what can we do?
attending to the earthly...
As the world heats up (literally and metaphorically), and as I have the strong sense that the next few months are going to be ripe with intensity* on the level of the collective, I’ve meditated a lot around how best to use this Tuesday space in the weeks and months to come.
I’ve been writing to you on Tuesdays since 2012. I’m sure you will understand me when I say that while I feel I’ve become a much better writer week by week - writing to you, eloquently, inspiringly, has gotten harder and harder. Not because of anything between you and me, but because the landscape around us is fraught.
But I need this space and the wisdom-connection-magic it conjures every week, and I hope you feel the same.
And, as I am just a little human being - I think it is time to turn this space over to something greater.
So… for the next few weeks I am going to center each Tuesday email around a different elemental - earth, air, water, fire, aether/mystery/quintessence - and let their always-wise advice come though.
My hope is that each week, whatever elemental comes through on Tuesday, we spend that whole week connecting to and communing with that energy in ways both big and small.
In this process, it won’t be me telling you things about each element; ideally each week’s message will prompt you to find out your own things from each element you share presence, energy and attention with.
This week, let’s start with earth. We are all earthlings (an identity we’d do well to shift our priorities towards), and we are always on earth; so connecting to all that is earthy feels like a good place to start. I also know, from personal magical experience, that earth elemental energies are incredibly generous and kind and have a relationship to time that is beneficially different than ours.
Our task this week is simple - to connect to, share presence and commune with - anything and everything that relates to the element of earth. This can be way zoomed out - communing with Gaia, the Earth herself - or way zoomed in - settling down with one stone or grain of sand in your hand and tuning into that.
Here are some ideas to get us started in generating and maintaining this profound connection with all that is earth-y:
Lay on the ground. Whether you are on your front, back or side, find a way to turn your ear towards the earth. Set a timer for 5 minutes. Listen to the earth for that amount of time, without “talking back”, just receive every message she wants to send. (Don’t let your logical brain talk you out of receiving her messages in full.)
Take a short walk. As you do, imagine or even feel that it is your feet “turning the earth”, helping it rotate and revolve. As you walk, feel as if you are - as Thich Nhat Hanh said - kissing the world with every step. End your walk near a tree (even in the city, etc.) and stand near that tree; feel into your own roots, trunk and branches and those of the tree and listen.
As you go about daily life, find a simple stone or rock you are willing to tune into. Bring that rock home, wash it under cool running water for a minute or so. Then, put the rock on a chair or table opposite from you and again, listen, like the stone is your guest, a little messenger from the earthen realms. When you are done, deliver the stone or rock to an outdoor place you intuit they’d like to be.
Watch Julio Torres’ settle his crystal into a nice chair in My Favorite Shapes
I also am including below a nice list of some of my favorite earth element meditations and visualizations so you can easily find them in the shop, in the member’s library, or in one of my books.
It is also highly likely that by simply reading the titles of each meditation/visualization, you might receive some inspiration about YOUR best way to connect to the earth element. Remember, there are LOTS of ways to connect. I don’t want you to do it “my way”, I want to inspire you to connect to the earth element however feels right for you. If traditional grounding techniques don’t feel right, maybe you need to tune your dial to something more overtly magical and symbolic - like an earthquake, the four directions or a mountain.
And… remember, that we can make offerings to the earth - so if sometime this week the earth elementals give you a gift, you can always choose to reciprocate. (In my experience, giving to the earth typically results in a feeling of uplift and connection.)
Lately, I have gotten the spiritual message over and over again, that there is no way to escape or back down from the buzzing, always-awake, electronic doppleganger world. For most of us, it is a capitalistic imperative to interact through the screen interface; as of now, it can’t be “cut-out”, or avoided. But, over and over again I have also been offered the spiritual solution to add-on or add-in magical practices - like connecting to powerful elemental forces - to harmonize whatever imbalances the digital world creates.
So let’s do that, each of us in our own way. And, let’s start at the place from whence all we know is nourished and supported - the foundational and beautiful element of earth…
Until next time,
Jess
*I used to internally laugh when yoga teachers used the word “intensity” when really they meant sensations of pain and discomfort. It seemed like an unnecessary euphemism. Now I understand they were just trying to separate out the sensation of pain from all the stories we each carry about what pain and discomfort might mean.
p.s. I almost pressed send on this and then stopped to check which meditation we are highlighting this Friday in the paid space - it is Forward Moving Animal! Such a great meditation and a wonderful compliment and companion to our earth-y explorations.
