Dear Humanity,
Let us be one.
Dear Humanity,
What are we?
I know we have our endless scientific answers to this question. We are a form of life, distinct from the rocks and the water and the air. We are animals, in a sense, distinct from the grasses and flowers and trees. We also think ourselves not animals. We don’t live like the squirrels, digging around in the dirt and sleeping in trees. We don’t pounce and kill our every meal. We’re “civilized,” and there are others that are not. Other animals walk with their paws or claws or hooves directly on the ground. We, however, separate our feet from the earth with a slip of rubber so don’t have to endure the texture. We consider it highly strange - “uncivilized” - to do otherwise.
I was recently taking a walk on a local trail, and I decided to take off my shoes and socks. The ‘why’ is simple. I wanted to. At the same time, a hundred worries flooded into my mind as I began to remove the protection. These worries mostly appeared in the voices of others who would almost certainly be appalled. What if I stepped on some deadly disease? Or what if I cut myself and contracted some infection from the dirt? Wouldn’t it just be painful? But then I thought of all the dogs who walked this path with their bare paws. I thought of the birds who picked up their food right from this ground. I thought of the immense trust all the animals must have of the ground they jumped on and ran across day after day, and, as an animal myself, I wanted to know what that trust felt like. So, I gave the earth the benefit of the doubt.
I ended up not bothering with shoes until the next morning and having a most marvelous time for all the next hours of my outside night. I walked this path that I had walked many times before but experienced it as I had never dared. As could be expected, there were parts where the earth caused discomfort, some areas more extremely than others, but I found the remedy to the difficult sections was simply to take them slowly. After a few careful steps, they tended to pass. Just as often, the downed leaves and dried dirt felt like the softest sand. Mud puddles became something to seek - cool and calming - and there was no concern about dirtying difficult-to-clean shoes. I learned walking through grass is wonderful for cleaning the feet, and in general any amount of mud would fall away with further walking. Every step became an opportunity for playfulness and discovery. Even leaving the park and walking over the streets and sidewalks all felt more viscerally real. The concrete and asphalt may be manufactured and strategically placed, but it’s all still made up of earth.
I don’t tell you this to say we should all walk around barefoot all the time. There are obvious protective benefits to the invention of Shoes, especially when the ground is dangerously hot or cold, but I would argue that a larger percentage of the time than we would like to admit, we don’t actually need that protection. Regardless, we wear the shoes even when temperatures are cool and we are walking on soft ground. We have this idea in our heads that, by virtue of our human nature, we deserve to literally be above the ground at all times, making it true that even flying birds touch the earth more often than we really do. I think this is not to our benefit.
There is ancient wisdom, written of especially in the works of Lao Tzu, which says every human difficulty comes from our habit of separating things. We distinguish between high and low, ugly and beautiful, holy and mundane, life and not life, but none of these binary separations are real - or, at least, really matter. There is nothing real to the concept of “up,” but by naming it and thinking it we have created the concept of “down.” By naming some things, places, and creatures “sacred,” we are declaring that certain other things, places, and creatures are not (if you do not use the word “sacred,” then replace it with “important” or “valuable” or “real,” and the meaning will be the same). This distinction is merely our own misconception rooted in pride and a lack of larger understanding. Everything, every person, place, and atom of this world is sacred, but we can only realize this when we refuse to claim that any person, place, idea, or species is more sacred than any other.
It has been said that everything in the universe is one. There is no difference between the grass and the rocks and the air, and there is no difference between the air and me. Every individual spirit is complete and contains the whole, and the whole is every individual spirit combined. I think, now and then, walking barefoot on the earth can help remind us of this. If we can find peace feeling genuinely as one with the dirt we walk on, surely, despite differences, we can find peace feeling genuinely as one with each other.
With love and warm regards to all,
I am yours,
Addam H. Ledamyen