Ground of Being

To be truly centered, living from the hara, dan tien, kath, requires first being grounded. Attempting to be centered, to live from our center rather than just from our mind and emotions without first being grounded essentially is asking ourself to surrender into an energetic stance that we’re not sure that we trust. When grounded, we trust where we are. Beyond being here now, we are being here and now while we trust. Trust is the body is the sense of being supported by the earth. Not just the sensations in our feet, our butt, but receiving the support that the earth gives us while lying, sitting, standing, moving.

Eastern practices assume one is grounded and treat the belly center as the foundation. Many Westerns have been meditating until their knees fall off and yet because the ground is not trusted, practice has no solid foundation. To sit with the lower body firm as a mountain, ground is a prerequisite. For years I struggled to live from my center and though I made slow progess, my electrified lack of ground made this work excruciating difficult.

Gravity is the force of attraction two bodies have on each other and the force of the attraction is proportional to the mass of each body. The earth is so incredibly much larger than you and me that it’s gravitational attraction to each of us keeps us from flying off into space as our home planet hurtles and spins on its journey. We have a much much smaller gravitational pull on the earth, but in fact with each step we take, the entire earth imperceptibly rises up to meet our foot.

Grounding also has emotional and spiritual components. Emotionally we can feel and accept that the earth cares about us. Spiritually, devotion to Divine Mother, to Mother Earth, directly perceiving the sacredness of all thought and form, trusting that reality is more than that which the senses and the rational mind can experience.

The journey to healing can only begin grounded here in this moment. How alive are you willing to be? Aliveness is our connection with the ground of being. Being ungrounded can result in anxiety or living in total devastation, depending on the level of separation from the Ground of Being. From numbness and denial to stark terror.

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It's possible I am pushing through solid rock
in flintlike layers, as the ore lies, alone.
I am such a long way in I see no way through,
and no space; everything is close to my face, and everything close to my face is stone.

I don't have much knowledge yet in grief--

so this massive darkness makes me small.

You be the master: make yourself fierce, break in:

then your great transforming will happen to me,

and my great grief cry will happen to you.

–Ranier Maria Rilke, translated by Robert Bly

http://www.livingdying.org/