BAREFOOT

I had the occasion to walk home from yoga last Sunday night, which in and of itself was delightful. With a goofy semi-perma grin and slightly sweaty glow from a perfect dive-inside and be with yourself yoga class, walking was just what i needed to seal in the moment. What a novel idea I thought: to walk places - to have time to absorb the moment you just experienced before moving on to the next. But this was even better. I forgot my shoes, so I walked the 7 blocks to my house barefoot. Still perma-grinning and now with my blond hippie hair blowing in the breeze, connecting to the earth in that basic, primal, barefoot way was amazing - the textures, temperatures, sounds, and vibrations that I felt just through my feet! After several minutes of sheer absorption, my intellectual mind kicked back in (i worry someday, i'll never come back). Its no wonder we feel so disconnected to things – we separate ourselves from everything. Even our shoes are a barrier from the earth, our clothes from the coolness of the air, our locked doors from the connection of our neighbors, our music from our thoughts, our fast cars from the natural slow pace of life. Why do we guard & protect ourselves from the most natural things that exist – mother nature, community connectedness and stillness? Kicking my shoes off (which i LOVE to do) is freeing, grounding and gives me a whole new level of sensitivity to our world. 15 minutes after yoga, I was home, still swirling from my inner-body, out-of-body experience, and grateful for the walk and time to ingtegrate before returning to the relative world of dishes, dinner, and work.

“if I had my life to live over, I would start barefoot earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall.’ The days are long, our energy is high and nature is blooming all over." Nadine Stair