Everyday Canvas

Feeling the Earth

Prompt: Some people feel an intense need to sit on the ground and run their fingers through the grass to feel connected with the earth. Have you ever compelled to do this yourself? Why was it important to you? Are there other ways to make a connection with earth?

----


The feel of grass under my feet or at the tip of my fingers is exhilarating, but while doing that, the idea of connecting with the earth never occurred to me. I mean, I never did that to connect to the earth, but then, I have always loved all plants. This feeling of the earth and its offspring comes to me like the air I breathe, so much so that, no wonder how dirty my hands and fingernails get, I still don’t use gloves while gardening or re-potting plants.

The earliest incident of feeling the grass with my hands that I remember is while I was in my teens. I am sure it must have happened earlier, too, but this is what I recall. There was a rock wall in my school with a special fancy kind of grass on it, which wasn’t mowed at all. While my friends and I were sitting on the stony part of the wall, I stroked the grass and commented, “Hair of the earth…” The others started laughing and making fun of me. “You are being poetic, again!” This “poetic” allusion was in reference to what a teacher had called poetic after what I had said in class, and the “poetic” stuck to me as a nickname among my classmates. Embarrassed, I tried then, after the stroking the grass incident, not to be “poetic” anymore.

Yet, poetic or not, grass and its kin and the earth feel as if they are a part of me. Some people I know walk barefoot to connect with the earth. This is not my specialty. I don’t like being barefoot; this, to me, is being vulnerable, but my hands do a good job stroking the grass and feeling the earth.