Many times in my life, I have discovered that following my own truth, even when it looks crazy to others, is sanity-making.
I’ve also noticed that the more insane the world becomes, the more important it is to do crazy things – actions that stretch us out of our comfort zone, choices that lighten our impact on the planet or challenge other people’s perceptions of truth.
One thing we can do that grows our sanity is focus on what we know. My favorite way to do this is to orient to my body and where it is right now. You know where you are right now. I mean this in big and small ways. You know where your chair is, you can feel your feet on the floor. If the floor your feet touch is inside a building, that building sits on living ground. If you’re outside, the living ground is under you. Maybe you know something about who may have lived or walked here before you, both human and non-human.
At some point during the process of knowing where you are, you’ll encounter something you don’t know. Perhaps you’ll start to consider what you don’t know about where you are. You could encounter so many emotions at this threshold – excitement, curiosity, fear, grief and more.
Orienting between what we know and what we don’t widens the doorway and increases our perception and deepens our capacity to trust our knowing.
This could also take you down a path in your own body that orients to the people you descend from, what they knew and where they lived. Even if you don’t know a lot of details about where you live, the land you’re on does. Even if you haven’t been told a lot about the people who came before you and whose lives made your life possible, your body does. Know that. Trust your body’s knowing and the knowing of the ground under your feet, however many layers away from you it is in this moment. May your deepening relationship to the living world inside you and around you, lead you to knowing yourself more fully.
