Uprooting

I just made this really crazy move. Like, we’re not talking just to a new city…or even across the country. I made a 3,000 km move from northern ALBERTA → waaaaaay to the south of CALIFORNIA to Los Angeles. And as exciting and amazing and wonderful as this sounds, it’s been hard. Really really hard and challenging and even a bit ugly. I completely underestimated the uprooting process and how it would affect me.

I keep explaining the experience to people like taking a tree – a mid-sized one, not yet fully formed with medium-sized roots – and carefully extracting it from the ground. Then putting it in a tiny little transportation pot, setting it up inside a truck and driving it really far – all the while the little tree is jiggling around and shaking as the truck travels the bumpy road. Once you get it to the destination, you put it in storage for a week or so…and the poor little tree doesn’t really know what you’ve done with it. You go out, find a nice sunny place for it, and then carefully transpose the tree from the pot into the earth. The tree then spends a few weeks not sure if it’s happy, if it has the right food, the right conditions for living…and when the fog lifts and it takes a big look around, it notices that it is a little fir tree surrounded by palm trees. Will the palm trees accept the little fir tree? That takes a bit more time to figure out, and at this point, the little fir tree just doesn’t know.

I went to my new yoga studio last night for the second time – Bhatki Shala in Santa Monica. It’s this really awesome one-room studio that is donation-based, and they really do create a spiritual experience for you. The instructor last night was an astrologist, and was talking about how Mercury was coming in, which means there is lots of change and shake up going on in the universe. Couldn’t be truer about my universe.

But then it got kind of creepy. Because of all this astrological shifting taking place, the instructor wanted to focus the yoga practice on grounding ourselves. Considering I feel completely ungrounded at the moment, I was pretty excited. But the really creepy part was when she started talking about chakras – and told us to place our hands on our belly, at our “root chakra.” Now, I’ve been experiencing killer stomach aches lately, and I wasn’t sure why…but now it all started to come together for me. My root chakra is in total chaos from the uprooting process I’m going through! I pretty much don’t have a root right now! She started coaxing us through some exercises to release our root chakra…but mine was pretty knotted up. She then asked us to sit up and feel ourselves ground to mother earth, saying she liked to imagine herself as a big oak tree. I started imagine my poor little fir tree…having just made an international uprooting journey…and no wonder I feel like a disoriented, discombobulated soul!

Needless to say I found the practice very challenging…I was wobbling all over the place throughout the entire balancing series. But now, thanks to my experience, I know that I need to focus on grounding myself. One day at a time.

Our practice ended with a chant to the lines “I am grounded; grounded in love.” Tingles came over me, because I haven’t been feeling grounded in any love lately; the move has been particularly stressful on Scott and our relationship together. I also haven’t been loving myself or offering patience for my poor little roots to gain hold in the soil again. A good reminder to focus on love to help with the grounding process.

So the most revolutionary part of this whole experience for me? The universe giving me exactly what I needed to gain perspective and re-root myself. Thank you, again, Universe – I am grateful for your infinite wisdom.

1 thought on “Uprooting”

  1. Kenna – I am so glad to rediscover your blog. Oh, I can only imagine how much your roots must be traumatized by the move … the great thing about the ecosystem is (and here’s with my zoo degree) – that there will be a little bird out there, who has been looking for a fir tree – thinking that all these palm trees don’t provide nearly enough shade; and then that little bird will attract a different kind of squirrel, and a different kind of plant (different shades of sun you see) … and before you know it – you will create a whole new micro-ecosystem that fits you perfectly. I suppose we don’t think a move down south would be a culture shock – but I certainly believe it would be! Keep working on your root chakra 🙂 I look forward to staying in touch!

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