POEM: Touch the Grass

A spell for grounding during times of virtual chaos

TOUCH THE GRASS
Written by Schuyler Brown
May 28, 2025

If I hadn't taken off my shoes 
to walk barefoot in the grass
I wouldn't have noticed 
the subtle dampness of the morning

And if I hadn't noticed the dew 
I might not have noticed 
that the soles of my feet had been softened
A realization that also softened my soul

And it was that softening
that opened me to the possibility
of a deeper connection
to myself and the place where I walked

It was the deepening of awareness
that offered a surprise:
Underneath the cool, damp grass
the mud was impossibly warm

The sun-warmed earth sucked at my toes
as the cool grass licked them clean
And my sensitized soles
delighted in the contrast

Fantastic, delicious sensation! 
Simple, supple design!
How rich this place I call home!
And the gratitude opened another door...

As I was taking all this in
I was being taken in
and the earth was grateful for me
or at least for this moment of mutual admiration

Vertigo: a disconcerting feeling
as my legs opened like long-blocked pipes
and energy was sucked down 
into a quicksand vortex

Momentarily, I wondered--confused-- 
what does Earth want with my life force?
I was stuck as she sucked
at the old scaffolding of my phony self

It was the energy of striving, 
longing, yearning, wanting to be seen,
anxious to do everything right,
that she reclaimed

Weighted in the balance
I let go of old motivations
collapsing the faulty foundation
of modernity's "achievement" and "success"

Exhaustion poured 
through the soles of my feet 
into the willing receptacle of the earth 
Composted and digested

New shoots, fresh spring energy
emptiness returned and I felt free 
from that weight
Here for the first time since...

Ah! 
This is what's meant by grounding
It's not something we're missing 
but something we're blocking

I am who I am
where I'm meant to be
Surrounded by life
Infused with it, an integral part of the whole

We should be planted like trees
Our energy bodies part of the mycellium
magenetic flow interrupted by
shoes, concrete, asphalt and oblivion

Returned so quickly to terra firma
by the removing of shoes
and the willingness to be naked, 
skin-to-skin with the Mother

If I hadn't taken off my shoes
I wouldn't have realized 
that grounding is the same thing
as acceptance

~~~