When I found out one of my best friends had died from cancer, just over a year ago, I remember standing at my bathroom window, pleading with her to come back. Maybe she’d hear me banging against the glass? In those very early days, pure delusion felt like my only solace. I soon found myself grasping towards ideas I’d never considered before; poring over studies on consciousness, the afterlife, magic – anything that would allow me to talk to her one last time.
Weeks after she passed, I still wasn’t ready to give into grief – not yet. Allison was still such an active voice in my head. Wasn’t she just here? Weren’t we just talking? I often heard her offering me sage advice or judging my boring fashion choices. Can you please just wear colour ONE time in your life? There was something about her lively, sarcastic energy that made her seem so present, even when she wasn’t here. Every moment had been a joke to us. We were still laughing in my head.
We used to talk nearly every morning on the phone, during our commutes or over breakfast – our chats had helped me settle into the day. When life felt too much, she was there. And then suddenly, she wasn’t. 8:00am now folded into a void. Her absence tore straight through me. Who else would want to talk so early? “Who else?” had become a quiet refrain in my head.
But as time stretched on, I knew I had to actively work through my grief. I read endless grief memoirs, wrote sad, sulky poetry, and cried to my online therapist while browsing Shein. But none of it actually helped. I didn’t feel like my grief was really getting anywhere. I was just experiencing my own sadness, over and over again, in different forms. I wasn’t approaching any greater truth or logic.
After losing her mum, writer and YouTuber Allison Raskin reflected that when a loved one is gone, we must allow our lives to change or they will “simply be less full than before”. I thought this made sense. Perhaps I could fill this hole inside me with some kind of new, nourishing routine. I was intrigued by a wellness trend called “grounding”, in which one walks barefoot or wears grounding shoes on the earth. The idea is that by making direct contact with the ground, our body absorbs its electrons, fighting off free radicals. Although evidence is scarce (and often industry-funded!), small studies claim the practice could help with pain, mood, inflammation and more.
But I wasn’t too convinced. Crazed wellness grifters had been infiltrating my Instagram feeds at alarming rates, and the grounding gurus seemed particularly off the rails. One of them wondered if the government was colluding to keep us in shoes to prevent us from detoxing. Another encouraged his followers to free themselves from the tyranny of “foot prisons”.
And yet, grounding also seemed oddly appealing. I’d been wading around in the same spot of grief for so long; I wanted to be able to move deeper into the feeling, or connect to some sacred space outside of me, like the earth. I longed to feel close to Allison on a physical level. I didn’t know where she was now – possibly nowhere. But if there is indeed some kind of enduring spirit, I imagined I’d find it in nature.
Donning my flimsy new grounding ballet slippers [natural-soled ballet flats made to connect with the earth], I stepped out onto my sloped lawn. The ground was dense, uneven, and unmowed, carpeted in flayed twigs and dandelions. As the hard earth pushed into my callouses, I sensed, not some magical or mystical awakening, but a deeper sense of focus and acceptance. Even if Allison’s spirit wasn’t stirring invisibly beneath me, nature’s stillness offered space to move though grief and be with Allison in this new, vague way.
I didn’t want Allison’s death to collapse into some fusty, dulled-out memory. I didn’t want to “get over” her. Move on. Erase her. But I also didn’t want my grief to cling to my every thought and feeling until I died. I strived to carry her with me gently; she was still with me, in the back recesses of my mind; a wry, sisterly presence.
The next day, I tried grounding barefoot to deepen its effects. I stepped onto the soggy lawn and felt the damp grass squelching beneath me. Nature insists we pay attention to it, especially after the rain. It wrenches us in both its unease and beauty. I could see distance stretch and blur in front of me and sensed time taking it easy. Minutes no longer lurched into the next minute. Insects whirred from leaf to leaf. A finch pecked at dropped seeds. All around me, life pressed onto death, and death onto life. They blended so easily into one another, becoming one and the same.
Living in the suburbs, I often take long leisurely walks through woodsy streets. Nature isn’t exactly foreign to me. I’ve always opened myself up to it. But I’ve rarely so intentionally synched into it, dipping my toes into its sludge, eager to feel its full charge. Metaphorically or not, I finally felt fully plugged into earth’s natural voltage.
I’m still not sure if grounding works quite as the gurus say. I have my doubts. But I do know that, like meditation, it forces us to pause, to observe, to absorb earth’s natural magic. And as we do, a new clarity might bloom before us. Or at least it did for me. Allison’s animated presence remains with me, just as it did when she was alive. In earth’s stillness, I hear her teasing voice: OF COURSE you would be into grounding, Rachel. OF COURSE you would.
