Ground is Shaking, Dreams still Waking
The earth shook in NYC this morning! As we all now know, it was a little earthquake based in New Jersey. At first I thought it was a huge truck passing by, and I have since heard that many New Yorkers initially thought it was Con Ed, a building collapsing or a terrorist attack. In split seconds, we attach our own narratives to unexplained phenomena. This is both an adaptive genius and a limitation of the predictive human mind.
I take the tremor as a reminder that, even in this city, a monument to human ambition, we are tiny children of Earth spinning through a wider cosmos. As Octavia Butler puts it, “God is change” — as much as we try to preserve and maintain, nothing is solid. Transformation is always happening. (Even the steadfast sun will hide its face on Monday!)
For those who feel stuck, awakening to the reality of change will be invigorating. For those who like how things are right now, the inevitability of change can bring up fear and grasping. Most of us experience a little of both.
Since the new year, I have been feeling that this spring is especially lively. Projects and ideas that have been brewing underground are beginning to germinate and leaf out. Visions that I had just a few months ago are making themselves manifest. I’ve found new uses for sculptures I made two years ago and I’m bringing my artist friends and collaborators into my branding projects. Goals that I have verbally enumerated for several years are now part of my lived experience.
Why did it take so long? My mind could generate endless circumstantial reasons, but what I feel/know is that, when I spoke my goals in the past, I didn’t experience them as fully my own. There were dominant parts of myself that didn’t believe what I envisioned was possible for me.
Over the past 9 months, I have been practicing feeling the core of my body. I named this practice, my “core revolution.” When my mind starts spinning its wheels in the grooves of old insecurities, dramas and traumas, I turn my attention to the feeling of being that resides in my heart and the center of my body.
This practice actually started in my feet. When anxiety threatened to sweep me away, I would turn my attention to feeling the bottoms of my feet. Standing alone at a party I would remember my feet supporting me; when I worried about money, the soles of my feet were still there. These feet that touch the ground remind me that I’m still here, walking this Earth.
In Buddhist iconography, the Buddha is often represented with one hand touching the ground. The story goes that he touched the ground at the moment of enlightenment, calling out Earth as his witness. I take this to mean that the embodied reality of living on and with our ever-changing Earth organism is part of experiencing the spaciousness of divine being.
April is Earth month. Since everything we know is of Earth, it is everything month! I encourage you to feel this solid and dynamic planet under your feet whenever you can. In doing so, you offer your dreams a bit of structure to support their growth. Even when the ground is shaking, we can access stability and clarity within.
Keep moving and quaking! ⚡️⚡️