Personal Roots?
Perception and truth.
This is a topic that has been on my mind, as I transition my primary dwelling space from Florida back to my previous long-time homeland of Michigan, and I ponder what my next commitments might look like. What does it mean to have “roots?” What roots do we choose to identify with, and why?
At this temporary moment-in-time, I am dwelling in a cozy camper-van, mostly parked on a big piece of country land recently acquired by my son and his wife. I am supposedly preparing to acquire my own property, with a ‘proper’ house on it…yet this spacious, non-committal time in the van is revealing deeper layers of thoughts and feelings about the meaning of “home” and “roots.”
I have lived in many homes - ten since finishing graduate school. Some for less than a year, others for up to 8 or 9 years. Always I have moved on by choice, led by a strong inner calling. This time, that calling led me back to the place where I grew up, and where I raised my own children. All three of them have returned here (or stayed here, in the case of my youngest), their father is here still, his mother, and my mother.
It is tempting to perceive the place where I grew up and raised a family, as well as the family I grew up with, as my roots. Yet, I have never felt fully rooted in any of these external containers, however much I have at times identified with all of them. There is some sense to the idea of geographical, familial, and ancestral roots, but it is a limiting concept.
Both of my parents grew up in Memphis, Tennessee - are my deeper roots in this southern culture and geography? Before that my ancestors were somewhere in Europe, and before that deep in the equatorial band where humans first appeared - are my real roots in these distant places? Are my truest roots found by looking way back in the family tree? Or can they be found in where I have actually spent the most time? Are roots something we grow over and over again, as our lives shift and change?
Why do we refer to ‘putting down roots’ when we choose a place to live, and ‘pulling up roots’ when we move? What do we really mean by this? This processing reminds me of my inquiry around what being ‘grounded’ means. Many people have asked me how I stay ‘grounded’ on a fruit-based diet. They describe themselves as feeling disoriented and/or, ‘floating away’ when they’ve tried the diet themselves, and they are thus convinced that they need heavier cooked foods, or lots of nuts, to ‘stay grounded.’
What exactly do we mean when we refer to being rooted, or grounded? What is the felt experience we are seeking? I think perhaps we are relying on a sense of feeling attached or anchored to something - something that appears to offer a sense of belonging, or a safe familiarity. Yet there have always been gypsies and nomads - are they without roots or a sense of grounding or belonging? Or….have they perhaps found their security instead in an unseen inner realm.
In response to the questions about how I stay grounded on a fruit-based diet, I reply that true and sustainable grounding comes from identifying with our essential Self, our inner light and life-force - that which is steady and unchanging - rather than from attachment to any temporary external situation, or physical, mental, or emotional experience.
And so it is with the idea of ‘roots.’ When we have touched enough of the spacious stillness beneath all the noise of the ever-changing human experience, we begin to know our real roots. A quiet inner confidence starts to blossom. When we release our identification with the narrative that our roots, or our grounding, are to be found in external, happenstance, or temporary circumstances, and we realize the truth of who or what we really are - pure, simple, unattached awareness, or consciousness - we can become liberated from the endless dramas that stem from defining ourselves and our experience by our notions of rooting ourselves in places or people.
With this liberation, we can step into our power to choose our preferences and freely enjoy them, led simply by our heart’s sincere callings. Freed from artificial norms or boundaries, and unattached to the limitations and unreliability of externally-planted roots, a beautiful new opportunity arises. If I find my roots by dwelling in the quiet spaciousness of my heart, the angst of my search for belonging drops away. I already belong, simply by my beingness. The invitation now, is to experience the beautiful calm of Presence - wherever I am, and wherever I choose to go. There are no right or wrong directions or choices - just choices bringing more opportunities to experience presence, and all the daily miracles of life while it lasts.
I chose to return to Michigan not to re-identify with former attachments to a perception of my ‘roots’ being here, but to indulge in the pleasures of being a present grandmother, and to witness for a time my children becoming parents. I am called to participate more directly in the unfolding of this rich new chapter for my children, and for myself. What a miracle that they all live so near to each other at this auspicious time! And now I am here, too :).
