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Grounding

Grounding

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I had no sooner written about Japanese forest bathing than I read about “grounding,” which is … walking outside barefoot. Grounding, also known as “earthing,” is a way of touching base with the essentials. Those who favor it say that it might help prevent chronic diseases, and research shows that it can improve sleep and lower stress.

Sounds touchy-feely (in more ways than one!) … and yet, consider this: One theory that explains the positive effect of grounding is that earth’s negative charge neutralizes the free radicals that can damage our cells. Antioxidants not from fruits and vegetables but from the earth itself.

And then there is the circadian rhythm aspect of grounding, the fact that touching ground can help regulate our autonomic nervous system, our breathing out and our breathing in.

The article in the Washington Post explaining this research ended with suggestions: Walk barefoot on ground or sand (something I’ll be doing in a few minutes, as a matter of fact!). Garden in the earth, or even lean against a tree trunk.

We are only beginning to understand how connected we are to the natural world around us.

Tropical Morning

Tropical Morning

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Here a rustling in the brush means a lizard not a squirrel. And the birds are different, too, though they still rub their beaks clean against a dead tree limb in that quick one-two way, just as the birds do at home, as birds do everywhere, I guess. 
There’s a loud clattering behind the palms. A lizard, too? Or maybe a squirrel after all. Maybe there is more familiar here than it first appears.
I’m sitting by the pool before 8 a.m., writing these words. A dove coos. Birds tweet. Air conditioners hum. The sounds of a tropical morning.

I’m looking at a tall banana tree now, at a big leaf in the process of shredding. A plant that bends  but does not break. Palm trees don’t crash to the ground in a tropical storm. They sway but stay rooted. That would be different, not having to worry about the great oaks falling.

Would I tire of the sameness here? Maybe … or maybe not.

Long Drive

Long Drive

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The long drive begins like any other: settling into the seat, snapping on the belt, adjusting the mirror. And for the first few hours, it feels like any other, too: staring at the road, flipping through a newspaper (only if you’re not driving!), munching on cereal or pretzels.

But the long drive quickly asserts itself in the mind and body. An exit that would normally herald a resting place is just a milepost, barely a quarter of the way into the trip. The hopeful slant of morning sun quickly fades into the desolate phantom-puddled pavement of mid-afternoon. And as darkness falls you are still far from home.

The long drive is made bearable by good company, by podcasts — and, of course, by snacks. Cereal in the morning, pretzels in the afternoon, an apple, a Snapple and Fresh Mint Tic Tacs, which prop open even the heaviest of eyelids.

The best part of the long drive is the final few feet, pulling into the driveway, hearing Copper bark, knowing a bed — a familiar bed — is waiting upstairs.

View from the Brow

View from the Brow

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Yesterday, for the “retreat” part of this work week in Arkansas, we drove an hour and a half west to Petit Jean Mountain. It was where the organization I work for began —  and a place that holds special memories for me.

I spent most of the day at a conference room inside, but there were a few minutes at the beginning and end of the day when I could walk to the brow of the hill and savor the view —  the big puffy clouds casting shadows on the fields, the hawks soaring high above the pines, the two mountain ranges that draw the gaze ever westward.

It was a view that captivated me decades ago — and still does. I thought about why. It’s more than just the beauty, I think. It’s also the promise and perspective, metaphor for a nation that once stretched its legs across a continent and took its strength from people and from place.

Down in the Delta

Down in the Delta

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On Tuesday, my colleagues and I drove two-and-a-half hours south to see some of the work we’ve done in a small town called Lake Village.

It’s a pretty little place, situated on the banks of the largest natural oxbow lake in the country. Before visiting I had no idea there were any oxbow lakes in the country, natural or un-.  Lake Chicot was formed when the Mississippi River shifted course 800 years ago. It was discovered by the French explorer Lasalle in 1685.

It was 95 degrees and dusty in the Delta (we were only eight miles from Mississippi), but looking at Lake Chicot cooled me off a bit. Enough that I decided to take a stroll along it and see the cypress trees with their knobby knees.

Walking to Listen

Walking to Listen

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A book group friend recommended this book, the tale of a young man who walked across America and listened to the voices of vagabonds and preachers, beauticians and firefighters.

