When the world is too much with me, I head out to the magic forest to listen to the silence that is not silent at all. I wear my vibrams so that I can feel the earth beneath my feet. The ground is still wet from rain, and my feet slurp through mud in an exquisitely sensual way. In another life, my feet were bare walking through mud, life-force energy moving from sole to soul.

In Women Who Run With the Wolves, Clarissa Pinkola Estes describes the archetype of the old woman as

La Que Sabe,  The One Who Knows, who created women from a wrinkle on the sole of her divine foot. This is why women are knowing creatures; they are made of the skin of the soul, which feels everything.

A tribeswoman who didn’t wear shoes until she was 20 years old said she was “still not used to walking with blindfolds on.” I first read that years ago, and it stayed with me, one of those vague remembrances that lingers in your psyche. Naturally, I had to try vibrams for running, even though my husband told me I was crazy and would ruin my knees.

As much as I love running in them, it doesn’t compare to the feeling of hiking in them. The first time I walked nearly barefoot in the wilderness, I immediately recalled the image of the tribeswoman walking with blindfolds on. Yes, now I understand. That’s exactly what I have been doing all my life. I wouldn’t have known it, though, without experiencing the feeling of the earth in all its glory beneath my feet. Feeling it with the soles of my feet. The rock hard soil of summer droughts and the soft, squishy mud after the rain. Twigs and pebbles and piles of autumn leaves. They all feel different, and that brings a richness to my hikes that I never had while wearing hiking boots. Blindfolded.

Soul
Sole
Feet
Feeling
Knowing

The One Who Knows is within us.
When I walk barefoot in the wilderness, feeling the earth, I remember.

How do you remember?