The crazier our populated world gets, the less I want anything to do with it. I trust Mama Earth, though, and can relate to how she must feel. Only now, in my 50s, do I realize how my resources had become grossly overdrawn by the demands of everything and everyone around me.

Moving far away from a dense and bustling metropolis revealed a lot about the energy I’d been marinating in there. Relief was immediate – and welcome. I knew I was stressed out, but had no idea how much until I stepped away from the spinning madness of it all.

Growing up, I wasn’t taught to love my body or to appreciate my being in any particular way. Feed it, wash it, let it rest – those were the basic instructions it came with and I wasn’t taught much beyond that. After childhood, life quickly became a series of distractions and, before I knew it, I was 50 and dealing with a version of “self” I didn’t even know. Once I moved away from the distractions and toxicity I’d mindlessly amassed in adulthood, I began to have a new relationship with my body and mind.

A love affair with my entire being blossomed when I began to do yoga. By some miracle, I’d found a studio overflowing with gorgeous, empowered, feminine energy that quickly became my sanctuary – a respite from everything. Every thing. The only thing that mattered was finding that space where my body and mind could finally extend beyond any and all limitations enforced by the patriarchy.

My yoga teachers were godsends. Each unique in style and personality, yet somehow exactly who and I what I needed to begin to recover. Seven, eight – sometimes nine times a week, I’d be on my mat. Thirty minutes before each class to enjoy some quiet, alone time and usually among the last to leave. I didn’t care to socialize much – rather I delighted in the experience of being held in a space that was giving me an entirely new and beautiful idea about my relationship with myself.

I learned how to release trauma and stress from my body through yoga and meditation, how to understand the finer points of nourishing myself at a cellular level, how to set boundaries and say “no,” how to let go of imbalanced relationships and concentrate on the ones that matter, how to let go of the need to look or dress a certain way, and how to relax so that I could take a restful nap.

My entire adult life, I’ve felt guilt and shame around wanting to take a nap. But humans need rest. Desperately.

I watched COVID unfold from a safe distance. Quarantine felt like heaven. The more isolated we all became from one another, the more insulated and safe I felt – and it was blissful. The yoga studio was forced to close temporarily before eventually succumbing to the economic realities of the quarantine. By then, however, I had deepened and expanded my practice beyond the body and into breathwork, higher states of meditation, and into a rabbit hole of quantum physics and neuroscience; I began an intense exploration of what it means to be human on entirely different levels of consciousness and dimension.

I also discovered “grounding” – or “earthing” – as a means to connect with Mama Nature in a way I never imagined possible. This new understanding of and relationship with her heals, moves, and inspires me more than I ever imagined possible…