Barbara Brown Taylor defines holiness as feeling the earth beneath one’s feet, literally. This idea of the sacred really resonates with me. It gives dignity and shape to the experience of being an embodied human being. I can’t remember the last time I took my shoes off and felt the earth between my toes. So, I went to Cheekwood last week with a friend and we both stood barefoot in the flowing creek, letting tulip tree petals float swiftly over our ankles. I felt grounded, anchored to the earth, and nothing felt urgent. There were no bullies pushing me toward the next thing. I was present to place and moment.
Just the week before that, I had made a huge, bold decision. As many of you know, I have worked at an Irish pub in downtown Franklin for almost 9 years. That job sustained many life transitions, beginning with my divorce almost that long ago. Over the years, it has been a largely steady place: a supplementary income, a family of co-workers, regulars and community connections that I’ve grown to value. As with many co-workers that have come and gone over the years, unless one owns the place, it is a stop on the way to somewhere else. My stop there has been longer than most. As the environment became more and more toxic, I began to see that it had become a crutch for me. I had never intended to stay there that long, but every time I tried to leave, I just found myself back there.
I began to see that I was afraid. Fear was keeping me in a place I had grown out of, a place that helped me pay the bills, but was not my vocation, not my calling. My long-term desire has been to do art full-time: teach art, support art, make art, midwife art for others. This felt too lofty of a goal for many years. Imposter syndrome would creep in and my response was to cling to what I knew would work, not what I really wanted.
Something shifted in me recently. And I think it is this idea of feeling the earth, of being tethered. There is a poignant scene in the movie, Gravity, with Sandra Bullock and George Clooney. They are astronauts in space suits repairing something on their space station when an event sends huge pieces of debris their way. Sandra Bullock’s character gets swiped by a piece of flying debris that sends her spinning off into space. We see her in terror and panic, reaching and grasping the air for something, anything to grab hold of, but there is nothing, absolutely nothing. There is nothing she can do to stop herself from spinning into oblivion. Then, out of nowhere, there is a violent yank, and we see that George Clooney’s character has tethered himself to her, bringing her spinning to an abrupt stop. She has time to collect herself as the slack narrows and as she is being brought back to safety, through no effort of her own.
Running, for me, is usually a time of reflection and checking in with myself. Recently, I had posed this question to myself during a run: where are the places that I feel the most loved and loving? It became pretty clear as I thought about my whole adult life, I feel the most essentially myself when I’m creating. Each of the 4 times I’ve birthed a child, there was something that exuded from my being. I almost felt angelic: at complete and total peace with others and myself, and also, like I could do anything. I was fully connected to the source of love, and fully myself. I felt loved and loving. And it dawned on me that I feel that to varying degrees when I am making.
The creative process makes me aware that I am tethered, that I am connected to the source of love, that love is narrowing the slack. So, the huge, bold decision came. I gave notice at the Pub. Shortly after that, a dear friend shared with me a phrase that she had been observing in her life: “go into the woods and make a clearing for prayer.” Leaving the Pub feels exactly like “going into the woods and making a clearing for prayer.” This is my clearing out the clutter. This is my sloughing off the extraneous things that distract and deter and throw off course. This is my opportunity to make room to respond in a thoughtful way.
As we become aware of our grounding, or, holiness of being tethered to the earth, we respond to who we are at a core level. These thoughts from Richard Rohr have helped me to release things that I might be good at, but aren’t central to my essence. “As we come to know our soul gift more clearly, we almost always have to let go of some other ‘gifts’ so we can do our one or two things with integrity. Such letting go frees us from always being driven by what has been called the ‘tyranny of the urgent.’ Soon, urgency is a way of life, and things are not done peacefully from within. What if we choose to simply do one or two things wholeheartedly in our lives? Too much good work becomes a violence to ourselves and, finally, to those around us.”
I’ve had moments of panic since letting go of my old job, but mostly, I have a new felt sense of groundedness and purpose. I’d love to hear how you’ve experienced “going into the woods and making a clearing for prayer”, feeling the earth beneath you, how you feel the most loved and loving. Leave a comment/story below. Celebrating and responding with you!
