damp days. They give us perspective without which our lives would truly be very small and unhappy.

A twinge of fear creeps in as I write this, saying "be careful what you ask for," but I am asking that our Higher Power be gentle with us as we venture out, and I give thanks for partly cloudy days.