The View from the Whitehouse no1: Earthing

My Editor at The Moorlander Newspaper has given me permission to reprint the columns I've been writing for them here, so this is no. 1 from 2017.

Hello, I’m a woman with a thorn in her foot who’s just scared the willies out of the postman by lying naked on the vegetable patch. Our garden is pretty sheltered if you’re not actually coming into the driveway — and I did have enough time to ensure that my important bits were decently covered with a towel — but he probably thought I was a dead body for a moment.

This lying naked on the earth thing is called “Earthing.” I think it’s simultaneously the latest and the oldest thing on the planet. According to the website www.earthing.com, “Earthing is a fast-growing movement based upon the major discovery that connecting to the Earth’s natural energy is foundational for vibrant health.”

Major discovery eh? I think our ancestors knew a bit about that. Even my mother knows — she’s survived to 90 very healthily and firmly believes it’s all down to all the gardening she does. She’s probably right; mothers usually are.

It’s all because of electrons. Research from Texas A&M University reveals that when we take our shoes off and touch the earth with our bare flesh, free electrons, powerful antioxidants that can help reduce inflammation, transfer from the ground into our body via the soles of our feet or the palms of our hands.

You’d think, given their contact with nature, that walkers would be the most grounded of people but rubber or plastic-soled shoes prevent us from contacting the earth. Nowadays we rarely walk barefoot except on a summer holiday at the beach. We don’t even lie on the sand—it’s plastic loungers on the beach or by the pool.

I think it’s a bit too much of a challenge to spend half an hour a day lying naked on the vegetable patch so, instead, I’ve started to walk barefoot on the Moor. So much former city-dweller ‘it’ll hurt’ wimpy stuff came up ... and it was jolly cold too until this last month ... but it feels amazing and it certainly makes you focus on where you put your feet. There are tiny, tiny fledgling gorse bushes on the Moor and they hurt.

But I love the feeling of my bare feet splaying out as they were designed to do, adapting to the grass and peat beneath them. That’s not to mention the comfort of socks and shoes when I put them back on my feet afterwards. 

In the meantime, I’m leaving some intriguing footprints in the squelchier places. When just the ball of my foot and toes show up it looks like a very weird mark. Maybe some curious hikers on the way back down to Shilstone Tor are starting to wonder if they have seen the elusive prints of the mythical Beast of Dartmoor?

Mind you, she’s the one racing down the hill behind me, tongue out and leaping for joy. Dogs have all the right ideas and walking in shoes is not one of them.