Andrew Forsthoefel was newly graduated from Middlebury College when he decided to make the journey. “Everyone of us has an extraordinary story worth hearing, and I’m walking the country to listen,” he wrote on his travel blog at the beginning of the trip.

Admitting it might sound contrived, but resolved to do it anyway, Forsthoefel quickly gained my trust when he told the story of his leave-taking. His mother was worried but brave. She acts like I hope I would if one of my children announced she was walking across the country. The picture she snaps of her son walking down the train tracks behind their house in Pennsylvania is priceless. It’s the picture of a young adult doing his own thing, back turned to the camera, arms outstretched as if to say, enough, I’m done, catch ‘ya later.

Needless to say, he survives the trip — and gets a book contract, to boot. He only just reached Georgia, so I imagine I’ll have more to say about Walking to Listen.

Let me close for today with a passage about walking:


The walking itself was slowly become my home, or something like it. It was the only constant, the connective thread that tied everything together. 

(Photo: Courtesy Bloomsbury Press)

Fernweh and Heimweh

Fernweh and Heimweh

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Homesickness is when you long for the place you know best of all. But what about its opposite? Wanting to venture to a place you’ve never been? It’s a feeling deeper than wanderlust, stronger than attachment. Until the other day, I didn’t know it has a name.

Farsickness —or “fernweh” from the German “fern” (far) and “weh” (pain) is when you yearn for a place you’ve never been, for the faraway. I heard about it on the radio, and a quick Google search shows me the word has been out there for a while. There are “Fernweh” t-shirts and “Farsickness” travel blogs.

Digging a little deeper I learn that the word “homesick” also entered our language from the German — “heimweh.” It comes from a Swiss dialect and can also mean longing for the mountains. Ah, I think, just like Heidi. Remember when she’s sent to Frankfurt and entertains Clara but all she wants is to go back and live with her grandfather on the mountain?

To have “fernweh” we need “heimweh.” The familiar propels us to the faraway — then brings us home again.

Reminders

Reminders

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I grew up on road trips — long, car-sick journeys to Cincinnati, Greensburg or Natural Bridge. Kentucky is rolling country, so driving through it is not for the faint of stomach. Dramamine was my friend.

None of this dampened my love of travel. In fact, it conditioned me to rigor. Which brings me to these wonderful trips I’ve taken the last two years. They haven’t been easy either — once I get there. But the fact that I can board one plane, then another — and wind up on the other side of the world …  will never stop being miraculous to me. 
So in honor of the miraculous, and because I want to keep reminding myself I was there … a few photographs from Nepal.
Workday Travel

Workday Travel

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Travel has many advantages, one of them being how it shakes me out of my routine. It forces me to take a few risks, talk to people more than I would otherwise. It’s hard to be bored when I’m traveling. Tired, nervous and hungry, maybe. But never bored.

Sometimes, even traveling to work will do that. Today was one of those days.

With the two main subway lines coming in from the west partially shut down due to smoke in the tunnels, I took a bus I’d never taken before.  It was a jolly crew of commuters and travelers crammed together, many of us standing.

I chatted with a young couple from Slovenia. She was model-caliber gorgeous. He spoke excellent English, had a pierced eyebrow and wore a button that said, “Ask me how to lose weight.” (I didn’t.)

“Slovenia is small, but we are mighty,” he said, reeling off names of some of its famous citizens, including First Lady Melania Trump and various sports figures I’d never heard of. But he was so proud of his small country that he made me want to go there immediately!

All this is to say that when I got off the bus at Rosslyn, I barely knew where I was.

The Sacred and the Profane

The Sacred and the Profane

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I snapped this photo on a walk around Nagarkot, the hill town on the cusp of the Himalayas. It speaks to me, summarizes the way Nepal combines spirituality and chaos, how it mushes up prayer life and real life until you can’t really tell the difference.

And isn’t that how it should be?

I looked up “sacred and profane” not really knowing the origin of this dichotomy, and learned that it’s attributed to the French sociologist Emile Durkheim. Sacred things are those forbidden and set apart; they represent the interests of the group. Profane things are individual interests, more mundane concerns.

While Durkheim believed that all religions contain this dichotomy, other scholars disagree. It’s a western way of looking at faith, they say.

After visiting the temples and stupas, seeing the Ganesh statues in taxis, and of course, the prayer flags … I would agree with those who disagree with Durkheim.