Finding Ground
Lying on the ground, I feel solidness beneath me, holding me firmly. I feel the prickle of the grass, the tickle of the insects exploring the flesh of my arms and ears. I feel the itch of all that’s unfamiliar, all while feeling held and supported.
As I rest, I begin to feel a softening beneath me, a yielding quality to that which once felt impenetrable. Now, there is a softer pulsing, a living quality to the solid mass. As I allow my sensation to deepen, I sense warmth. Not the warmth of gathered heat from the sun, but a warmth more inherently alive deep within the soil.
I am continually drawn to cultivating intimacy with the ground. I frequently drop to the ground, surrendering my weight to the Earth’s embrace in the middle of a hike through a high mountain meadow, or alpine forest, or in the middle of my back yard. Maybe its because I long for my mom’s unconditionally loving embrace that I was blessed to receive the first twenty years of my life before she left the planet. Or maybe it’s just that I long for solid ground beneath me as I have traversed through numerous trials that have shattered my notion of ground unwillingly. Either way, ground is a sensation I have hounded my whole life.
I began to recognize in my early adulthood that finding an internal sense of ground, even amidst the most devastating circumstances, came somewhat naturally to me. Or, at least it was something that became familiar that offered solace.
My first unexpected experience of this sense of ground came during my Mom’s funeral. For most of the service, I had my head buried in my Dad’s lap next to me, unable to face the hundreds of people mourning her indelible spirit, or the beautiful words of inspiration, Jewish prayer and memories shared. When the pallbearers surrounded her coffin to take her out to the hearse for final burial, I thought I would come completely undone right then and there.
Just as I was thinking I could not survive this moment of my Mom being taken away from me forever, let alone another second without her through my life ahead, I suddenly felt an unusual sense of calm overcome me. I registered it immediately as my first conscious spiritual encounter with God. I just knew. It was a direct experience that came with a feeling that all is ok and that all will be ok, that my Mom was in a safe place and that she would be with me always. I was stunned and speechless. There was, and still are, no words to describe this sense of peace and ground that filled me.
Since that time, whenever I have found myself in a free fall, in the midst of a difficult life passage, I have been able to connect with this feeling and seek out whatever ground I could find to allow myself to give in to the descent. I somehow learned through that early experience during my Mom’s funeral ceremony to trust that the greater ground, something much bigger than imaginable, would be there to catch me. I have so much gratitude to my Mom for instilling in me this sense of attachment and trust that laid the framework for this grounding force, even for the relatively short time she was here. Her presence, in essence, prepared me for the shattering I experienced through her loss at a critical time in my life.
As I continue to compost, turn, prepare and find support for my own inner soil, I have discovered an affinity for holding a strong space of ground for others to navigate their own shattering through grief and loss. The most difficult thing most of us encounter as we spiral into the challenges of descent is the fear that there will be no bottom, or end, to the suffering. This is a natural fear that accompanies the feeling of being out of control and swirling in the unknown. Feeling a sense of the safe presence of ground that you can trust will catch you, and/or the companioning of a compassionate other who can hold that trust and ground for you when your eyes, heart, mind and body cant find it, is the true experience of mercy.
Mercy is a long lost treasure that would benefit all of us to bring out of the cave of isolation. My experience of mercy is that it is a quality of feminine origin – a disposition of compassion and forgiveness, as the dictionary definition states. This does not mean that only women can access the attributes of mercy, but to draw on its gifts, we must awaken the feminine energies of leaning in, and discover feelings of love and reverence through all that is unknown, uncomfortable and uncertain. My experience of having mercy for myself, as well as holding this sacred space for others, is that great gifts of awakening and creative inspiration are birthed in this wildly tender, and often chaotic, space.
It has inevitably been at the moment when a sense of inner ground has rooted within me, when I can fully surrender to the unknown, that I have been able to ironically fly with the freedom of trust in something larger than me. The more I surrender my weight into the ground, the more I have felt lifted in flight – and ultimately liberated by the growing gift of the present moment with each passing day.
May the ground beneath us, the ground within us, the ground held by those surrounding us, and the sacred ground of Wild Mercy (Mirabai Starr) infusing the fabric of our interconnectedness be there to support each of us and catch us in the midst of our most difficult falls. And may we trust in this ground evermore with each turn and churn through the wheel of suffering, as well as in the midst of unimaginable grace.
How can the sense of ground, and mercy, support you through these unprecedented times? Are there places in your inner or outer life that might benefit from connection with these resources? May we each have the courage to bring these kind and unconditionally loving companions in.
We just might start a revolution.
