Roots from the Underworld
How often do we bend down and touch the roots?
In our modern-day excitement about life, we flirt with the notion of touching the sky and far-reaching beyond what we can see. Everyday intimacy is orchestrated on that which is outside of us or that which can propel us upward and onward.
We give little to what roots us. There is an underworld that keeps us honoring what we do not remember and yet so desperately long for in our hearts. We fight to keep the minuscule traditions alive as our children grow and our families shift because our roots are deeply embedded in this essential dynamic.
The underworld holds our rootedness. By this very nature, our sense of belonging can be only explained as a yearning to be the heart of our true self connected to a deep devotion or longing to not remain but to evolve beyond. The tension between these opposite desires creates our wholeness within the larger conscious reality.
Throughout evolution has always been the undercurrent of staying or going. A drop of water either stays or begins to move and as it moves, it creates a larger body of water. A baby is welcomed into the world and it is faced with lying in stillness or beginning to move, and as it moves growth happens naturally. Even nature itself offers the constant metamorphosis of a species from one form to another.
The struggle for us, as humans, is not whether we stay or go. The challenge is more of a curiosity and an adventure. Can we feel fully present as the tension is in constant motion to remain in peace and harmony, as well as a deep desire to forge ahead?
As a society, we spend many waking hours practicing the act of presence as if remaining still amidst a noisy and ever-changing environment will solve this internal fiery passion. Even if one has succeeded at the mastery of stillness, there remains the plague for a deeper something. Maybe the currency of presence isn’t enough to still the embers of a passion for more while being still enough to notice.
I believe our wholeness and our deep longing to feel fully authentic lie in our choice to live alive within the tension – the whole messy and wildly unknown space of wanting to stay and wanting to leave. Can we feel alive on the ever-sacred edge of wholeness?
It is vital to our integrity as a cosmos to understand our roots. We can look in the mirror and see a beautiful form shaped into our human body. It is not what we see that matters, it is the invisible nature that keeps us anchored to whom we think we are. Jung calls this invisible underworld the shadow. The invisible truth of the shadow defines how we see that form of our body in the mirror. It defines our standards and expectations. And it is rooted in the deep ancestral system of collective consciousness.
The roots of trees keep the tree stabilized and they offer the soil a sense of nurturance. This is the collective offering that hands to other plants in the vicinity equal stabilization as the soil is nutrient dense. When we populate densities in this way, we are offering a resolution for all by giving exactly what is needed to one.
There are layers and layers of our roots that have been orchestrated into stories, beliefs, and expectations. The believability of these tales ripples into our bloodlines as a system for who we are. Bringing consciousness to these very unconscious tales about one’s identity as it has been manufactured is the death for the suffocation of life.
To come closer to seeing this fullness of who we are also invites us to journey to the edge of another equal and opposite force at play – who are we not? Discerning the elements of what roots us in the identity of our very human form enables us to create an adventure of discovery for a more expanded aspect of our humanity.
The discernment process is a dance in which we sway in and out, much like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rodgers gracefully gliding across the floor. The harmony of such a dance requires awareness of the form that takes the lead at any moment. The roots of our wholeness are not only labeled as one form. Humanity is more abundant in this way.
The sovereignty of our humanity uses our roots to thread a livelihood for which the stage includes a consciousness that belongs to our very human elements. The roots from the underworld – our shadowed past stories and tales, belief systems, and personalized expectations – can create a tapestry of wisdom to nourish and nurture the divine infinity that lies within us all.
This is the purpose of the underworld or the shadow. In our awakening, we are brought a sacred invitation to cross this threshold into the underworld, take what is rooted within, and create a world beyond the wild imagination. At the very least, the creative tapestry becomes a rendition of a beautiful story played on a small stage, like an off-Broadway performance. And in the most truthful way, the tapestry offers a creative journey as an opening to the never-ending longing to be whole. There is not a stage big enough to play out that performance as it is a consciousness that goes on and on accessed only by deeply traveling and releasing hold to the roots from the underworld.