THE ANCIENT POWERS OF "earthing"

by pegi eyers

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As children we instinctually know that physically connecting our body to the Earth, stretching out under the trees on a hot summer day, rolling in the grass, thrusting our hands into the soil of the garden,      or digging our toes in the sand makes us feel wonderful, alive and free. Called “earthing” and touted as some “new” kind of discovery in recent times, earth-connected Indigenous cultures have always embodied the miraculous energy and well-being gained from physical contact to the land.  For all ethnocultural groups that flourished on the planet prior to Empire (and in non-Western cultures today) humankind has been intimately connected to the ground for all of our activities, including walking and sleeping.

Made from natural materials, rammed earth dwellings, stone, shell, clay or timber walls; wooden lodges, caves and other forms of shelter have been built in close proximity to the earth. In their daily lives, earth-rooted and Indigenous people continue to be merged with the healing and energizing properties of the earth, which have been identified by modern science as the transfer of electrons (the earth’s natural, subtle energy) into our bodies.  This physical bond of the body to the Earth is embedded in complete IK/EIK worldviews, and enacted through a panoply of cultural wisdom practices, such as healing or oracle work, reciprocity ceremonies, and growing crops in collaboration with the green world. One example of this essential dynamic is the Mesoamerican empowerment ritual of recapitulation, whereby individuals are covered in layers of rich living earth for many days, until one is completely free from the negativity of past conditioning.  
 
As long as I remember I have wanted to be in natural spaces. I instinctually began a conscious “earthing” practice for solace and healing in the early 1990s, spending hours whenever I could on the floor of the Simcoe County forest or on the banks of the Otonabee River gazing at the blue sky, flowing green leaves, interlace of branches, small plants, shrubbery, and rushing water for hours, breathing in the scents and sounds of nature’s perfection in harmony with the “ground” of my being.  By staying in one place and just be-ing, I discovered the holistic  benefits  of  bodily  contact to the Earth  on  the emotional,  physical, intellectual and spiritual levels of existence simultan-eously. Even if the effects were not immediately apparent, after a “timeless time” I was firing on all cylinders and ready to face the man-made world again. 
 
Both the philosophy and material culture of our high-tech post-industrial society conspire to keep us from connecting to the Earth and its boundless storehouse of healing and energizing electrons. Walking on concrete with rubber or plastic-soled shoes, living indoors buttressed  with insulative materials, travelling by  vehicle from place to  place, working under artificial lights, and spending hours on electronic gadgets all take their toll on our physical and spiritual health and well-being. Studies on the disruptive and negative effects of synthetic environments on human vitality such as “sick building syndrome” point to a reduction in our health and overall malaise.  It has been determined that even the viewing of pictures showing natural landscapes has a stronger and more positive effect on our health than looking at city-scapes and urban scenes!

Without a doubt, it is our immersion in green spaces and our bodily contact with the Earth that promotes tranquility, reflection and restoration for the human spirit.  Personally, I am grateful to modern science for pointing out  (“discovering”) the holistic benefits of connecting with the Earth, as the next time an over-urbanized city dweller asks if I am “not feeling well” because I’m reclining on the ground in a public park, I can say, “Oh I’m fine, thank you, I’m just Earthing.”  The most amazing thing about the soothing, strengthening, grounding and cleansing practice of “earthing” is the simplicity and access – our backyards are perfect, and in many urban areas of Turtle Island, parks, green space and wilderness lands are all nearby. 

  The more we engage with re-connecting to our essential eco-selves, the more apparent it becomes that the Earth is the ultimate source of  all wellness and invigoration. In our time and place, the flow of healing and energizing power from nature that interacts with the intricate mechanisms of our physical body is another major reason for reconnecting to the land. Being outside, absorbing nature’s limitless conducive energy systems and “getting grounded” can reverse chronic health conditions, enhance our immune system and keep us young.      In addition to enhanced health and wellbeing, our sensate animal body experiences a pure joy and happiness when we are physically connected  to the Earth, and we can access this miracle at any time.  

“We give ourselves precious little chance to taste the nourishment that springs up into us whenever we touch the ground, and it’s hardly surprising that we’ve forgotten the erotic nature of gravity and the enlivening pleasure of earthly contact.”[1]     (David Abram)  

Walking in natural places or out on the land everyday is the perfect way to refocus our thoughts, uplift our spirit, open our intuitive channels, enhance our physical endurance, and revive our connectivity to the rhythm and energy of the Earth. And let’s not forget about the universality and sacredness of the dance!  With shells, bells or natural decoration on our ankles to express our ancestral knowledge and to honour ourselves and the land, strong women, wise women, and “daughters of the green realm” throughout time have known that “the Earth loves to feel dancing feet on her body.”[2]   (Le’ema Kathleen Graham)   Rituals of release, play, spontaneity, walking barefoot, dancing, picnicking, and making love are just a few of the many joyful ways we can recover our intimate connection to the healing and energizing powers of the Earth. 
 
