You are outside on a hot, hazy summer day. The atmosphere is saturated with moisture and a storm is imminent. You are walking across a large meadow ringed by trees but at the center of the field where you are, your body is vulnerable. You catch the flash of a lighting strike out of the corner of your eye. You remember the admonition that you learned as a child. Lightning is attracted to the tallest object in an area, so you begin to run for your car at the edge of the meadow field in the parking lot. You learned that getting into your car will prevent you from absorbing a lightning strike because the tires are made of rubber. The rubber prevents the electricity in the lighting from completing its grounding.
You also learned in grade school that the earth has an electromagnetic field. We use a compass to identify the directions – these are based on the earth’s magnetic resonance. Did you also realize that our bodies have an electromagnetic field? Doctors and scientists understand that our hearts function by electrical impulses, hence the electrocardiogram test that records the electrical signals that create heart rhythms.
In energy medicine we talk about the flow of energy from the earth (south) through our bodies towards the crowns of our heads (north) and back again. We want this electromagnetic current to be strong and unbroken in our bodies because it means that we are utilizing every bit of energy available to us. It keeps us strong and connected. The easiest way to maintain our connection or grounding of this energy is to walk barefoot on the grass or sit with our backs to a tree.
Wearing rubber soled shoes, particularly in the snowy, cold, Northeastern winter climate, does exactly what your car’s rubber tires does. It breaks the electromagnetic connection. The energetic flow doesn’t ground. So we don’t reap the benefit of all of the energy available to us to maintain health – physically, emotionally, mentally or energetically. How can we overcome this when the snow is 3 feet high outside and the temperatures are hovering in the teens? Obviously we can’t walk barefoot in the snow, at least not for long without dire consequences.
Eden Energy Medicine teaches a simple but highly effective method to ground ourselves and to maintain proper electromagnetic polarities in our bodies. Smoothing the back of a stainless steel spoon along the soles of our feet each morning or whenever we don’t feel grounded helps to reconnect us with the earth’s electromagnetic field. We can enhance this action by tapping our Kidney – 1 meridian acupuncture point which is located in the middle of the ball of our foot. It is easily found by squeezing the sides of our feet together at the “bunion” area and the indentation in the middle of that area is your K-1 point.
Another way to augment the flow of the energy through your feet is to massage the gaits of your feet. Starting from the top of the arch of the foot, massage or draw your fingers down along the little “canyons” that lead to the spaces between your toes. There are 4 of them – between your big toe and the second toe, between the second toe and the third, and so on. The gaits can feel quite tender at first because massaging them can release blocked energy. However, your feet will feel looser after you’ve done this.
You can also boost the energetic flow by holding the pads (south) of your fingers on the K-1 point and then flipping the fingers and holding the backs (north) of the fingers on the K-1 point. Alternating the fingers repeatedly this way can encourage the flow to keep moving. You might want to add a final little slap to the ball of the foot, kind of like an exclamation point at the end of a sentence!
You may start to feel a tingling at the bottom of your feet as you continue to “spoon” your feet on a daily basis. You may even notice that the tingling travels up into your ankles and legs. This is the feeling of a connected flow of earth energy moving up into your body. This helps supply you with all of the electromagnetic energy that is available to keep you strong and healthy. Spooning your feet will help ensure that you stay grounded throughout the long months of winter and beyond.
