connection

So my laptop caught on fire a little bit the other day and now it doesn't work. The crazy thing is, I wasn't really surprised. Every year around this time my cell phone and laptop usually freak out in some way. One year I dropped a phone down the elevator shaft at Daffy's Department Store. Last year I fell on the snow and my phone shattered on the ice and most of the big pieces were lost in snow piles. So yeah, laptop on fire...it's about that time of year.

After my initial attempts to revive it, I saw the bigger picture - the annual accidental winter hiatus from electronic communication. In the hours of the evening without access to email, wikipedia, itunes, dvd player etc. I began to think about the imbalance between the connection to the electronic media vs the physical world around me.

Some friends and me were talking about this a month or so ago. In certain communities there is still the barbershop or the diner or bar that is the hub of social interaction and community connection in a neighborhood. But for the most part, we've moved beyond that to an expanded connection with the world and a weakened connection from the space that physically surrounds us.

I can't even say that it's a stronger connection with the world. We may know more about other cultures. We have the ability to fact check or read a blog written in Ghana or buy a bag directly from a woman in Thailand via Etsy (it's a very pretty bag)...but the connection remains distant and cerebral.

~

In November I planted trees in Bella Vista with a local group. My reasons for being part of the group are a) I like trees b) I want to see more trees in my neighborhood. I didn't really think of it beyond these two points. Yet after planting a tree at 8th and Christian, I realized that I felt connected to that tree every time I walked by it. As if a part of me was grounded along with it's roots.

In the stillness offered by my burntout laptop and the snow outside, I thought about that tree. It's small tangle of roots that matched it's thin crown of branches. The branches of trees will only reach out as far as the roots go. This gives the tree balance. It is as grounded as it is spread out to the sky.

We don't really have that safeguard. We can reach out as far as we want. Spread our energy out into the world, our thoughts - keep it all out in this high speed information pool. But if we're not grounded in our physical body, our physical environment, our neighborhood...we are unbalanced. And then, what good is all that accessability? If we can't bring it down to earth - ground it in ourselves, or our community....what's the benefit?

From an energy perspective mental energy (thought power) is a higher frequency than physical energy (the power to move, to create physical change). When I think of the chakras, the energy vortexes in the body, I think of them as similar to a tree. The top chakras are about connecting our energy to the universe. The energy in these chakras is fast. The lower chakras are about connecting the physical world and our physical selves. This energy moves slower.

No matter how open our higher chakras are - how connected we are to the universe, if our lower chakras are weak and unhealthy and we don't feel connected physically, all of that high chakra energy cannot be grounded, cannot be brought into the physical world.

It's an amazing thing, the power we have to reach out and connect to vast parts of the world but it's equally amazing that we have the ability to take that energy and ground it in the physical world.

Maybe next winter I won't need a burnt out laptop to remind me to spread my roots as far as my branches. But until then, I'll try to respect the lesson. :)