Erin Yu-Juin McMorrow - Grounded: A Fierce, Feminine Guide to Connecting with the Soil and Healing from the Ground Up

To all the seekers, the healers, and the

stewards of the land. May our voices

come together to elevate the conversation.

Let the beauty we love be

what we do.

There are hundreds

of ways to kneel and

kiss the ground.

RUMI

CONTENTS

Are you afraid

Of the void?

The fertile soil

The fertile soul

Where seeds come to life

Crack open

Fight for light

In darkness we grow

From the void we emerge

New moon

Bloody flow

Whered she go

Welcome to

The collective blind spot

The collective wound

Death

Release

Decomposition

Rebirth

She is the garden

There is no exile

She simply holds space

For us to finally face

The eternal truth

How could this be

What cant we see

Cycles unbroken

Simply imbalanced

Return again and again

Connect the dots

My lovers and friends

The wound only heals

When we face in

The humble worm

8-legged goddess

Infinity creatrix

Night sky

Everlasting

Theres only one way home

Turn in

Tune in

Yin yang

Up down

In out

Breath reveals

Holy love heals

Follow the drumbeat

Look toward the light

Bow to the night

The portal

The vortex

The mother

The spiral

The beat

The virgin

Woman unto herself

Sexual healing

Thats what I said

As above so below

What are we pretending we dont know

Welcome the muse

Of creation and transformation

Priestesses

Of transmutation

Goddesses

Of liberation

Bow to the great mother

Remember

The soil

Stuff of stars

The humble answer

Rebirthing the only truth

There ever was

INTRODUCTION

T ake three breaths. Allow the skin of the old to shed away and welcome the possibility of whats to come. We are rebirthing ourselves and midwifing a new era, a new world, a new vision. Walk with me into a world of possibility, alignment, love, and truth.

The root of the climate crisis is the invitation to heal our individual and collective root chakra (as it was first known in the Hindu tantric traditions, although our ancient connection to the earth is universal). Our root is our base, foundation, home, identity, innate power, release, safety, security, structure, and connection to the earth. Humanity teeters at the edge of extinction because for too long we have been too afraid to remember. To come home. To turn inward. For thousands of years, we have been handing over our power to institutions, ideas, and individuals outside of ourselves. For way too long, weve bought into the story that we can somehow derive our power from external thingssocial status, relationships, property, objects, titles, degrees, even talents and knowledge. Weve believed that nature herself is dangerous, our enemy, and that she is meant to be tamed, mined, and owned. Weve bowed to a single male god in the sky and lashed out at the notion of an embodied spiritual truth that incorporates the balance of the sacred feminine and sacred masculine in the grand harmony of all things within us.

The feminine and masculine energies are not specific to gender; they are part of each of us. We are working with the dance between steady structure and fluid receiving energy; the calm protector and initiator of the masculine, and the flowing, adaptable, womb-like creative nature of the feminine. As we find balance within ourselves, we become better able to create balance in our outer worlds. Reconnecting with our lower chakras also reconnects us to our roots, the story of the earth, the Great Mother, and our own creative life force energy. We remember that we are part of the grand dance of all things.

Climate catastrophe, biodiversity loss, the sixth mass extinction, ocean acidification, desertification, and runoff and dead zones in the oceans are all connected to the same thing: the killing of microscopic life in the soil. Our disconnection from the soil is our disconnection from the fertile feminine. By killing this life en masse, we are profoundly disrupting the carbon cycle, along with all the cycles of nature. While the entire movement of regenerative agriculture (a form of agriculture that focuses on improving soil health) has made significant headway with this message in the climate conversation, the memo has yet to go mainstream. Most of us have never heard of soils critical connection to the climate emergency. Even fewer of us are aware of the profound spiritual connections among the earth, climate, and the interrelatedness of all things. Understanding ourselves as a part of natureas opposed to as separate entities who affect natureis fundamental to this larger view.

Further, the connection between empowering women and girls and turning the tide on the climate emergency is clear. Access to education and reproductive rights are at the heart of the dire situation we have collectively created. Katharine Wilkinson of Project Drawdown highlights the role of women in food production on small lots, describing how that work ties in with protection of forests, as well as how reproductive education and rights have as much (or more) of an impact on our collective climate footprint as renewable energy. Wilkinson urges us to be messengers, hearts broken open, in this journey. Protecting our forests, getting into right relationship with animals, plants, and fungi, healing our food systems, and freeing and protecting women and girls from poverty, genital mutilation, sexual assault and harassment, and sex trafficking, are all mission critical to creating human systems aligned with Mother Nature.

The only way to return to balance is to heal the Earth Mother and our collective root chakraas well as our own individual rootsand to harmonize the feminine and masculine energies within ourselves. This also means simultaneously working to heal the soil, supporting indigenous peoples and lands, and advocating for women and girls around the world. As above, so below; the macro reflects the micro, and vice versa.

You may already know that soil is one of the most important things in the world when it comes to human survival, right up there with water and oxygen. But likely you have little idea of what that means on a practical level, or what to do about it. Its actually incredibly simple, and we already have everything we need to shift our systems on earth. All we need is to remember, align, and act. As we heal our connection to the soil, we move toward healing our bodies, the earth, and our spirits.

Life is a miracle. Microscopic processes inside the cells of plants convert sunlight into energy that we humans, in turn, can use. Not only use, but need for survival. Pause there for a moment. Take a breath wow. The only way to understand the world of the small things that make all life on earth possible is to trace back to the first life, our friends the single-celled organisms. Microscopic life was the first on earth, and nobody knows for sure how it came to be. Our best guesses involve comets or curious vibrations in the primordial soup (so, basically, magic, god, aliens, or something).

The divine mysteries (Spirit), life on earth (body), and our evolutionary history (science) have everything to do with soil health and climate change. Its all connected, and the only way to solve the problem is to take it all in, magic included. Im not talking about the kind of delusional magical thinking weve been engaged in as a species thus far; Im talking about real magic. Mysteries of life and creativity magic. If we follow the thread from the primordial soup and through our basic cellular evolution, we can make our way to the present-day carbon cycle and everything thats wrong with it. We can do better by healing the soil, healing ourselves, and healing our relationship with the Great Mother and all that is.