touching the earth

When I went to bed Friday night the fan was on and the windows were open. Sometime in the hours before dawn, a cold front blew in. Roused from sleep, I reached down to the foot of the bed and pulled the quilt up. At some point I became aware of Marc getting up to turn off the fan and again to close the windows.

It was overcast, cold, and blustery all day. 57˚ at the time I wrote this with a predicted low of 49˚ for that night, it was a winterish day. Today, Saturday, it is still overcast, cold (currently 50˚) and blowy. It looks like it's clearing up though.

I've been in the habit of picking up pecans once a day, getting anywhere from half of a gallon sized bucket's worth to a full one, but Friday was the first chance I had since Monday. I picked up two full buckets and then later, when I went out to water the garden, I stuffed my pockets full to bulging with the ones that were in my path that had fallen since. My one full box of pecans has become two.

I've abandoned my careful criss-crossing of the yard. I'm bored with that. I used to think of it as my pecan labyrinth. Lately I cover the yard in a more snaky fashion, wandering whither I go but eventually covering the entire field of interest. I think. It's still a labyrinth of sorts, I guess, though it has no structure at all.

I still contemplate stuff while I walk and I look forward to it not only for the goodness of the pecans that I'm collecting but also for the contact with the earth. I walk barefoot letting that energy flow up and into my feet. I need direct contact with the earth. I guess that's why I like to garden, to get out there and dig.

This lack of contact with the earth, the trend of living ever cleaner and more sterile lives, lives that are spent more and more indoors completely cut off from the planet that we sprang from, is, in my pet theory, one of the main reasons the human race has gone insane. And surely we must be insane considering all the damage we do to the ecosystem that we depend on for our very lives. Not to mention all the damage we do to each other.

Walking barefoot, digging in the dirt, wandering the woods and prairies, paddling the rivers, sleeping on the ground under the stars, these are the times when I have felt most serene. Being in touch with the earth, being covered in the earth, breathing the earth, absorbing the life and energy and magnetism of the planet keeps me centered. It's why, I guess, whenever I am unhappy or angry, my first impulse is to go outdoors, to let all that negative emotion drain away.

So while I am not sad to see the intense heat of summer fade away, I am less than excited about the cold winter days to come when I must, finally, for comfort's sake, put on shoes and limit my time outdoors.