“And when I fall in love,” I began, “I will build a mountain to touch the sky. Then, my lover and I will have the best of both worlds, reality firmly under our feet, while we have our heads in the clouds with all our illusions still intact. And the purple grass will grow all around, high enough to reach our eyes.”  – V.C. Andrews, Flowers In The Attic

These days I have been thinking a lot about being grounded, and what that means. I read one philosopher today who said that to be grounded in an attitude of compassion is to be able to receive and welcome the suffering which another is giving to us.

It is difficult to stay grounded this week, I feel sometimes as if I have chosen foolishly to walk out into a vast minefield, everywhere I step releases explosions of anger and suffering and argument. You can almost hear the raging din, and it is so loud that the quiet voices stand out, until they too are drowned out the by  the righteous, terrified, aggrieved and outraged.

I have been writing about the election from my own strange perspective. As a writer, I feel this is precisely when I should be thinking and writing and sharing, even as it often feels like stepping on hot coals, or rushing into burning buildings, I write something and then brace for the anger and accusations and fury.

And the kindness and the praise.

In our culture, we have lost not only the art of listening, but the gift of compassion as well.

And for me, there is nothing more grounding than compassion and empathy, the precious gift of standing in another’s shoes and seeing the world in a different way. Empathy squashes hate and judgment like a fire hose, it is the way for me to be grounded.

When I was an Overseer at a Quaker Meeting in New Jersey, I learned the Quaker Process for Listening and Centering, and also, for conflict resolution. When someone speaks, there is silence for  several long minutes, sometimes a half hour or even more, until it is clear to the people in the room that the person speaking was heard, and his or her message was absorbed.

Only then can someone reply.

I never forgot that practice, and I think of it now especially, because there is rarely any silence, space, or thought between our messages from one to another, especially in the hyper and disembodied word of the Internet.

One can barely speak without being corrected, disagreed with, challenged, attacked, agreed with, liked, tagged,  banned or shared. Few people are actually listening, few thoughts are heard or absorbed or considered in the way they sometimes are in the world beyond. Perhaps smartphones and computers will one day employ software that forces time and space between messages.

For a writer, when is it more important to write than now, when people need and want to think and understand and find their own grounding, their own safe place to stand? And a safe thing to read?

Today, someone suggested I was enabling or winking at Nazi’ism because I chose not to wear a safety pin to support people who are afraid. She refused to read me any more, as is her right.

So that is where we are as a people, and I am challenged every hour of every day to find my grounding place, my spirit, my center. I do find it, in silence, in the woods, walking the dogs, talking to Maria, writing my book,  taking photographs, talking to my friends, writing and writing, always looking for the light, wherever I can see it.

And when I read or hear something that is different, that is unfamiliar, that comes from a difference place, I set out to be grounded in an attitude of compassion and empathy, so that I can receive and welcome the message someone is trying to bring to me.

This is not submission, or even blindness. It does not suggest agreement or naivete or diffidence.

It suggests humanity to me, the act of being human, the one thing, other than death, that connects us all.

That is what grounds me. When I can listen to people, when they can listen to me. When they make me think, when I make them think. Human history is stained in cruelty and blood and lit by hope and joy. At some point in every life, surely in mine, there is a decision: which way do we go? Which path do we take?

Do I join the raging mob? Or look for solid ground to stand on? Or speak softly amid the shouting.

Those decisions are never more important than when there is trouble or danger or conflict, when the air is filled with hysteria and terror and noise,  and the clashing of swords and the cries of pain and rage. That is where spirituality matters, when we go inward and find our center and stand in our good place, in our good spirit,  look for quiet in the great din.

And I will keep going, I will never give up on finding my ground, this is my big chance, perhaps the biggest.

“And when I fall in love, I will build a mountain to touch the sky. Then, my lover and I will have the best of both worlds, reality firmly under our feet, while we have our heads in the clouds with all of our illusions still intact. And the purple grass will grow all around, high enough to reach our eyes.“