“Everyone on the internet is telling me how I could be living a better life. Somehow they have figured out the life I should be living. Everyone on the internet is using the internet to tell me I should get off the internet. They tell me I should stop listening to what people on the internet are telling me to do.
My goal with my friends, family, clients, and even strangers is to be a soft place to land. We’re already plenty hard on ourselves. And then there’s the whole world to contend with. I hope to offer much-needed respite from the incessant pressure of Everyone’s Opinions. I truly believe we’re doing our best and that a little bit of generosity goes a long way and can provide SUCH relief. We could all use more freedom from life’s squeeze.”
“On a practical level, our bodies are ecosystems composed of other beings, container more bacterial and fungal cells than human cells. We are built from carbon that once lived inside a hummingbird heart, a glacier, a cosmic storm eons ago.
Aside from mystical interventions, we all have a counsel. A team of voices with visions and advice on how to save not our human nation, but our entangled ecosystem. Our counsel will not be heavenly, but earthly. It is our actual web of animals, fungi, insects, trees, invasive species, geological formations. And unlike abstract angels, these beings will actually show up if we show up for them – as our friends, our medicine, our food, our shelter.”
We are a small earth. It's no
simple thing. Eventually
we will be dust together; can be used to make a house, to stop
a flood or grow food
for those who will never remember who we were, or know
that we loved fiercely.
- Joy Harjo
“It is the act of being still, grounding ourselves in the body and the breath, coming down out of our heads and touching the earth again, being willing to bear witness to what arises, all the things that need to be heard and seen and felt, inside and outside.“
- Tracy Cochran
“As a poet I hold the most archaic values on earth . . . the fertility of the soil, the magic of animals, the power-vision in solitude, the terrifying initiation and rebirth, the love and ecstasy of the dance, the common work of the tribe. I try to hold both history and the wilderness in mind, that my poems may approach the true measure of things and stand against the unbalance and ignorance of our times.”
― Gary Snyder
"There are ways in, journeys to the center of life, through time; through air, matter, dream and thought. The ways are not always mapped or charted, but sometimes being lost, if there is such a thing, is the sweetest place to be. And always, in this search, a person might find that she is already there, at the center of the world. It may be a broken world, but it is glorious nonetheless."
- Linda Hogan
"My loyalties will not be bound by national borders, or confined in time by one nation's history, or limited in the spiritual dimension by one language and culture. I pledge my allegiance to the damned human race, and my everlasting love to the green hills of Earth, and my intimations of glory to the singing stars, to the very end of space and time."
- Edward Abbey
"A mind fed on words such as heaven, earth, dew, essence, cinnabar, moonlight, stillness, jade, pearl, cedar, and winter plum is likely to have a serenity not to be found in minds ringing with the vocabulary of the present age - computer, tractor, jumbo jet, speedball, pop, dollar, liquidation, napalm, overkill! Who would thrill at the prospect of rocketing to the moon in a billion-dollar spacecraft if he knew how to summon a shimmering gold and scarlet dragon at any time of the day or night and soar among the stars?"
- John Blofeld
SLEEPING IN THE FOREST
I thought the earth remembered me,
she took me back so tenderly,
arranging her dark skirts, her pockets
full of lichens and seeds.
I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed,
nothing between me and the white fire of the stars
but my thoughts, and they floated light as moths
among the branches of the perfect trees.
All night I heard the small kingdoms
breathing around me, the insects,
and the birds who do their work in the darkness.
All night I rose and fell, as if in water,
grappling with a luminous doom. By morning
I had vanished at least a dozen times
into something better.
- Mary Oliver
Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still
for once on the face of the earth,
let’s not speak in any language;
let’s stop for a second,
and not move our arms so much.
It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines;
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.
Fishermen in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would not look at his hurt hands.
Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victories with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.
What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.
Life is what it is about;
I want no truck with death.
If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death.
Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.
Now I’ll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.
- Pablo Neruda
Beautiful article. Thank you!
Love your content & inspiration