“The soil is the great connector of lives, the source and destination of all. It is the healer and restorer and resurrector, by which disease passes into health, age into youth, death into life. Without proper care for it we can have no community, because without proper care for it we can have no life.”  [3]     (Wendell Berry)
 
Re-visioning our reciprocity with the natural world requires the ethics of genuine care, and as every good gardener knows, the soil itself needs to be nurtured and tended. Age-old practices in subsistence communities worldwide honour the Earth under our feet as alive        and divine, a sacred and life-giving force that can be enhanced and  nourished for greater yields and for the vitality of all beings. Indigenous societies know the soil to “have human form, and we hint at the same spiritual insight when we speak of rich soil as humus – a word having the same etymological root as human – for when we care for the soil we care for ourselves.” [4]     (Patricia Monaghan)  

Composting methods, vermiculture, and transferring lawn clippings back to the Earth instead of sending them to the landfill, are a few of the soil-building practices  we  can  adopt  right  away.  Part  of  the  “new  story”  for  our  transitional society are the many prayers and gratitude rituals that can express reciprocity for the infinity of gifts we receive from the soil -  the  Earth and ground of our being. It has become my practice to place special  containers of sacred soil or sand on my household altars and decorative spaces, to honour the centrality and importance of the Earth from birth to our final resting place.  From our mother we are born and to  our mother we return.  In addition to finding great comfort and healing out on the land at times of loss and  grieving,  the  green burial   movement  is  rapidly   expanding,   with  the  use  of sustainable organic materials and simple earth-connected crossing-over ceremonies. The liturgical expression “earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust” must certainly be a carry-over from an ancient EIK tradition!
 
“If you will think of yourself as coming out of the earth, rather than having been thrown in here from somewhere else, you see that we are the earth, we are the consciousness of the earth. These are the eyes of the earth. And this is the voice of the earth.”   [5]      (Joseph Campbell)
 
Certainly our lack of healthy bodily contact to the Earth’s surface is the physical manifestation of a culture that promotes the activity of the rational mind above all, celebrating all that is left-brain, logical, conceptual and cerebral. A true human being moves effortlessly between the four facets of mind, body, heart and soul equally, yet the Hellenistic Order and western knowledge systems that created urban life have denied our access to the land, and the grounding that makes      this holism possible. The lack of connection to the land creates the corresponding lack of connection to our own psyche and true essence. In marked contrast, many narratives and post-contact photographs show how Indigenous people literally love the soil, and sit or rest on the Earth with a feeling of being close to a nurturing power.  

The Earth Herself is the source of all health and wellness, and for the Sahtu Dene people of the Délįnę First Nation in the Northwest Territories, Elder Charlie Neyelle tells us that it is imperative for those who are sick to go out on the land to sleep on the surface of the Earth for a number of days, knowing in advance that “this will change their entire system”[6] for the better. Modelled to us by both pre-colonial and contemporary IK, today all people have the ability to realize their potential by fully occupying our human niche in physical connection to the ever-welcoming embrace of the Earth Mother, and to become energetic in mind, body, heart and soul, charged with positive elements and forces.    Timeless and always available, Earthing provides the nourishment to body and soul that we are seeking.

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NOTES
[1]    David Abram, Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology, Vintage Books, 2011
[2]    Le’ema Kathleen Graham, author of Dancing the Inner Serpent: Memoirs of a Suburban Snake Priestess (GoddessWork, 2009),  Facebook comment, 2013
[3]    Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture, Sierra Club Books, 1996
[4]    Patricia Monaghan, Magical Gardens: Cultivating Soil and Spirit, Llewellyn Worldwide, 2012
[5]    Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers, The Power of Myth, Anchor, 1991
[6]     Charlie Neyelle, “Sacred Water Circle Gathering,” Gchi-Nbi Sacred Water Circle, Peter Gzowski College,
​Trent University, May 2-4, 2014

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Artist Pegi Eyers is also the author of  "Ancient Spirit Rising: Reclaiming Your Roots & Restoring Earth Community," an award-winning book that explores strategies for intercultural competency, healing our relationships with Turtle Island First Nations, uncolonization, recovering an ecocentric worldview, rewilding, creating a sustainable future and reclaiming peaceful co-existence in Earth Community. 
Available from    Stone Circle Press     or     Amazon   ​