Root to Reach
Our body as the Axis Mundi
There is an oak tree that I visit when I want to feel held. She is old enough and large enough that I can climb up into her twisting branches and rest my back against one, my legs stretched out across an equally thick companion branch, and just rest. In the year I did my EcoMinistry program I visited her weekly for guidance. She became my grandmother. In her arms, 7 feet above the ground, I found I could also be in relationship with the sky in a way I never had before. I could reach a hand into its vastness. Wrapped in the steady presence of Grandmother Oak, I was able to be lifted to the sky and know its shifting moods and offerings.
What we see of a tree is, of course, only a part. Its growth toward its sister sky impresses and makes us think of strength and stature. But its roots are its body of support, going on average (depending on the tree) two to six feet underground, where they entwine with earth and whispering mycelial networks. The roots of the tree hold on, stabilize, as the growing branches spread wider and engage with the alive changing winds.
We too need our rooted feet, our close relationship with gravity, to allow us to reach up and out. We need stable nourishment to consider adventurous moves into the bigness of the world. We need a holding place to cling to as we open to a newer and newer aspects of our self and what we might be called to create.
The spiritual concept of Axis Mundi is present in many cultures around the world. It refers to a throughline from the heavens to the Earth to underground. This can be defined as a Cosmic Axis around which the Earth rotates, or my favorite, as the World Tree which is a bridge between heaven realms, earth realms, and below. In most Shamanic traditions, these realms would be places one could visit and receive different guidance or messages. It is not uncommon for a tree to be seen as an opening point from which one can descend or ascend into another realm.
In EcoSpiritual Embodiment the Axis Mundi is also our body, our form itself which acts as our bridge between the heavenly and the earthly and the creative underneath. Yoga traditions and energy healing practices run energy up and down the central or spinal column for health and healing. You also may have participated in meditation practices in which you were invited to send energetic roots down from your feet or pelvis, and then to reach up from the crown of your head. These are engaging us with our body as a bridge or axis from which we are supported.
It is from the axis mundi that our prayers are possible. Much like a column of smoke rises to the sky, our invisible prayers travel through our center out into the universe. Our words traveling on our breath come from the root of our body. Our actions, hopefully, come from an alive impulse within us, aligned with our felt sense, our flesh-knowing, our incarnate compassion for a temporary world.
It is from our body that our prayers become know to us. It is not strictly our mind that creates our vision or our path forward; it is our body, filled with yearnings and emotions and sometimes surprising and difficult to quiet desires. What sparks life in you? What makes your mouth water? What brings tears to your eyes? From our body we have the form to move toward what we want, to reach toward what calls us. From our body we have the stability to listen to our integrity, our inner compass that tells us when our actions are true to our Soul.
So as Spring draws us out into a wide world, we need to rely on our rooted intuition, that we perhaps deepened into in Winter. In the clamor to get out and express and bloom, we might move slowly enough to stay connected to Earth and our whole line of support from below our feet to above our head.
Our rooted connection to the Earth informs us as we reach out to explore. Picture an infant having time on a blanket, belly to Earth, gravity cradling him close. Then he begins to feel how he can press into the Earth, little soft palms push until the push reaches up through arms and now he is lifted! Head can look forward and see more of what is around. Wow. Legs push in too and now up on hands and knees, stabilized against the ground, he sees something compelling and instinctually leans into one hand and reaches the other out and toward what he is draw to. Enough of a brave reach and momentum moves the body forward in to a first crawl. And voluntary locomotion has now opened up an entirely new way of experiencing.
This point of contact between Earth and Sky - Winter and Spring, Gravity and Lift, Stability and Risk, Prayer and Action, Root and Reach - is a lifelong partnership. And our bodies a meeting point. And the equinox another meeting point, a reminder that our varied needs are met in cycles and flowing balances of light and dark, day and night.
Feel the way you are supported by both the Earth and the Sky. Let your intimacy with the ground of Earth help you reach out.
Listen to my conversation with the wonderful hosts of Radical Sacred, Jenny Misslin and Phil Dieke as we talk about embracing mindful sexuality and our yearnings as gifts, deepening our connection to the Earth and the Sacred.
Melissa Fritchle is a psychotherapist, eco spirituality guide, author of the Conscious Sexual Self Workbook, a meditation and mindfulness teacher, and that’s just scratching the surface! In this honest conversation we talk about following our own yearning, conscious sex as a way of living more open heartedly, and all the ways our lives begin to open up when we’re honest about who we are and what we want. How can having more conscious sex shape not only our more intimate moments but our spirituality and our interconnectedness with all the things that make us feel most alive? Diving into our desires is necessary, albeit sometimes intimidating, work. Our aliveness and our awakeness matter so deeply, let’s journey into more consciousness together!