The urban lifestyle of the 21st Century has become so far removed from nature — specifically, from the earth — that we don’t even realize it. The concrete jungles, the urban pollution, the 9 to 5 daily routine, the perpetual indoor incarceration — it is so normalized in our way of life that we don’t think twice about it. It doesn’t even register with us.
It never even occurs to us that from birth to death, most of us live within an artificially constructed, contrived environment. Few of us ever get the opportunity truly to commune with nature — with truly natural surroundings. Most of us are born in hospitals — sterile, disease-ridden environments housed in concrete buildings in the middle of urban development, typically characterized by box-like structures arranged amid right-angled roadways. We attend schools and academies from a young age — typically highly controlled, regimented environments. We then typically get a 9-to-5 job in the city to make ends meet. Finally, we spend our waning years enjoying retirement on our meager life savings, until we are consigned to a retirement home and to our eventual demise.
Some of us have the opportunity to play field sports — football, soccer, golf, track and field, cross country running, bicycling, swimming, etc. But even when we do, we usually venture out into the outdoors wearing all manner of protective gear and rubber-soled shoes or boots. When we go on hiking, camping, or other outdoor excursions, we are invariably equipped with all manner of modern conveniences specifically designed to “protect” us from the environment — from nature, as it were. Essentially, our protective gear separates us from nature and creates a “comfortable” semi-urban environment even amid natural surroundings.
In my younger days, I enjoyed the rare privilege of attending university deep in the heart of the country, where outdoor sports and activities of every description were heavily encouraged. As an active member of the university outdoor club, I had the opportunity to engage in all manner of outdoor activities — hiking and nature walks, river rafting and white-water canoeing, spelunking and cave exploration, rock climbing and rappelling, and cross-country bicycling. I worked at a summer camp in North Carolina as a head lifeguard, waterfront manager, and Red Cross-certified swim instructor. I also had the opportunity to participate in nature hikes, lakefront swimming, and canoeing. Later in my career, as a resident of Southern California, and on vacation in Hawaii and Florida, I often swam in the ocean. In Hawaii, I once had the opportunity to take surfing lessons and catch a wave or two in the ocean near Honolulu.
I have always preferred an outdoor or semi-outdoor lifestyle and find being indoors for extended periods stifling and exhausting. To this day, I play golf on weekends and take frequent walks on grassy lawns or parks near where I live.
And even so, it never occurred to me that, for all my outdoor activities all my life, how far removed I really was from the natural world — in the simplest and subtlest of ways.
The fact is that our distant hunter/gatherer ancestors, living a life of foraging for food in the wilderness, would have taken life in close proximity with nature for granted. Their lives would have been in direct contact with the earth, and they wouldn’t have thought twice about it. They would have walked barefoot everywhere they went, slept on the earth, eaten raw, unprocessed foods, breathed clean, fresh air, and drunk fresh spring water, never once questioning their lifestyle or wondering about their paradisiacal quality of life. It would have all been entirely natural to them.
Recognizing that makes the realization of how far we have fallen — how profoundly the quality of our lives has suffered — through the process of urbanization and development — “progress,” if you will — all the more poignant.
Our remote ancestors walked barefoot on the earth, never thinking twice about it. But in our urban way of life, we look down on barefoot perambulation, considering it to be the lot of poverty-stricken homeless people, drug-addled hippies, or “primitive” tribals. And yet, the irony is that the practice and process of “earthing” or “grounding” is now being recognized as immensely valuable for human health and well-being. It is a powerful solution for reducing inflammation, lowering cortisol levels, reducing stress, and promoting energy and vitality. The Japanese practice of “forest bathing” — taking nature walks in forests barefoot or wearing specialized footwear — is rapidly gaining in popularity. The simple act of walking barefoot on the earth has recently become an expensive trend, reserved for the few who can afford it!
There is a reason for the rising popularity of “earthing.” It has been discovered that the earth’s crust carries a slight negative charge — a tiny negative voltage caused by the profusion of electrons. When we walk barefoot on the earth — for instance, on the grass in a park or on a sandy beach — our bodies absorb this negative charge from the earth and synchronize with its electromagnetic field. This results in tremendous health benefits, as described previously, as well as a powerful sense of refreshment and energy.
If one is reluctant or unable to walk barefoot outdoors, one can even avail of specialized footwear for earthing or grounding — soft-soled moccasins or sandals with conductive elements worked into their soles, allowing electrons to be absorbed through the footwear. There is an extensive range of earthing/grounding products available from a number of online resources and outlets, including earthed yoga mats and bed covers.
It’s worthwhile to reflect on the history of footwear and what it has come to represent in our culture, compared with going barefoot. Bare feet have always been a mark of poverty, backwardness, and lack of sophistication. Meanwhile, high-quality footwear has always been the mark of sophistication and elitism. This dichotomy dates back to the origins of urban development in human society — to the first appearance of footwear on the market.
Nowadays, we often see iconic imagery wherein social or class differences are highlighted and accentuated by footwear. Shoe-shine boys in cities of the early 20th Century were widespread, eking out a meager subsistence by polishing the shoes of wealthier clients. Additionally, in 20th-century totalitarian regimes, the iconic image of a well-shod leather boot stomping on the faces of the oppressed class is readily recognizable — a prevalent image in George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, for example.
By contrast, the prophets of the Bible were likely all barefoot. Moses, for example, was likely barefoot when he saw the burning bush or when he ascended Mount Sinai after years in the desert with the Israelites, having escaped enslavement in Egypt. David, a poor shepherd boy, was likely barefoot (and unarmored) when he confronted the armored giant Goliath (who was likely wearing armored boots as well). Although it isn’t explicitly mentioned in the Bible, I could well imagine that Jesus Christ walked barefoot everywhere he went, considering his very humble origins and lifestyle. Similarly, the monks, sages, and pilgrims of the East are often seen walking barefoot or wearing very humble footwear.
The irony is that leather boots and expensive rubber-soled sneakers, while symbolizing wealth, status, and supposed sophistication, simultaneously represent a profound disconnection from nature and, especially, from the revitalizing, health-giving energies of the Earth — literally, the electromagnetic energy in the Earth’s crust. On the other hand, walking barefoot, which is often taken to represent poverty, humility, or primitive backwardness, simultaneously signifies a profound, direct connection with nature and the Earth, and with their very real, revitalizing, health-bestowing energies.
To understand and appreciate how deeply lop-sided our healthcare system has become, one needs only to consider the global pandemic response in recent years. During this time, the urban, anti-human, unnatural separation from nature was taken to ridiculous extremes, as people were encouraged and coerced to lock themselves indoors and wear masks and protective gear wherever they went. If the medical establishment were truly interested in boosting your immune system, they would have been better off recommending the exact opposite of what they did — taking long nature walks outdoors barefoot and taking deep breaths of fresh oxygen whenever possible.
Somehow, the ancients, who continue to demonstrate a degree of knowledge and sophistication that far exceeds anything we moderns could possibly imagine, were able to figure out the importance of absorbing earth energies within the body. Through traditional footwear designs that worked conductive materials into the soles of shoes and sandals, for example, they proved that they had a profound understanding of many of the deep, hidden secrets of the natural universe — secrets that we appear to have lost, sadly, and are only recently beginning to rediscover and relearn.
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