Earthing

I remember reading an article many years ago about how the Native Americans could not understand why the white man invented and used chairs and beds, which separated him from the Earth Mother. They had a direct relationship with Mother Earth and realised that there should be a deep connection with Her for health and well being. To sleep, to sit and walk barefoot on the Earth was intrinsic to their way of life. (Little Tree couldn't wait to get his shoes off and run barefoot on the Earth when he returned from school after being beaten by the missionaries).
I resonated with this immediately, but did not really understand the implications. I recall now that every time I went to the coast and swam in the salt water and walked around on the sand, my energy levels went sky high. As kids we used to bomb around the farm barefoot, but as we got older it was always rubber soled shoes.

And of course there is no such thing as coincidence. Just before leaving the UK, I was stocking up on ebooks to read, uploading them onto my Kindle and am always drawn to the Philosophical and Spiritual section of the menu. A title 'popped' out at me - Earthing. A really fascinating book about the above - the necessity for us to make contact with the Earth for our health and well being. Well worth the read. I will certainly start spending more time walking barefoot on the Earth.

 In fact, looking back at the past year when I was back in Zimbabwe, I started walking around the house and garden barefoot in order to toughen up my feet for running and eco challenges. (At the Zimbabwe Ironwill Eco Charity event earlier in the year for which I helped out, I noticed that some of the competitors got really horrendous blisters on the soles of their feet, due to a) hiking for hours in wet conditions, and b) hiking with the additional weight of a back pack, which places a subtly different strain on the feet in terms of the torque experienced on the skin of the soles of the feet). But what I started to realise in retrospect, was that many of my aches and pains started to get better, and I started to feel more fluid and mobile (not to take anything away from my wonderful massage therapist, Kim). But I noticed over the past four months in the UK where I was pretty much indoors most of the time and when I did go walking I had rubber soled shoes on, my aches and pains returned.

On Saturday morning I went for a trail run with Jeff. From experience I know that if I haven't run for a long time, I normally feel really stiff after my first run, and I haven't run for about five months. Jeff was doing about 12 miles, and I certainly wasn't fit enough for this distance, especially on the trails, so was going to do about 40 mins. Well, I never learn and ended up doing about an hour, with some serious ups and downs, so knew I was going to really hurt the next day. I got back to the car before Jeff, so ripped off my running shoes and did my Tai Chi and Chi Kung form and some stretching barefoot on the ground. Well, amazing!! Hardly any stiffness at all the next day.

READ THE BOOK.........AND WALK BAREFOOT ON THE EARTH!!!!

"EARTHING" by Clint Ober. www.earthingsolutions.ca