I often fantasize about this...

Sometimes I fantasize about the time before email and the internet.

Can I remember what it was like to only receive paper mail? What was it like to go out into the world without a phone in my pocket, before anyone could contact me at anytime? Was I more free and spacious? Did I have fewer worries and concerns?

I can barely remember. Email and internet have filled up so many tiny spaces in my life and in my mind, I can only imagine what it felt like.

I think we humans in the Western World are overwhelmed and overburdened with information. We are overwhelmed with the wrong kind of attention and connection.

And there is simply way too much to keep track of.

So I often ask myself, why write another online post? Do I really want to contribute to more noise?

But then I think of the emails and online inspiration I receive that helps me to look at the world a little differently. I want to be like those writers. I also receive emails from YOU, saying how something I wrote inspired your day, and that is what I desire to lean into. I want to share Earth based, creative and embodied inspiration in these letters.

Writing in this way feels like a positive practice, so I continue onward.

It's not that I think email and the internet are intrinsically bad. I just think they can take us away from time being with the Earth, time watching rivers, time looking at the sky. So maybe I should use this space to remind all of us (myself included) to keep a better balance, to keep a better perspective.

I want to be the little positive corner of your internet world, inspiring you to remember the natural rhythms and routines that ground you and bring you back to wholeness, back to yourself.

So it is with that compass of being that I come to my screen and write to you each week.

This week, I want your feet know the earth. (This practice is inspired by another weekly writer friend who I've mentioned before:  Daphne Cohn) 

When was the last time your feet touched the Earth?

We can spend entire days, months, years, only ever feeling linoleum, concrete, and asphalt under our feet. I feel lucky to live in a small Vermont town with dirt roads. A dirt road reminds us that the Earth is always changing. When it's wet out, the roads are muddy. The roads get dusty in the sun and wind, and bumps pop up over time, sometimes a lot of holes and bumps that make us have to slow down when driving and walking. And a dirt road will change in feeling and sensation from morning to evening.

I invite you to connect your feet to the Earth.

To bring your feet to Earth, you can begin with wearing shoes. But be sure stand on actual dirt, not asphalt or concrete, etc...

Be on the Earth.

Take a few steps. Pay attention to what you feel, the information you receive with feet covered, rubber insoles between you and Earth.

How do you feel the ground below?

How do you connect to the earth?

Then, after a minute or so, you might remove your shoes (and socks). You can find a grassy spot if you prefer. Daphne offers these questions:

What do you notice without your shoes?

Does your pace change?

How are you holding your body?

Where do you feel your breath?

What shifts inside your skin?

What is the earth able to tell you now?

What do you know that you didn’t before?

I'm curious to know what you discovered and what you think about these practices. Hit reply and let me know.

May this work bring you into your body and as you surrender to wholeness.

With love 😃,

Angie ♥️