Rooting Down: An Embodied Wisdom

Rebirth is a messy process. There’s a lot of writhing involved, a lot of awkward growth, and a truckload of hard truths to face up to. (Pro tip: dancing in the shower to your fav pop artist with a shot of mezcal in hand is a great way to shake off the upwell of anxiety that comes with it). And often, we find ourselves working through the same struggles we thought we’d surmounted years before. But life is a great unpeeling of the onion. How often have you understood a particular truth only to have an experience down the road in which you really understand that truth? And later again, another experience in which you actually understand it? You slap your forehead, thinking “But I know this already!”.

With each direct experience we become more intimate with our truths. And one day, if we continue to peel away the onion, we will embody those truths.

On the return flight of my trip to Scotland last September, I cried. I cried for probably four hours of the 7-hour flight. (My deepest shamanic experiences tend to occur on a Boeing 700 line). The past few years I’d been so focused on building my kingdom—so dedicated to my husband, our daughter, and our work—that I hadn’t realized that I’d walled myself in. My roots desiccated and shriveled up from too much desert sun and too little connection—with myself, with the land, and with others. The spaciousness I experienced in the Highlands had let loose a deluge and the roots of my guzzling spirit grew at such a clip they broke through those thick walls.

I wept not out of sadness or frustration, but out of sheer overwhelm. I’d been broken wide open. I sat on the plane feeling I had a monstrous, fuchsia, man-eating lotus bursting out of my chest. My true self had bloomed. Finally.

For the first weeks back home in Baja I allowed that exotic bloom in my chest to guide me, keeping me open and vulnerable, yet rooted in a strength and wisdom I’d never known before. Eventually, it faded under the daily routine and the stress of figuring out how to fit my new self into my old life.

Six months into this process I felt more frustrated and confused that ever. What direction is my life leading? What is my calling? Where do I put my energy? How do I root myself in that energy I so connected to—that land so green and lush—when the ground beneath me is so barren and parched? I tried reconnecting to that sense of self by focusing on my heart chakra, from where that wildness had sprung, but the bloom had gone dormant.

Then, in a transformational breathwork session, she rose again. And again, I was overwhelmed. This time with joy at rediscovering an overpowering sense of self. It was akin to the joy of two soulmates reuniting after decades of separation. Except that this was not a soulmate, but something dearer: my own soul. Imagine having a sense of yourself, but never a terribly clear vision. Then one day you open the door and there you are: fully formed and radiant in wisdom. And with that clarity of vision comes a profound, unconditional love and an unshakeable trust.

It is the greatest love story any of us can aspire to. (For god’s sake, Disney—listen up!).

The profound connection lasted a day or two, then it slipped away again, and I fell into deeper frustration. How do I continue to connect with that sense of strength and inner knowing? I wondered.

I know, as I have known for many years, that the key to most of life’s frustrations is in presence. But using meditation to break through old habits and change emotional patterns can be akin to carving a riverbed from rock with nothing more than a leaky faucet. A conversation with a friend encouraged me to try a more embodied method, rather than a purely mental one. 

“So many of these practices we’re drawn to are mental, and bring us up and out of our bodies, when what we need is to go into our bodies.”

The next day I sat at my altar and felt into myself, into my root. And BOOM! There she was. There I was. That deep knowing of self I’d encountered on the plane, in the breathwork. Just like…chillin’ in my root chakra. (I literally had a vision of her lounging in my root, propped up on one elbow, giving me a smile and a wave).

It’s as if I’d been living as an air plant for 41 years, then woke suddenly to discover that in fact I was a white oak, profoundly connected to the earth with a deep taproot.

Whaaat?! You mean you’ve been there the entire time?? All these decades, just chillin’—waiting for me to look down instead of up?? Feel in instead of out?

Of course. Why would I be surprised? 

You mean everything I’ve been looking for, everything I’ve been missing, is right here within me? 

Of course.

Slap! I know this!

I have always known this—in my head. Now I know it in my body. And oooohhh, what a difference that is! What else can we learn through our bodies? What else can we discover, in all its full glory, by going deep into the physical?

Our power is not in what we do or say, but in the source we draw from. Our greatest calling in this life comes clear not through forcing our branches to bloom, but through nourishing our roots so that our gifts may flourish organically.

Our strength is not in our branches, but in our roots.